English transcript

The President said yesterday for the first time that he had to strike Iran because he

believes that Iran was going to strike U.S. targets within seven days.

And then he then bumped that down later to three days.

Where is he getting that?

Well, that's not the first time the President has said that he chose to launch Operation

Epic Fury because he felt as though Iran was going to strike the United States and our

assets in the region first.

Again, I addressed this in the last briefing.

This was a feeling the President had based on facts, facts provided to him by his top

negotiators who had been engaged with the Iranian regime in a good faith effort.

The Iranian regime was lying, deceiving the United States of America, clearly trying

to continue their nuclear program to create a bomb that would, of course, threaten the

United States of America.

Again, their ballistic missile arsenal, they were rapidly and aggressively increasing that

by the month to a place where they would essentially build immunity for themselves, where a future

President or President Trump would not be able to launch this incredibly successful operation.

And so the President, again, as I have reiterated and he has said, was not going to sit back

and allow the Iranian regime to threaten or to attack the United States of America any longer.