US President Donald Trump speaks with the media as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth looks on aboard Air Force One during a flight from Dover, Delaware, to Miami, Florida, on March 7, 2026. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP via Getty Images) Donald Trump speaks with the media as Pete Hegseth looks on aboard Air Force One during a flight from Dover, Del., to Miami, Fla,. on March 7, 2026. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images President Donald Trump claimed that Iran, not the U.S., struck an elementary school in the southern Iranian town of Minab, the attack with the highest civilian death toll in Trump’s second Iran war.
Three current and former defense officials, however, pushed back on his claims. Even Trump’s own Pentagon chief, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, refused to back him up. U.S. Central Command appeared to suggest that Trump’s comments were “inappropriate.”
“This is another instance of Trump lying and just talking out of his ass,” said a U.S. government official who reviewed satellite images of the Shajarah Tayyebeh school. “This clearly was not a failed rocket from the IRGC base.”
The U.S. official was referring to an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps navy base that was adjacent to the school. The claim that the IRGC struck the school spread as part of a misinformation campaign about the attack peddled by social media accounts that support restoring Iran’s monarchy.
The U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely, said it was clear that Iran did not strike the school. Trump, however, endorsed the dubious claim when taking questions from the press aboard Air Force One on Saturday.
I mean it makes all of this even more confusing, but that could also just be the point.
From the begining Trump and the CIA have been pushing this (very obvious bullshit) argument about this being necessary because Khamenei was murdering protestors, and the U.S. needing to either:
Give Iranians the opportunity to liberate themselves (even though he has also been murdering American civilians and cracking down on free speech)
Simultaneously arguing they joined to preemptively protect the U.S. from from future attacks bc they knew they couldn’t stop Israel from attacking? But this bullshit argument also makes no sense given that
Israel allegedly killed Khamenei very early on in the attacks, but the C.I.A. provided Israel with the intelligence about where Khamenei was when he was assassinated.
But also Khamenei was apparently just chilling in his home?? Why would Israel need the CIA to help them find Khamenei when he was just sitting in his house? Also, how did the CIA provide all of this strategic information targeting Iranian leadership, but not realize Khamenei’s son would step in to take his place? (Was that the plan all along?)
Vs. the argument of Hegseth et al.:
This is not about diplomacy we’re trying to bring about the apocalypse bc it’s in the Bible. (Conservative evangelicals in the U.S. and Zionists in Israel might be happy enough with that BS excuse, but exactly how TF does Saudi Arabia encouraging attacks on Iran fit with the narrative that this is a holy war?) Push from Saudis, Israel helped move Trump to attack Iran
Vs. the possibility it’s all kayfabe/distraction.
The real goal is just to further destabilize the U.S. and possibly instigate retaliatory attacks or help stage believable false flags. Given Trump and the CIA being so blasé about the next steps and the possibility of the U.S. being attacked last week, that kinda still seems the most plausible to me.
Not to mention the whole Fatwa thing, Trump’s urgent need to cancel upcoming elections (and Hello! fucking shadowy militarized task forces being sent to patrol U.S. cities and help enforce crackdowns on civil liberty in the name of safety??) all seem to practically mirror Putin’s rise to power in the early aughts.
David Satter claims Russian apartment bombings led to Putin’s rise
This is exactly what is going on. They’re trying to hold onto power forever and never have to let pesky democracy get in the way again.