Trump finally clarifies his ‘take out’ LA comment after three days of uproar

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President Donald Trump insisted Thursday that he never invited Iran to bomb Los Angeles and San Diego , three days after telling a rally crowd in Nebraska to "let them take out" both cities while defending the war that has pushed gasoline past $4.40 a gallon, and after his own White House had spent the intervening 72 hours maintaining there was nothing to clarify.

"The Fake and Artificial News is out there trying to say that I'm inviting the enemy to bomb San Diego and Los Angeles when, in actuality, what I was talking about was that a temporary increase in the price of Gasoline is a small price to pay for Iran not having a Nuclear Weapon and, if you want to see a big price, can you imagine what it would be like if they bombed San Diego and/or Los Angeles?" Trump wrote on Truth Social.

"All I was doing was making a comparison between paying a little more, for a short time, for Gasoline, versus the bombing of our Major Cities.”

The president then claimed that “everybody knew” what he’d meant and accused news outlets of continuing “to go out and say that I am asking the enemy to bomb two Cities that I love” while calling journalists who covered the incendiary comments “degenerates.”

Trump’s post was a tardy attempt to walk back what was widely interpreted at the time as a verbal swipe at anti-war Democrats and Republicans who he has falsely accused of being in favor of Tehran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Speaking in Grand Island, Nebraska in support of GOP Senator Pete Ricketts, Trump said higher gas prices that have roiled his party’s approval ratings were worth bearing because Iran “could take out a city.”

“Let them take out Los Angeles; let them take out San Diego.” he said, as the partisan crowd booed at the mention of both California cities.

He repeated similar comments during a Wednesday rally in support of Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton.

"You want to see trauma? You want to see problems? And I said it the other day. Let them hit a missile into San Diego or Los Angeles. You want to see a horror show? Let them hit San Diego. Let them hit Los Angeles if you want to see some bad things happen,” Trump said.

Only then did he add the caveat that Thursday's post treats as having been obvious all along: "We're not gonna let that happen. We protect our cities; we protect our country."

In the days following the unhinged remarks ,the president's own staff had tried to close the matter without him even as he ducked reporter questions on the matter.

White House communications director Steven Cheung dismissed the reaction as a "media freakout" that was "not rooted in reality," writing on X that Trump "was clearly stating U.S. cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn't been stopped."

That staff-led cleanup effort did little to quiet California's leaders.