The Trump administration’s public-facing communication during the opening days of the Iran war drew sharp criticism, with critics arguing Americans did not receive enough explanation of the rationale and objectives early on, even as U.S. military personnel suffered their first casualties, according to reporting by the Associated Press.
The AP said the administration took more than 48 hours before it made live, public communication to the American people about why it decided to go to war with Iran. It reported that Trump discussed why he launched the attack before a White House ceremony honoring military heroes on Monday, but did not take questions from reporters.
Earlier, the AP reported that Trump delivered two pretaped statements that were released on Truth Social and granted telephone interviews to more than a dozen journalists. The outlet said some of those interviews produced “fragmented” responses, leaving some observers believing they clouded as much as they clarified the administration’s message.
The AP also contrasted that approach with Israel’s communications, saying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered two statements on the day the war began and addressed reporters Monday at the site of a missile attack that killed nine people. It said the Israeli military held multiple press briefings each day.
Rahm Emanuel, a former White House chief of staff under President Barack Obama, told CNN on Monday that “The American people need a commander in chief, and he has been absent in that role,” according to the AP. The AP reported that Emanuel is contemplating a run for the presidency in 2028.
A dispute also played out between the White House and journalists over how much contact Trump had with reporters and how much of it was available to the public. The AP reported that Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, criticized the president on social media for not returning to the White House for an Oval Office-style address and instead staying at Mar-a-Lago to attend a political fundraiser.
Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, responded, according to the AP, saying: “Imagine being a reporter so consumed with Trump Derangement Syndrome that he wants President Trump to mimic the failed policies of the past. The truth is that President Trump spent the majority of his time monitoring the situation in a secure facility, in constant contact with world leaders, and made multiple addresses to the nation that garnered hundreds of millions of views. He also took dozens of calls with reporters.”
The AP said the calls included one with Zolan Kanno-Youngs of The Times, and that Trump’s mobile phone number is known to many reporters who cover him and he often takes their calls for on-the-spot interviews. It said Trump spoke, after the attack, with journalists from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, CNBC, Fox News Channel, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Axios, Politico and an Israeli television station, among others.
The AP reported that the content of those calls was often brief and that the public could not hear directly what Trump said, relying instead on what journalists chose to report from the conversations. It cited reporting from Israel’s Channel 14 in which Libby Alon wrote on X that Trump told her the operation “is going to go very fast” and that it was “doing very well” and would “make the people of Israel very happy, and the people of the world very happy.”
The AP also described a report by The Times that, in a six-minute call, Trump “offered several seemingly contradictory visions of how power might be transferred to a new government — or even whether the existing Iranian power structure would run that government or be overthrown.” It reported that in one of Trump’s conversations with ABC News’ Jonathan Karl—when Karl asked about the death of Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—Trump said: “I got him before he got me. They tried twice. Well I got him first.”
The AP reported that CNN’s Jake Tapper went on the air minutes after his conversation Monday, saying Trump told him “the big one is coming soon,” which it characterized as an apparent reference to a future attack. When asked for comment, the AP said White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly provided the view that “President Trump is the most transparent and accessible president in American history,” adding, “The American people have never had a more direct and authentic relationship with a president of the United States than they have with President Trump.”
Alongside the phone interview strategy, the AP said the administration’s briefing practices at the Pentagon drew attention. It reported that late Sunday, reporters learned about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s briefing, and that reporters from the Associated Press, Reuters, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel and Stars & Stripes were permitted into the room, but Hegseth did not call on them for questions.
Instead, the AP reported that Hegseth took questions from NewsNation and Trump-friendly outlets, including the Daily Caller, Daily Wire, One America News and the Christian Broadcasting Network. It said mainstream news outlets had left their regular Pentagon assignments last fall rather than agree to Hegseth’s rules restricting their work.
The AP reported that Hegseth denounced what he described as “foolishness” from people wanting to know details of the operation in advance, including whether Americans would commit to more than air power, and that he said the operation would continue as long as it took to achieve objections. It said he also initially ignored NBC News’ Courtney Kube when she called out a question about a four-week time limit, and later denounced her for asking what it described as a “gotcha-type” question, saying Trump had “all the latitude in the world” and that the objectives would be executed “at his command.”
The AP added that, unlike Pentagon briefings in past administrations, the reporters were given assigned seats with the Trump-friendly outlets seated in front, and that Jennifer Griffin—Hegseth’s former colleague at Fox News Channel—was seated in the last row after leaving the Pentagon with other reporters who did not accept his new rules.
In its report, the AP said the overall strategy opened Trump to criticism that the administration had not explained its war rationale and objectives early enough, while the White House defended the president’s direct communication with reporters and its monitoring of the situation.