President Donald Trump is facing bipartisan criticism after apparently suggesting the destruction of two American cities would be a “small price” to pay for initiating a war with Iran to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons.
“We are saving this country from a problem and the Middle East and Israel and everybody,” Trump told supporters Monday night at a rally in Nebraska. “We’re saving the world from what could be one of the worst tragedies ever.”
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“They will not have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said at one point, before adding, “They can take out a city. Let them take, let it, let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego. That’s — this is a very small price to pay, and it’s gonna be over very soon.”
Though a White House aide said Tuesday morning Trump was describing the dangers a nuclear Iran would have posed without America’s military intervention, news stories about the remarks drew a different conclusion. “Fury in California After Trump Suggests Iran ‘Take Out’ L.A. or San Diego,” The New York Times wrote. Similarly, Axios wrote, “Trump under fire for saying Iran could ‘take out’ LA, San Diego.” Similar headlines appeared in Reuters, the Los Angeles Times and CBS. Right-leaning outlets like the New York Post appeared to publish their story only after the White House defended the remarks. Another right-leaning outlet, Red State, also published a story about the remark after the White House defended it.
The remark drew condemnation from lawmakers in California, a Democratic stronghold which decades earlier was home to leading Republicans like presidents Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, and more recently to Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the former House Speaker.
Trump made the remark the day early voting started in California and a handful of other states.
“He is deranged and dangerous,” wrote California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is barred by term limits from seeking re-election but is eyeing a possible presidential run in 2028. Attorney General Xavier Becerra, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in the state, said destroying the counties where 13 million people live is “not a ‘small price to pay’ or a punchline.” California’s Republican gubernatorial candidate, Steve Hilton, did not post a response to Trump’s speech but agreed a few days ago with an X user who described California as “worth fighting for.”
“We are not expendable,” San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria wrote on X.
Republican San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond, who is running for Congress, criticized Trump’s remark. “I served to protect Americans, not write off American cities as an acceptable price of war,” Desmond wrote on X. “No American city is expendable, and no American family should ever be treated as collateral damage.”
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung wrote Tuesday morning that what Trump was “clearly saying” was “U.S. cities would have been threatened” if the U.S. had not attacked Iran to prevent its development of a nuclear weapon.
Trump has a lifelong connection to urban America. He was born in New York, the country’s largest city, and the Trump Organization currently has a golf course in Los Angeles (“California’s ultimate luxury public golf experience”) and a luxury estate nearby (“the most desirable location in California”).
Despite that, Trump has routinely claimed without evidence that American cities are unsafe, corrupt and unduly controlled by political opponents.
Trump has accused cities like Detroit and Atlanta of widespread voter fraud, despite numerous independent inquiries failing to yield any evidence of that. Last year, Trump federalized members of the National Guard for deployment in a handful of cities led by Democrats, sparking volatile protests.
Last month Trump told Republicans in Dallas that Democrats “turned our cities into scenes of death and misery, murder, poverty, and destruction and made America a laughingstock.” Later Trump accused North Carolina’s Democratic governor, who is now running for Senate, of having “turned your cities into blood-soaked killing fields, flooded your communities with migrant criminals, destroyed your schools with gangs and drugs, and filled your streets with lawlessness, filth, and squalor.”
In 2024, Trump told military leaders that “we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.” Trump vowed earlier the same year to “indemnify” police officers who he said were “going to restore law and order in our cities.”
In 2023, Trump complained about Democratic mayors and governors “swamping their cities and towns with thousands of unwanted migrants, bringing crime, disease, and colossal burdens on our schools, hospitals, and public resources.” He also vowed to send in the military “where there has been a complete breakdown of law and order, where the fundamental right of our citizens are being intolerably violated.”
