Trump points to ‘dire threat’ to future generations in expanding rationale for U.S. intervention in Iran

President Donald Trump elaborated on his rationale for attacking Iran in a new video statement on Sunday evening after the death of three American service members in Kuwait, underscoring the broader risks of the ongoing U.S. and Israeli military campaign in the Middle East.

Trump said the offensive had hit “hundreds of targets” in Iran, including Iranian Revolutionary Guard facilities, air defense systems, an Iranian naval building and had sunk nine ships.

“Combat operations continue at this time,” Trump announced in a six-minute video posted to Truth Social “They will continue until all of our objectives are achieved. We have very strong objectives.”

The president lamented the death of three U.S. service members, the first Americans to die in the conflict, explaining there “likely will be more.”

On Monday morning, U.S. Central Command announced the death of a fourth U.S. service member. The individual “was seriously wounded during Iran’s initial attacks, and eventually succumbed to their injuries,” Central Command said in a statement.

At least five other U.S. service members have been seriously wounded, and several others have sustained minor injuries, during the Iran conflict so far, Central Command has said.

The identities of the dead and wounded have not yet been made public.

Three U.S. fighter jets were mistakenly shot down by Kuwaiti air defenses during active combat in Iran, Central Command said Monday. “All six aircrew ejected safely, have been safely recovered, and are in stable condition,” Central Command said in a statement.

Trump expanded on his reasoning for the military operation that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and triggered retaliatory strikes by Iran against U.S. military bases in the region. Israeli media reported Sunday that Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terror group, fired projectiles from Lebanon into northern Israel, marking the paramilitary group’s first military action against Israel since a November 2024 ceasefire agreement. The Israeli Air Force said in a statement that the attack was intercepted and no injuries were reported.

In his speech, Trump filled in the outlines of a rationale for the offensive based on Iranian threats to future generations instead of the current one. He did not put a timeline on military operations, either, though he told the New York Times in an interview the operation would be sustained from “four to five weeks.”

Trump expanded in his rationale for the U.S. offensive based on Iranian threats to future generations instead of the current one. He did not put a timeline on the military action, either.

“America will avenge their deaths and deal the most punishing blow to the terrorists who have waged war against, basically, civilization,” Trump said.

He went on to argue that the offensive was necessary because of the Iranian desire to develop nuclear weapons and long-range nuclear missiles, although it was unclear whether he meant missiles that could ultimately reach the U.S. There is no indication that Iran has either capability right now.

“An Iranian regime armed with long range missiles and nuclear weapons would be a dire threat to every American,” Trump said. “We cannot allow a nation that raises terrorist armies to possess such weapons…We’re not gonna let that happen to us. We’re not gonna allow it happen to others.”

Trump suggested it was America’s responsibility to secure the world as a democracy with a robust military that must be used “for good.”

“We’re undertaking this massive operation not merely to ensure security for our own time and place but for our children and their children…this is the duty and the burden of a free people,” he argued.

He again called for the Iranian people, many of whom have been brutalized by their government after a recent uprising against it, to “seize this moment” and take things into their own hands.

“America is with you. I made that promise to you and I fulfilled that promise,” he said. “The rest will be up to you. But we’ll be there to help.”

It was the second public statement from Trump following the launch of military operations in Iran on Saturday morning. The president has been laying low at his private Florida club, Mar-a-Lago, taking interviews from journalists. But the video statements posted to Truth Social are his only public comments.

Hill Democrats argue conflict is unjustified

Capitol Hill Democrats — and a few Republicans — have questioned whether there is an “imminent” threat to America from Iran and are seeking to pass legislation curtailing Trump’s authority to wage war. So far, that seems like an uphill battle in the GOP-controlled Congress.

On a conference call Sunday evening, top House Democrats — including the ranking members on the Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, and Armed Services Committees — urged their members to vote for the war powers resolution when it comes to the floor, according to two House Democrats on the call.

They argued Congress needed to assert its authority, despite the merits of Khamenei’s death.

One source told MS NOW that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., pushed for unanimous Democratic support of a war powers resolution, suggesting that would send a powerful message to the president.

The timing of a vote remains fluid. At least three Democrats suggested they’d vote against the resolution, including Reps. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., and Greg Landsman, D-Ohio.

And some lawmakers were questioning the administration’s claim following the attacks that Iran possibly planned to preemptively strike the U.S., a statement senior administration officials made on a call with reporters Saturday.

Two U.S. officials told MS NOW that congressional lawmakers and staff on key committees were never told that there was an imminent threat from Iran when briefed beforehand. Iran wasn’t going to attack first, one of the U.S. officials told MS NOW

Rep. Eric Swawell, D-Calif., told MS NOW’s Alex Witt on Sunday afternoon that the president’s military operation in Iran was illegal, echoing what many lawmakers have said in citing that under the U.S. Constitution only Congress can declare war.

“This is a values argument. We don’t just lob missiles into other countries when we are not provoked, attacked and have no plan for what comes next,” he said.

“We have been shown zero evidence that anything changed in Iran from last year when the president did not come to Congress and took a strike on Iran,” Swalwell said.

Another Democratic lawmaker, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., told MS NOW’s Chris Jansing on Sunday evening that Trump’s comments about the deaths of the three U.S. service members were “just unbelievably offensive and completely unacceptable,” and echoed Swalwell’s concerns about the president’s “knee-jerk decision.”

“You’re cavalierly talking about people, U.S. service members, getting killed without any clear plan on what it is you’re trying to accomplish, much less how you plan to accomplish it,” Smith, the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, said.

In a private conference call with GOP House members on Sunday afternoon, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., urged his caucus to vote against the effort to curb Trump in Iran, telling the members: “We need to stand with the president.”

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said the U.S. objective in Iran is to “completely dismantle Iran’s short-range ballistic missiles and their launchers” and claimed that Iran was working to rebuild its nuclear program.

Trump administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will hold a classified briefing on Iran on Monday at 4 p.m.with House and Senate leadership, chairs and ranking members of relevant committees, a House Armed Services Committee member told MS NOW.

Fallout in the Middle East

Trump described to MS NOW celebrations in the streets of Iran following Khamenei’s death as “fantastic.”

The CIA learned that Khamenei would be attending a meeting with other senior Iranian officials in a leadership compound in central Tehran shortly before Israel launched the attack that killed him and other top officials, according to a person briefed on the matter.

After the CIA shared the information with Israeli officials, Israeli forces conducted the attack. The CIA had been tracking Khamenei’s movements for months and had steadily grown more confident about the locations that he would frequent, the person added. The New York Times first reported on the CIA’s role.

“We have eliminated the tyrant Khamenei and dozens of senior figures of the oppressive regime,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday. “Our forces are now striking at the heart of Tehran with increasing intensity, set to escalate further in the coming days.”

Later in the day, a senior White House official told MS NOW that Trump said that “new potential leadership in Iran has indicated they want to talk and that eventually he will talk.” The official said that for now the military operation will continue “unabated.”

An article in the Atlantic magazine Sunday said the president plans to talk with Iranian leadership. “They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, and so I will be talking with them,” Trump told the Atlantic. “They should have done it sooner.”

The State Department authorized non-emergency personnel and their families to leave Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait and raised the relatively safe Gulf countries to a Level 3 travel advisory amid missile and drone attacks between the U.S. and Israel and Iran.

In addition to U.S. bases, Iranian retaliatory strikes reportedly damaged civilian sites in Dubai and Kuwait, while regional airports suspended flights and countries.

According to U.S. Central Command, Iran has targeted more than a dozen locations, including airports in Dubai, Kuwait and Iraq, and residential neighborhoods in Israel, Bahrain and Qatar. On Sunday, IDF also said that Iran fired missiles toward the neighborhood of Beit Shemesh, killing civilians. The missile hit a synagogue, killing at least nine people, according to the Associated Press.

The Associated Press reported that authorities said at least 22 people were killed and 120 others wounded when demonstrators tried to attack the U.S. Consulate in Karachi in Pakistan. Police and officials at a hospital in Karachi said that at least 50 people were also wounded in the clashes, and some were in critical condition.

Fears are growing that the conflict could be a precursor to a prolonged war in the Middle East, a scenario that Trump frequently campaigned against as a candidate. Trump told CNBC’s Joe Kernen on Sunday that the operation in Iran is “moving along very well, very well — ahead of schedule.”

The exchange of hostilities comes after weeks of fragile negotiations between the U.S. and Iran over Iran’s nuclear operations.

Omani Foreign Minister Badr Al Busaidi, who has brokered talks between the U.S. and Iran over the last year, is continuing his diplomatic efforts and talking with officials from the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council: the U.S., Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France, according to a diplomat in the region with knowledge of the matter.

Al Busaidi said Sunday in a post on X: “I want to be very clear — the door to diplomacy remains open. Talks in Geneva made genuine progress towards an unprecedented agreement between Iran and the United States and although the hope was to avoid war, war should not mean that the hope of peace is extinguished…. The sooner talks are resumed the better it is for everyone.”

Al Busaidi declined to comment on Trump’s claim to the Atlantic that the Iranians “want to talk and I have agreed to talk.”

Esmail Baghaei, a spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry, called the joint U.S-Israeli attack an “unprovoked, unwarranted act of aggression” in an interview with MS NOW’s Ali Velshi on Sunday. He said Iran’s nuclear program has been used as a pretext for the attack.

“We have every right to defend our people because we have come under this egregious act of aggression,” Baghaei said.

Negotiators and mediators from Oman were supposed to meet in Vienna on Monday to discuss the technical aspect of a potential nuclear deal.

In June, the U.S. struck three Iranian nuclear sites. Trump said the facilities had been “completely and totally obliterated.” But experts and U.S. officials said the sites were damaged but not destroyed.

Mychael Schnell, Kevin Frey, David Rohde and Julia Jester contributed to this report.