The New York Times dropped a bombshell report on Tuesday detailing President Donald Trump’s shifting attitude on the Israel-Iran conflict, noting that Fox News coverage helped to sway him.

The report explains Trump’s “rapid shift in posture” from wanting to negotiate with the Iranians a new nuclear deal to now “seriously considering sending American aircraft in to help refuel Israeli combat jets and to try to take out Iran’s deep-underground nuclear site at Fordo with 30,000-pound bombs.”
Times’s Jonathan Swan, Maggie Haberman, Mark Mazzetti, and Ronen Bergman all contributed to the report that lays out the timeline of Trump’s thinking for the last several weeks.

As the report wraps up, the Times explains how Trump went from being hesitant about the Israeli bombings of Iranian nuclear facilities late last week to wanting to share in the credit.

“When he woke on Friday morning, his favorite TV channel, Fox News, was broadcasting wall-to-wall imagery of what it was portraying as Israel’s military genius. And Mr. Trump could not resist claiming some credit for himself,” read the report, adding:

In phone calls with reporters, Mr. Trump began hinting that he had played a bigger behind-the-scenes role in the war than people realized. Privately, he told some confidants that he was now leaning toward a more serious escalation: going along with Israel’s earlier request that the United States deliver powerful bunker-busting bombs to destroy Iran’s nuclear facility at Fordo.

As recently as Monday, Mr. Trump held out the possibility that Mr. Witkoff or even Mr. Vance could meet with Iranian officials to seek a negotiated deal. But as Mr. Trump abruptly left the Group of 7 summit in Canada to rush back to Washington, there was little indication that the conflict would be brought to a quick end through diplomacy.

Read the full report here.

The post Watching Fox News Convinced Trump to Embrace Escalation Between Israel and Iran, Per Shocking NYT Report first appeared on Mediaite.

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