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Reports about Iran taking out Los Angeles and San Diego are greatly exaggerated
The Spectator ^ | 10/06/2026 | Cockburn

Posted on 10/07/2026 9:08:14 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

It’s four weeks until Election Day and Donald Trump is doing his utmost to dig Republicans out of their polling hole. In theory, anyway. Trump has been rallying through red states – Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas – to try and secure existing Senate seats. But today’s Democratic pile-on concerns a throwaway comment he made last night in Nebraska. Mid-weave, of course.

The President said: “It’s a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe. They could take out a city… ‘let ’em, let ’em take Los Angeles, let ’em take out San Diego, that’s…’ this is a very small price to pay… and it’s gonna be over with very soon, it’s essentially almost over with.”

Now anybody who has followed Donald Trump, even passingly, in the last ten years, should be able to discern what he was getting at here.

He was acknowledging the cost of the Iran war, and attempting to justify his decision to start the now seven-month-long conflict.

The clips now going viral on X paraphrase Trump differently. “Trump on Iran: Let ’em take out Los Angeles and San Diego, it’s a small price to pay,” reads the caption of a tweet from “Headquarters,” an account that was previously “@KamalaHQ,” run by the Harris campaign’s rapid response team. The ensuing reaction from the media, and Trump’s opponents, is just as disingenuous. “Trump suggests letting Iran ‘take out’ Los Angeles and San Diego at campaign rally,” reads the Los Angeles Times headline. “After sending the National Guard and Marines to occupy California, Donald Trump is now saying our foreign enemies should ‘take out’ Los Angeles and San Diego,” tweeted Governor Gavin Newsom last night. “He is deranged and dangerous.”

Team Trump has been quick to push back on the pearl-clutching. “The media freakout over President Trump’s comments is not rooted in reality,” said White House comms director Steven Cheung. “He was clearly stating US cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn’t been stopped.”

Yet Newsom is never one to let a good crisis go to waste. “I am directing the State Threat Assessment Center to actively monitor the situation in the event that foreign actors interpret the President’s remarks as an invitation to target California,” he wrote this morning, in a post that suggested Trump’s naming of LA and San Diego is “treasonous.”

Cheung’s case admittedly isn’t helped by the fact that a number of Nebraskan rally attendees cheered the phrase “take out Los Angeles and San Diego.” But the fact is that Trump fans are better at interpreting the President’s words than his political opponents.

“This isn’t a direct quote from Trump, and I very much don’t think it’s a correct paraphrase,” wrote CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale, in response to the Headquarters tweet. “Trump has repeatedly argued that the consequences of the war, like higher gas prices, are a small price to pay compared to what an unchecked Iran could allegedly do. Last night, in especially rambling and incomplete fashion, he 1) claimed high prices are temporary and suggested they’re ‘artificial’; 2) contrasted that to the damage of Iran supposedly taking out a city; 3) and then, in especially confusing style, repeated his old point that ‘this,’ as in the consequences of the war, is a small price to pay to avoid something like a a city being wiped out.”

“It’s Trump’s fault you kinda have to be steeped in TrumpRallySpeak to know what he was saying last night,” Dale concluded.

Still, the author can’t help but feel for Steve Hilton in all this. Just imagine: you’re hitting the trail, doing your utmost to win the California governorship, trying to keep the focus on the failures of Newsom’s tenure and the ineptitude of your opponent Xavier Becerra. You’re 25 points behind in the Berkeley-IGS poll. Then you check your phone and see that your next few days are going to be dominated by something the President said in a cornfield 1,000 miles away. Couldn’t he have named any other cities?


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Iran; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: iran; losangeles; missiles; sandiego

1 posted on 10/07/2026 9:08:14 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

This story is being shared all across the left side of Facebook.


2 posted on 10/07/2026 9:11:53 PM PDT by Fiji Hill
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To: Fiji Hill

I prefer we begin bombing in 5 minutes.


3 posted on 10/07/2026 9:13:03 PM PDT by DIRTYSECRET
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To: SeekAndFind

So Iran can’t stand California, either?


4 posted on 10/07/2026 9:13:27 PM PDT by ConservativeMind (Trump: Befuddling Democrats, Republicans, and the Media for the benefit of the US and all mankind.)
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To: SeekAndFind

I’m all for Mexico taking LA and all of SOCAL.

When you cease to be a good influence...
...it’s time to become a GOOD RIDDANCE!


5 posted on 10/07/2026 9:14:40 PM PDT by lightman (Beat the Philly fraud machine the Amish did onest, ja? Nein, zweimal they did already!)
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To: SeekAndFind

Not long ago, Shelly Headen, a Democrat candidate for a House of Representatives in North Carolina called on terrorists to attack Alabama and Louisiana because that’s where “stupid people” live.


6 posted on 10/07/2026 9:15:02 PM PDT by Fiji Hill
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To: SeekAndFind

"However, the radar is also picking up a bunch of inbound Iranian ICBMs, so I wouldn't sweat the weather..."

-PJ

7 posted on 10/07/2026 9:17:46 PM PDT by Political Junkie Too ( * LAAP = Left-wing Activist Agitprop Press (formerly known as the MSM))
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To: SeekAndFind

“...And now it’s tiiiiiiiiiiiime for the Left. Wing. Scandal of The Week! Extra! Extra!...”

(h/t to Vince Coglianese!)


8 posted on 10/07/2026 9:17:53 PM PDT by rlmorel (Gas prices are Temporary. Communism is Forever. Vote Republican.)
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To: SeekAndFind

How many of those 1000s of containers coming into the LA port are checked? Or any port?


9 posted on 10/07/2026 9:19:45 PM PDT by kaktuskid (And )
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To: SeekAndFind

So, Iran is a threat? I dont think they know what corner Trump put them in.


10 posted on 10/07/2026 9:25:18 PM PDT by Raycpa
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To: SeekAndFind

Anyone who believes the polls is extremely gullible.


11 posted on 10/07/2026 9:34:53 PM PDT by reasonisfaith (What are the personal implications if the Resurrection of Christ is a true event in history?)
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To: SeekAndFind
If Iran can hit Diego Garcia, down in their tunnels Iran can just add rocket motors until they have the range to hit the West Coast. Look what Musk did to Space X with three Raptor Engines:


12 posted on 10/07/2026 10:09:06 PM PDT by jonrick46 (The DemonKKKrat Marxists ride Unicorns on their fantasy farms.)
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To: DIRTYSECRET

a very stupid unwinnable DumBass war


13 posted on 10/07/2026 10:14:39 PM PDT by A strike (DroolBritannia. No More Dots)
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To: SeekAndFind

Oh, it’s WAY WAY worse than tbis - I’m told Trump called the Iranian Regime ‘fine people’!!!!


14 posted on 10/08/2026 2:39:48 AM PDT by Merrick (It's a car - that runs on water, man.)
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To: A strike
All war is stupid to some extent, but the stupidity in this case is firmly in the camp of the delusional theocrats in the IRGC. They hate us, and have been exporting terrorism regionally and internationally for many decades now. Should we have just let them have nuclear weapons?

‘Unwinnable’ wars are usually those in which the majority of the populace of the country one is at war with support the regime of that country. That is not even close to being true in Iran. Also, if war with Iran is unwinnable how did the Mullah's take over Iran during the revolution in 1979?

15 posted on 10/08/2026 4:21:33 AM PDT by neverevergiveup
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To: neverevergiveup

Stop making sense!!!


16 posted on 10/08/2026 4:34:10 AM PDT by Merrick (It's a car - that runs on water, man.)
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