At a Republican campaign rally in Grand Island, Nebraska, on Monday night, Donald Trump talked about his war with Iran and said, "let 'em take out Los Angeles, let 'em take out San Diego." Then he called it a very small price to pay.
His MAGA crowd cheered. Thirteen million Californians live in those two counties.
What Trump Actually Said
Trump was in deep-red Nebraska telling voters to turn out in November as if he were on the ballot. In a rambling speech, he claimed gas prices would come down soon and brushed off today's high prices as artificial, a temporary side effect of the war.
He called that a small price to pay for keeping the country safe. Then he said Iran could take out a city, named Los Angeles and San Diego, and repeated that this was a very small price to pay. He added that the war is essentially almost over, something he has promised many times since it began in February.
The Crowd Cheered
Multiple outlets reported the reaction in the room. ABC7 said the line drew applause from the crowd. The BBC reported cheers from sections of the audience as he named the two cities.
Think about that. A sitting Republican president named two American cities as targets for a foreign enemy, and his supporters cheered. Both are Democratic-run cities in a state Trump has lost three times.
California Fires Back
Gov. Gavin Newsom called Trump "deranged and dangerous" and pointed out that this came after Trump sent the National Guard and Marines into California. His office said the president was advocating an attack on more than 10 million U.S. residents.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said a president's job is to protect the country, not to actively threaten it. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria put it simply: his city is not collateral damage. Sen. Alex Padilla accused Trump of trying to get Americans to cheer for an attack on our own country.
Even His Own Republican Candidate Objected
This one was so bad that a Trump-endorsed Republican broke ranks. San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond, a Navy veteran running for Congress in California's 48th District, said he vehemently disagreed. "No American city is expendable," he wrote.
His Democratic opponent, San Diego Councilmember Marni von Wilpert, called the remarks an impeachable offense. She also noted that Desmond still supports Trump's war and is still backed and funded by the president who joked about it.
San Diego Has Already Paid for This War
San Diego is a military town. Rep. Scott Peters said it is home to about 115,000 active-duty service members. The San Diego-based carrier USS Abraham Lincoln is due home Thursday after 286 straight days at sea supporting the Iran war, one of the longest carrier deployments since Vietnam.
That deployment was brutal. A letter from the acting Navy secretary, obtained by CBS News, revealed eight suicide attempts across the strike group during the mission. Those families are not a small price to pay either.
Everyone Else Is Paying at the Pump
Trump calls high gas prices artificial. Americans call them real. AAA says September set a record for the month, averaging $4.33 a gallon, 50 cents above the previous September record.
The national average was still about $4.37 on Tuesday, compared with roughly $3.13 a year ago. Diesel, which moves the trucks and farm equipment Nebraska runs on, hit a record above $6.50 in September.
What the White House Says
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said the controversy was "not rooted in reality" and that Trump meant U.S. cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn't been stopped. The Los Angeles Times noted the comment was possibly made in jest.
But that is not what he said, and it is not what the crowd cheered. The Times also reported it was unclear whether Trump's words were based on any intelligence, and that Iran is not known to have the missile range to reach California. A president who wanted to reassure Americans had every chance to do it. He chose a punchline instead.
The Bottom Line
Donald Trump stood in front of a Republican crowd and treated an attack on Los Angeles and San Diego as an acceptable cost of his war. The crowd cheered, the White House spun it, and even his own endorsed candidate couldn't defend it. Californians are already paying for this war at the pump and on the flight deck. They are not a small price to pay.
Sources: Los Angeles Times (Iris Kwok, Richard Winton, Ana Ceballos), NBC News (Megan Brand), NBC 7 San Diego, ABC7 Los Angeles, KTLA, BBC, The Independent, KPBS, KOGO/CBS 8, AAA.