White House evades responsibility for strike on Iranian girls’ school
Karoline Leavitt batted down a question from a reporter about the US involvement in a strike on an Iranian girls’ elementary school, which killed 175 people.
The press secretary did not accept US responsibility for the attack, and noted that the Pentagon is investigating the strike (as Pete Hegseth said earlier).
“I would just tell you very strongly, the United States of America does not target civilians, unlike the rogue Iranian regime,” Leavitt said. “I would caution you from pointing the finger at the United States of America when it comes to targeting civilians, because that’s not something that these armed forces do.”
Key events
Green groups remain unimpressed with pledge to mitigate datacenter energy costs: ‘This is a pinky promise, nothing more’
Dharna Noor
As Donald Trump hosts big tech executives in Washington, where they are expected to sign pledges to protect Americans against higher electricity bills tied to datacenter power demand, green groups are largely unimpressed with the plan to mitigate utility price surges.
“This pledge is like asking the fox to guard the hen house. Datacenter developers have proven time and again that they’re interested in protecting their bottom line only,” said Sierra Club principal adviser Jeremy Fisher. “This is a pinky promise, nothing more.”
Fisher said the tech giants present at the event, including Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and others, “must now take real actions and show up in state regulatory venues and hold datacenters accountable for every penny of their energy infrastructure costs, making sure datacenters are building lower cost, lower risk clean energy and minimizing impacts to local residents.
“The Sierra Club has fought for years for real, meaningful commitments by big tech, and we will not stop at a flimsy pledge to finally pay their fair share,” he added.
Trevor Higgins, senior vice-president of energy and environment at the liberal thinktank Center for American Progress, said the pledges are “vague and largely meaningless”.
“Unless all datacenters are required to pay their fair share for the costs for their power, companies can opt out or hide the true impacts of their datacenter development,” he said.
‘We’re doing very well on the war front,’ says Donald Trump
As Donald Trump kicked things off for his roundtable event with tech companies today, he noted that those in the room “probably want to speak about war” rather than energy costs linked to the rapid build-out of datacenters across the country.
“We’re doing very well on the war front,” the president added. “If we didn’t do it first, they [Iran] would have done it to Israel … If we didn’t hit within two weeks, they would have had a nuclear weapon.”
He added that the ongoing military action against Iran is depleting the regime’s leadership. “Everybody that seems to want to be a leader, they end up dead,” the president said.
We’re due to hear from Donald Trump soon, when he welcomes big tech companies to Washington.
He’ll discuss the “ratepayer protection pledge” – the voluntary agreement which would commit tech giants to paying for or building the electricity needed to operate datacenters across the country.
The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, is also at the roundtable event. We’ll bring you the latest lines as things get going.
Joseph Gedeon
A crowdfunding campaign has been launched for the family of Sgt Declan J Coady – the 20-year-old Iowa soldier killed in an Iranian drone strike in Kuwait on 1 March after the launch of the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Coady, a Drake University student and army reserve IT specialist who was posthumously promoted from specialist, was one of six US service members killed in the attack. Four of them had been from Iowa’s 103rd sustainment command.
The new GoFundMe campaign has so far raised over $55k and describes Coady as “more than a soldier – he was a son, a family member, a friend, and a light in the lives of those who knew him”.
Spain ‘has agreed to cooperate’ with US after Trump ire, says White House
Anna Betts
During the White House press briefing on Wednesday, Karoline Leavitt said that Spain had agreed to cooperate with US operations in the Middle East.
“With respect to Spain, I think they heard the president’s message yesterday loud and clear,” the White House press secretary said. “And it’s my understanding over the past several hours, they’ve agreed to cooperate with the US military. And so I know that the US military is coordinating with their counterparts in Spain.”
But, shortly after, Spain’s foreign minister, Jose Manuel Albares, said that the Spanish government’s position “on the war in the Middle East the bombings in Iran, and the use of our bases has not changed one iota”.
A government spokesperson added: “It is not true. We categorically deny any change it. Spain’s position has not changed.”
White House doesn’t rule out possibility of US boots on the ground in Iran
During today’s press briefing, Karoline Leavitt did not rule out the possibility of US troops on the ground in Iran.
“They’re not part of the plan for this operation at this time,” Leavitt said. “But I certainly will never take away military options on behalf of the president of the United States … and he wisely does not do the same for himself.”
She noted that “many leaders in the past” have taken options off the table “without having a full understanding of how things could develop”.
The question mark around American troops on the ground is in stark contrast to Donald Trump’s campaign, which focused on not embroiling the US in foreign conflicts.
Once again, the White House doubled down on its stance that the president had a “feeling” Iran posed an “imminent and direct threat” to the US, as its basis to launch initial strikes. However, Karoline Leavitt did not provide any detail about those threats at the podium today.
In the Oval Office earlier this week, Donald Trump insisted that it was his opinion that Iran was “going to attack first” after stalled negotiations with the regime.
“These decisions are not made in a vacuum, they are made by the president’s feeling that Iran was going to strike the United States and our assets in the region,” Leavitt told reporters today.
White House pushes back against accusations that evacuation plans for Americans were too made late
A number of reporters today have asked the press secretary whether the administration should have done more, in advance of the weekend strikes, to evacuate more Americans in the Middle East.
The press secretary insisted that there were plans in place, and listed several travel advisories shared by state department in recent weeks. On Monday, Mora Namdar, the US assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, issued the advisory on Monday, urging Americans to “DEPART NOW” from more than a dozen countries, citing “serious safety risks”. However, major airlines have canceled flights to and from the region since Saturday, and several airports paused flights and scaled back operations, leaving thousands stranded.
“We gave notices to leave immediately the countries where these Americans were,” Leavitt said today, despite reports of Americans calling the state department hotline as recently as Tuesday evening and being told they couldn’t receive help to evacuate.
Leavitt said that 17,500 Americans have safely returned home from the Middle East, with more than 8,500 American citizens returning home on Tuesday. She also repeated that US citizens in the Middle East looking to return home should register with the state department to be provided travel options.
You can read more about those left stranded by my colleague, Anna Betts:
Anna Betts
At the press briefing on Wednesday, Karoline Leavitt said that Donald Trump plans to attend the ‘dignified transfer’ of the bodies of the six US service members who have been killed since the war with Iran began.
“We grieve for these American patriots and their families as we continue the righteous mission for which they gave their lives, President Trump intends to attend the dignified transfer of these American heroes to stand in grief alongside their families” she said. “I understand the Department of War is working on scheduling this transfer, and we will provide updates at the appropriate time.”
White House evades responsibility for strike on Iranian girls’ school
Karoline Leavitt batted down a question from a reporter about the US involvement in a strike on an Iranian girls’ elementary school, which killed 175 people.
The press secretary did not accept US responsibility for the attack, and noted that the Pentagon is investigating the strike (as Pete Hegseth said earlier).
“I would just tell you very strongly, the United States of America does not target civilians, unlike the rogue Iranian regime,” Leavitt said. “I would caution you from pointing the finger at the United States of America when it comes to targeting civilians, because that’s not something that these armed forces do.”
Leavitt says Trump had ‘good feeling’ Iran was going to strike US
Leavitt said that while a reported phone call between Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump about Ayotollah Ali Khamenei’s whereabouts was “important”, she doubled down on the president’s claim that he “had a good feeling that the Iranian regime was going to strike the United States assets and our personnel in the region”.
The press secretary added that while Khamenei’s location “had an impact on the timeline of the operation” it was “not quite the president’s decision in its entirety”.
Leavitt accused members of the media of “misreporting and intellectual dishonesty” when explaining why Donald Trump decided initiate Operation Epic Fury.
The administration has put out conflicting accounts about the lead-up to the initial attacks on Saturday. While the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said that an imminent strike from Israel precipitated pre-emptive action from the US. However, the president said on Tuesday that, “if anything”, he forced Israel’s hand to strike, and rejected any claims that he was pressured by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.