President Trump performed a dramatic retelling of the US drone strike on Qassem Soleimani for top GOP donors at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser Friday night.
In audio from the $10 million event, Trump explained that Soleimani was “saying bad things” about the United States in the run-up to his targeted killing.
“How much of this s–t do we have to listen to?” Trump asked, CNN reported Saturday.
Trump called the Iranian general, who was the head of its elite Quds Force, a “noted terrorist” who “was supposed to be in his country” – not in Iraq, where he was slain.
The president gave his guests a version of the minute-by-minute narration he heard from military officials in real-time during the Jan. 3 operation.
“They’re together sir,” Trump recounted. “Sir, they have two minutes and 11 seconds. No emotion. ‘2 minutes and 11 seconds to live, sir. They’re in the car, they’re in an armored vehicle. Sir, they have approximately one minute to live, sir. 30 seconds. 10, 9, 8 …’ ”
“Then all of a sudden, boom,” he said. “‘They’re gone, sir. Cutting off.’ ”
“I said, where is this guy? That was the last I heard from him.”
But Trump did not give details of the “imminent threat” that administration officials said triggered his decision to kill Soleimani.