President Trump, wearing a tuxedo, arrived at his Mar-a-Lago New Year’s Eve celebration with first lady Melania and son Barron on Wednesday night, and stopped to hold an impromptu press conference.
The president’s comments came as Iran became belligerent after the U.S. military carried out air strikes against the Kataib Hezbollah militia in response to the killing of an American civilian contractor in a rocket attack Friday on an Iraqi military base. The air strikes prompted protests and an attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad.
Trump was defiant, saying “This will not be a Benghazi.”
“The Marines came in. We had some great warriors come in and do a fantastic job,” Trump said about the protests at the U.S. embassy. “And they were there instantaneously, as soon as we heard. I used the word ‘immediately.’ They came immediately. And it’s in great shape, as you know. This will not be a Benghazi. Benghazi should never have happened. This will never, ever be a Benghazi.”
“But we have some of our greatest warriors there,” he continued. “They got in there very quickly. As soon as we saw there was a potential for problem, they got in, and there was no problem whatsoever.”
On Sept. 11, 2012, terrorists attacked U.S. diplomatic outposts in Libya, killing Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Follow-up reports on the incident found that the embassy was vulnerable to attack, and a Senate committee pointed the finger at former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s State Department.
In perhaps the most significant finding, the Senate report said the intelligence community, including the CIA, NSA and Pentagon, among others, delivered many warnings on the growing threats in Benghazi, but the State Department failed to take them seriously and increase security.
In his brief press conference, Trump was asked “do you foresee going to war with Iran?”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea for Iran. It wouldn’t last very long. Do I want to? No. I want to have peace. I like peace. And Iran should want peace more than anybody. So I don’t see that happening. No, I don’t think Iran would want that to happen. It would go very quickly,” he said.
Another reporter asked: “I know it’s a night of celebration, Mr. President, but are you spoiling for a political fight in January, with the impeachment?”
“Well, the impeachment thing is a hoax. It’s a big, fat hoax. We had, I guess, 196 to nothing, with the Republicans. We had three Democrats come over. One actually joined our party, as you know — which is, I think, a record. I don’t think that’s been done before, in terms of somebody coming in like that on a vote like that. But he joined our party — from New Jersey. He’s going to be fantastic,” Trump said of Rep. Jeff Van Drew.
“And, no, I think — I look forward to it. I mean, we’ll see. We have absolutely — we did nothing wrong. All you have to do is read the transcripts. If you read the transcripts — or you could also do something else. You could go see or speak to the President of Ukraine. And the President of Ukraine said, loudly and boldly — and I appreciate his statement — he said it many times: There was no pressure. The foreign minister of Ukraine said there was absolutely no pressure, and that’s the whole case right there. There was no pressure whatsoever,” Trump said.