Ahead of November midterm elections, Trump held a packed rally in Grand Island, Nebraska, on Monday night. He was discussing the war in Iran and high gas prices when he made the comment.
“They can take out a city,” he said. “Let them take, let them take out Los Angeles; let them take out San Diego.” The audience cheered in response.
Film production graduate student Jay Pendarvis Jr. was in disbelief when he was shown the clip on Instagram.
“I don’t know everything that comes out of his mouth. You just can’t take anything serious anymore. As much as I used to think these things were terrible, now I just laugh at him because he’s just such a clown,” Pendarvis said.
Trump is facing his lowest-ever approval ratings, sitting at around 32%. Across the month of October, he is embarking on a “red-state blitz, ” campaigning in the red states that helped secure his victory two years ago: Texas, Alabama, Oklahoma, Ohio, and Nebraska.
Trump is firing up Republicans in Nebraska, a key state in Senate and gubernatorial races. Current Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts is running for reelection against Independent Dan Osborn. Osborn, backed by both Democrat and independent parties, poses a tight race.
Intelligence and cyber operations junior Aidan Snodgrass thought Trump’s take contradicts his previous political messages.
“It’s really interesting how he’s categorizing L.A. and San Diego as a small price to pay, while in other situations he attributes the small loss of American life and Iran or other global conflicts as any life is too many lives to lose,” Snodgrass said.
Iran has no known nuclear weapons and no known missiles capable of reaching either Los Angeles or San Diego, Business Insider reported. Tehran, Iran’s capital, is roughly 7,500 miles from California, far beyond the approximately 1,200-mile range of Iran’s longest-range ballistic missiles, according to the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Trump has been infamous for controversial remarks throughout his presidency, but it’s not without consequence. Tom Hollihan, a professor of communication at USC Annenberg who specializes in political communication, points to Trump’s decreasing polling numbers.
“His decline of support among Democrats and Independents is almost beyond comparison to any president we’ve known before, and even his most loyal Republicans are beginning to question whether or not they want to stand with him,” Hollihan said.
Considering the low approval ratings, the Trump administration only campaigning in “safe” deep red states signifies a defense strategy to hold these states down before midterms.
The comment targeting L.A. and San Diego sparked outrage in California. California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office responded on X, “Let’s be clear: The President is advocating for an attack on 10+ million U.S. residents in two of America’s largest cities. This is not normal. None of this is.”
White House communications director Steven Cheung responded to the backlash on X, claiming the response is just hysterics.
“The media freakout over President Trump’s comments is not rooted in reality. He was clearly stating U.S. cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn’t been stopped. America is safer because of the President. Iran has no nuclear, no navy, no air force, and no money.”