President Trump warned that “everyone” in Tehran should “immediately evacuate” in an alarming Monday night Truth Social post as it was revealed he would be leaving the G7 summit a day early due to the Iran-Israel conflict.
“Iran should have signed the ‘deal’ I told them to sign. What a shame, and waste of human life. Simply stated, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. I said it over and over again! Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!” Trump posted on social media.
About an hour later, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt tweeted that the president would be departing the G7 in Canada early “because of what’s going on in the Middle East.”
“I have to be back early for obvious reasons,” Trump told reporters ahead of his departure from the summit.
“We had a, just a really great relationship with everybody and it’s really nice. I wish I could stay for tomorrow, but they understand. This is big stuff.”
The commander in chief, according to an NBC News report and Fox News host Lawrence Jones III, asked the National Security Council to be ready in the Situation Room upon his return to Washington, DC.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about Trump’s reported NSC request.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio will be returning with Trump to DC, NBC News reported, citing a State Department spokesperson.
The president’s evacuation warning came after Israeli officials called for those in Tehran to evacuate earlier Monday ahead of its continued military campaign against Iran, which has included slews of missile exchanges between the conflicting countries.
AP
The evacuation area includes an estimated 330,000 people in central Tehran, including Iran’s state television headquarters, police headquarters and three key hospitals including one owned by the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
Iranian authorities dismissed Israel’s call for evacuation as nothing more than “psychological warfare.”
Still, thousands have been pushed to flee, the chaos only exacerbated by Tehran’s lack of publicly accessible bomb shelters. A majority of the 9.5 million people in Iran’s capital have been left in limbo as mass evacuations clogged traffic while others lack the means to leave at all.
Those who can’t flee have resorted to waiting out the strikes in their basements or subway stations.
Monday marked the fourth day of military escalation after Israel originally launched multiple missiles aimed at Iran’s nuclear facilities and military leadership last Friday. Since then, both countries have swapped missiles back-and-forth, including some that struck an Iranian television news network while live on air.
As the G7 summit began in Canada on Sunday, world leaders assured that the expanding conflict would be a high priority for discussion. Trump, though, skirted a question on the potential for US military involvement.
“I don’t want to talk about that,” he told reporters.
Earlier that same day, Trump told ABC News that it is “possible” the US could get involved in the conflict.
“We’re not involved in it. It’s possible we could get involved. But we are not at this moment involved,” Trump told the outlet.
The summit representatives intended to issue a signed G7 statement regarding Iran and Israel urging restraint on both sides, but Trump refused to pen the letter.