White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt put a quick stop to The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg, who tried to claim that the Trump administration had not properly outlined the imminent threat posed by the Iranian regime.

Leavitt rejected “the premise of the question” out of hand, then laid out a list of Trump administration officials who had, in fact, made the case for Iran posing an imminent and ongoing threat to the United States and to American interests.

WATCH:

.@PressSec: “@POTUS does not make these decisions in a vacuum. This decision to launch this operation was based on a cumulative effect of various direct threats that Iran posed to the United States of America.” pic.twitter.com/hJtO1Igz5S

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) March 4, 2026

“At the top of the briefing, you listed a long list of grievances against the Iranian government going back to the takeover of the embassy in ’79,” Feinberg began, listing a couple of examples. “But no one in this administration has laid out the imminent threat that was supposed to be taken care of by this … Why is it that you can’t say what the imminent threat against the U.S. was that required us to launch this?”

“I completely reject the premise of your question,” Leavitt replied. “You have had the President of the United States, the Secretary of War, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Vice President of the United States, the Secretary of State, and now I am out here today to explain to you exactly what led the president to make the decision to launch Operation Epic Fury.”

But Leavitt didn’t stop there. Instead, she went on to lay out, in more detail, some of the actions taken by the Iranian regime that had spurred President Trump to action, from their previous and ongoing support of terror proxies to their persistent attempts to create nuclear weapons that could eventually threaten the American people even at home.

“President Trump does not make these decisions in a vacuum. This decision to launch this operation was based on a cumulative effect of various direct threats that Iran posed to the United States of America, and the president’s feeling based on the fact that Iran does pose an imminent and direct threat to the United States of America,” she continued.

The press secretary took her explanation a step further, noting that Trump had only resorted to military action when it was abundantly clear that negotiations were going nowhere — and once he’d determined that Iran was likely to take action against the United States, he chose to strike first and prevent it from happening.

“The president found that through these extensive, exhaustive, failed negotiations with Iran that they were hell-bent on death and destruction,” she said. “So again, the president was not going to be just another president on a very long list who sat back, and stood by, and passed the buck of this direct threat to the next administration … Again, 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, and he was not going to sit back and watch that happen. The determination was made that the president was going to strike first alongside Israel, and that has obviously been proven to be the right decision and an effective one at that.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is under fire for ad campaigns that have drawn criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike.

The criticisms began with a $200 million ad campaign in which Noem urges illegal immigrants in the United States to self-deport. Lawmakers have raised questions about the price and efficacy of the campaign, as well as the fact that the ads were produced by the husband of recently-departed DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin.

But the Department of Homeland Security tells The Daily Wire that the ads in question are part of a broader campaign, which also includes ads airing overseas warning illegal aliens not to attempt to cross the border.

“We now have the most secure border in American history in large part because the DHS international ad campaign warning illegal aliens to stay out was a MASSIVE success. This hyper-targeted ad campaign ran in eight countries and reached over 46 million people,” DHS Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said.

“The results show the world heard our message that America’s borders are CLOSED. Daily encounters at the border are down 95%. Under the Biden administration the average daily apprehensions at the southern border were more 5,100. Now under President Trump and Secretary Noem, the average daily apprehensions at the southern border are about 250,” she added.

During a House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin (MD) laid into Noem over the domestic ads, saying “You’re treating the billions of dollars our colleague showered on your department like a personal slush fund, you budget in an astonishing $220 million dollars for media consulting contracts so you can star in self promoting photo shoots in lavish ad campaigns.”

Bis also responded to Raskin’s comments, saying that the Maryland Democrat “and his fellow sanctuary politicians are mad because our ad campaign SECURED the border.”

Noem pushed back in the same hearing when Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) claimed DHS had awarded a “no-bid” contract to produce the ads, saying that “other companies competed for this, because there [were] two different vendors that were chosen.”

Republican Senator John Kennedy (LA) also questioned Noem about the ads, saying it was “hard for me to believe” that President Donald Trump would be ok with the ad campaign. Kennedy, who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee, also suggested that DHS had not held a proper bidding process before awarding the contract.

DHS is currently facing a funding lapse as Democrats in Congress remain at odds with the White House over federal immigration enforcement tactics. However, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” signed last year has kept ICE largely funded, as TSA, FEMA, and the Coast Guard are bearing the brunt of the shutdown.