Trump Brags About Iran Evacuations, as Proof of His Failures Piles Up

Donald Trump is insisting that the United States is secretly evacuating citizens stranded in the Middle East—but multiple reports indicate they have been left on their own.

In a post on Truth Social Friday, Trump lauded the efforts of the State Department in getting Americans out of range of the illegal war he started. “We are moving thousands of people out of various Countries throughout the Middle East,” he wrote. “It is being done quietly, but seamlessly.”

Trump’s post comes as veteran diplomats blame the State Department for conducting evacuations out of the region that are too slow and started too late, The New York Times reported Thursday.

Despite the weeks of planning ahead for the U.S. and Israel’s assault on Iran, the State Department did not issue travel advisories or restrictions for Americans. Given the fact that Trump had spent weeks loudly amassing military assets in the Middle East, a warning to Americans would not have ruined the surprise attack, diplomats told the Times.

The State Department announced Wednesday that the first chartered flights to evacuate Americans had departed for the Middle East—days after Trump launched an initial barrage of strikes against Iran. They didn’t say how many flights would be operating.

The State Department initially instructed citizens abroad to flee on their own, telling them to seek commercial flights amid a massive wave of flight cancellations.

Yael Lempert, who served as the Biden administration’s ambassador to Jordan, told the Times that Iran’s strikes against neighboring countries such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates were an all too predictable outcome, and that airspace in the region had been previously closed during similar strikes.

“It’s stunning there were no orders for authorized departure for nonessential U.S. government employees and family members in almost all the affected diplomatic missions in the region—nor public recommendations to American citizens to depart—until days into the war,” Lempert said.

Trump practically admitted Tuesday he had no plan for evacuations—he didn’t even have a plan for the war itself.

Meanwhile, the State Department has pushed back on claims that it left Americans high and dry, insisting that it assisted more than 10,000 Americans abroad, of the 20,000 who had returned to the United States since the conflict began. But some critics have pointed out that assisting Americans could simply mean providing security guidance.