From the moment he announced a massive military attack against Iran by posting an edited social media video at 2:30 a.m. Saturday, President Trump made clear that he would be taking a different tone and approach than his wartime predecessors.
Mr. Trump did not scramble back to the White House from Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Palm Beach, Fla., to oversee the U.S. and Israeli strikes. He did not deliver a televised address informing the public of the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was the nation’s supreme leader for nearly four decades.
Instead, the president was set to cap an extraordinary day of U.S. aggression abroad by attending a glitzy fund-raising dinner at his club.
Mr. Trump’s lack of public engagement — after launching a military attack that could spur a broader conflict and put U.S. lives at risk — was a striking departure from how other presidents have handled the gravity of war.
“What Americans of our time are accustomed to is a president giving a White House speech — usually from the Oval Office — that befits the supreme importance of making war,” said Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian and the author of the book “Presidents of War: The Epic Story, from 1807 to Modern Times.”
“We are in a time where so many political traditions are being sidelined,” he said. “And this is another.”
Mr. Trump’s decision not to address the public on Saturday also came after he made little effort before the attack to lay out the case for a military assault against Iran.
The result is that the military offensive may have been a bewildering surprise to many in the United States on Saturday morning.
“The American public woke up to find the president took major military action with little public engagement or information,” said Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist and former State Department official who worked in the first Trump administration.
“While the element of surprise is an advantage in war, it may not be appreciated or understood by the public on such serious and consequential matters,” he added. “This certainly is shoot first and answer questions later.”
The White House did not respond to requests for comment about why the president did not deliver a formal public address.
Mr. Trump’s allies have argued that his communication strategy has adapted to the changing media landscape, where many Americans get their news and updates from social media. Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, celebrated Mr. Trump on social media on Saturday night as “focused,” invoking a term used by the MAGA base for critics of the president’s approach.
“NO PANICANS!” Mr. Cheung said in a statement on X. “TRUST IN TRUMP!”
But Mr. Trump’s approach Saturday was a departure from how even Mr. Trump himself has handled other major military actions. Last year, when the United States launched strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities, the president addressed the nation from the White House.
And when the United States conducted a major operation inside Venezuela earlier this year to capture the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, Mr. Trump delivered remarks and took questions from reporters at Mar-a-Lago.
On Saturday, the president did not make himself available to the press pool, a group of reporters who are assigned to follow his movements and record his remarks. Those reporters last saw him Friday night, when he waved as he descended from Air Force One after landing in Florida.
Instead, he made his case on Saturday with an eight-minute video posted on social media, which was edited and not broadcast live.
“Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people,” Mr. Trump said, without specifying those threats. Key elements of what he and his advisers did assert in recent weeks about why Iran was a threat were false or unproven.
He later spoke to some reporters on the phone, then confirmed the death of Ayatollah Khamenei on Truth Social, his social media website. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, posted a number of statements on social media about the different leaders Mr. Trump spoke to throughout the day.
The president did not let the bombing of Iran upend his schedule, including his plans to attend a fund-raising dinner to support MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump super PAC.
Ms. Leavitt said Saturday that Mr. Trump had no intention of breaking that commitment. The fund-raiser, she said, was “more important than ever.”
Zolan Kanno-Youngs is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
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