President Trump claimed on Monday that a former president told him privately that “I wish I did what you did” in attacking Iran and killing its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, Mr. Trump would not identify which of the four living predecessors he was referring to.
“He said, ‘I wish I did what you did,’” Mr. Trump said. “I don’t want to get into ‘who,’ I don’t want to get him into trouble.”
A reporter asked if it was President George W. Bush, the only Republican on the list, but Mr. Trump said no.
That would leave Presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr., all Democrats. But people close to all three men denied the former presidents had said that to Mr. Trump, or spoken with him at all recently. They all spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly confirm the former presidents’ private business.
In his claim, Mr. Trump strongly suggested he was talking about a Democrat, saying the person was “a member of a party” that detests him. He said the former president was one who “happens to like me, and I like that person, who is a smart person.”
Mr. Trump has for years mocked all three former Democratic presidents and their accomplishments in speeches, social media posts and even in a monument to American presidents that Mr. Trump had installed near the Oval Office last year.
Mr. Trump’s claim of support from a former president came even as he conceded on Monday that he had been “shocked” by Iran’s retaliatory strikes in the war, which targeted U.S.-allied states like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait. He added that “there was no expert that would say that was going to happen” and equated the war to “a big chess game at a very high level — very high-level chess, the highest.”
He continued, “I’m dealing with very smart players.” He added: “These are really smart people and violent people and vicious people. And some very nice people. And some are very nice but violent; they turned violent.”
Chris Cameron is a Times reporter covering Washington, focusing on breaking news and the Trump administration.
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