Analysis: What Kristi Noem and Marco Rubio said vs. what they claimed they said

By Daniel Dale, CNN

(CNN) — Two of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet secretaries claimed Tuesday that their comments on high-profile subjects were being described inaccurately.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem denied she had previously called Alex Pretti, the nurse killed by the Border Patrol in Minneapolis in January, a domestic terrorist; she claimed she had merely said “it appeared to be an incident of” domestic terrorism. In reality, Noem had unequivocally claimed in her initial January remarks, without any “appeared to be” qualifier, that Pretti was a domestic terrorist.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meanwhile, denied he had said Monday that the US had decided it needed to attack Iran because Israel was planning to attack Iran; he claimed he had said that US knowledge of Israel’s plans explained only why the US attacked Iran when it did, not why the US attacked at all. Rubio’s Tuesday description of his previous words was much more truthful than Noem’s description of hers, but he was still downplaying the extent to which he had, on Monday, emphasized Israel’s role in Trump’s decision to launch the assault.

Here’s a breakdown of Noem’s and Rubio’s remarks.

Noem’s comments on Alex Pretti

What Noem claimed Tuesday: A Democratic senator on the Senate Judiciary Committee asked Noem Tuesday whether she retracts statements in which she described Pretti and a Minneapolis protester killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, Renee Good, as domestic terrorists. Noem danced around the question. But later, when she was pressed by another Democratic senator on the subject, Noem claimed, “I did not call him a domestic terrorist. I said it appeared to be an incident of.”

That’s not true. Noem’s initial comments about Pretti and terrorism were much firmer and more accusatory than she claimed Tuesday.

What Noem said in January: On the day Pretti was killed in January, a reporter asked Noem whether she agreed with a White House assertion that Pretti was a domestic terrorist. The video shows she responded by offering a clear and specific endorsement of that label.

“When you perpetuate violence against a government because of ideological reasons, and for reasons to resist and perpetuate violence, that is the definition of domestic terrorism,” Noem said. “This individual who came, with weapons and ammunition, to stop a law enforcement operation, of federal law enforcement officers, committed an act of domestic terrorism. That’s the facts.”

She didn’t qualify her accusation with the word “appeared” or any variant of it; she flatly said “this individual,” Pretti, “committed an act of domestic terrorism.” And while she didn’t explicitly say the words “Pretti was a domestic terrorist,” there’s no substantive difference between those words and her claim that he was an individual who committed an act of domestic terrorism.

Noem reinforced the accusation in other inaccurate remarks that January day. She said, “This individual impeded the law enforcement officers and attacked them,” repeating the baseless “attacked them” moments later for emphasis. She also claimed Pretti was “brandishing” a weapon; all available video evidence suggests he was carrying a gun but not brandishing it. And she said, “This looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement.”

Noem did use the word “appears” in her accusation against Good after the protester’s death earlier in January, claiming to have observed what “appears as an attempt to kill or to cause bodily harm to agents, an act of domestic terrorism.”

Rubio’s comments on Israel, the US and Iran

What Rubio claimed Tuesday: A reporter told Rubio on Tuesday, “Yesterday you told us that Israel was going to strike Iran and that’s why we needed to get involved.” But Rubio responded, “No. Yeah, your statement’s false.”

He said he had actually said Monday that Trump had decided to strike Iran because the president had decided Iran was “playing us on the negotiations” and that Iran’s “terroristic capability” from its ballistic missiles needed to be destroyed.

“Somebody asked me a question yesterday, ‘Did we go in because of Israel’…I said, ‘No.’ I told you, ‘This had to happen anyway.’ The president made a decision, and the decision he made was that Iran was not going to be allowed to hide behind its ballistic missile program, that Iran was not going to be allowed to hide behind its ability to conduct these attacks. That decision had been made. The president systematically – made a decision to systematically destroy this terroristic capability that they had. And we carried that out,” Rubio said.

He continued: “I was very clear in that answer. This was a question of timing, of why this had to happen as a joint operation, not the question of the intent. Once the president made a decision that negotiations were not going to work, that they were playing us on the negotiations – and that this was a threat that was untenable – the decision was made to strike them. That’s what I said yesterday.”

What Rubio said Monday: You can watch the video of Rubio’s Monday remarks here. It shows that Rubio was right on Tuesday when he said he had explained Monday that a US attack on Iran would have had to happen regardless of Israel’s plans, and that a planned Israeli attack on Iran required the US to attack now rather than later.

But the Monday video also shows that Rubio never actually mentioned Trump’s perception of the state of US-Iran negotiations as a key factor in his decision to attack. And it shows that Rubio repeatedly emphasized that the administration felt compelled to attack Iran quickly because of Israel’s plans; his Tuesday description of his words downplayed the extent to which he had tied Israel to Trump’s decision to embark on the war.

Rubio framed his Monday remarks about Israel as an answer to the question, “Why now?” He said it was clear that Iran would respond to a planned Israeli attack by attacking US forces, referring to an “assessment that was made that if we stood and waited for that attack to come first before we hit them, we would suffer much higher casualties.”

He continued: “And so the president made the very wise decision. We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties and perhaps even higher those killed, and then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn’t act.”

He also said that the “imminent threat” to the US from Iran had stemmed from the coming Israeli attack: “There absolutely was an imminent threat, and the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked – and we believe they would be attacked – that they would immediately come after us, and we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded.”

Moments later on Monday, Rubio did say “no” when a reporter asked if he was saying a planned Israeli act had forced the US to strike; he said that “no matter what, ultimately this operation needed to happen.” He added: “Obviously, we were aware of Israeli intentions and understood what that would mean for us, and we had to be prepared to act as a result of it. But this had to happen no matter what.”

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