“Washington Week” host Jeffrey Goldberg and NBC News foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell discuss President Donald Trump’s response to the U.S. strike on Iran and its nuclear facilities. “Are you suggesting that Donald Trump bombed Iran because Israel was successful and he wanted a part of that excitement?” Goldberg asked Mitchell.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG, THE ATLANTIC, ‘WASHINGTON WEEK’ HOST: Well, the other question is, would Donald Trump go back in and — I mean, there is Trump rhetoric and then there’s intelligence reality. If the United States intelligence community, if the Israelis say, you know what, we didn’t completely destroy Fordow, is this a one and done for Donald Trump, or do you think a month from now, three months, six months, he would actually go around and do this again? ANDREA MITCHELL, NBC NEWS: Well, I think it is unpredictable, because, in fact, on June 13th, it was not at all predicted that he would go in when the Israelis first did. There was considerable pressure from the Saudis and others in the Gulf not to do this on him and to try to come up with some other result. And, in fact, my own interpretation, and I defer to Ashley, who has covered him far longer and more intensively, is he saw the success of the Israeli operation, which was remarkable. You know, the air defenses were gone. They went in, they developed air superiority. Soon, it became — JEFFREY GOLDBERG: And they assassinated most of the military leadership within the same hour frame. ANDREA MITCHELL: Military and political leadership. JEFFREY GOLDBERG: And scientists. ANDREA MITCHELL: So, their targeted assassinations have been with Nasrallah, with Hamas, with, you know, all the proxies, and now with Tehran itself, Central Tehran. JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Wait, are you suggesting — and Ashley obviously can give us more insight on this, are you suggesting that Donald Trump bombed Iran because Israel was successful and he wanted a part of that excitement? ANDREA MITCHELL: I think that you can infer that that is part of it. And they had this plan that was on the shelf that had been rehearsed. We knew it was rehearsed last in August of ’23. And this had been worked on for 15 years, as General Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chief said, which was the only, you know, military briefing that was not purely political in contrast to the defense secretaries.

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