AG

Articles like this make me think the press is being fed by sources making stuff up. So many reasons this is clearly wrong. 1) They cite an anonymous former Pentagon official, anon former WH officials, and anon former admin officials on WH thinking now. How would they know?https://twitter.com/jdawsey1/status/1216514228556791808 …

2) I'm skeptical that Trump would ask for such an option, but that just doesn't happen. If POTUS asks for a specific option, they don't just ignore the request. 3) I know for a fact that previous Presidents have been presented the option so suddenly Trump wouldn't be?

4) They spend most of the article comparing apples and oranges. It's true that Trump has lost some key advisers, but plenty of Iran experts still at the Pentagon. The situation has changed a lot more than the people presenting possible options.

Stories based on anonymous officials just can't be trusted anymore. They are clearly being abused to promote narratives, which is costing the press a lot of credibility.

Also, all these anonymous stories contradict each other. Remember we had another that claimed Soleimani strike was just a throwaway option no one expected Trump to pick (obvious BS), and then another one claiming they've been planning it for months, and now this.

So which is it: Was it a throwaway option no one expected Trump to pick and stunned officials (NYT), something they had been planning for months, or an option Trump had been requesting since 2017 but request was ignored until recently?

And btw my favorite part is definitely them citing Chris Murphy (D) at the end to justify the story's narrative, a partisan idiot who has been wrong about everything related to this topic and was mocking Trump's inaction a week earlier.

This is the only non-anonymous person they quote in this story to justify the narrative. Really unbelievably shoddy journalism.https://twitter.com/AGHamilton29/status/1212923136733306880 …