President Donald Trump did not speak to reporters after returning to Washington, D.C., on Sunday night, dodging questions about Iran and instead admiring new statues in the Rose Garden of the White House.
The U.S. military began a large-scale military operation against Iran over the weekend with Israel, battering the regime’s military infrastructure and killing former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Despite the stunning developments and the announcement that three U.S. service members have already died in the operation, Trump was markedly silent when he returned to the White House.
Press barraged him with questions about Iran when he was taking in new statues of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson in the Rose Garden. But he ignored their requests for comment and instead fixated on the statues.
“Unbelievable statues, come and look at them,” he told the reporters gathered outside, before walking away.
Trump has thus far avoided addressing the media directly since the start of the Iran mission, dubbed “Operation Epic Fury,” on Saturday.
He did not host a press conference in announcing the mission, instead opting for a video address posted on his Truth Social account. Trump posted another video address on Sunday afternoon, in which he gave an update on the operation and addressed the service members’ deaths.
The president has also spoken to some media outlets, though none were recorded.
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The lack of media exposure is hardly normal for Trump and has not always been the case with the announcement of military campaigns he has launched in his second term.
While the first Iran operation against its nuclear sites last summer originally saw just a short address from Trump with no questions, he took numerous questions from reporters after the U.S.’s military’s capture of former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro in January.
