House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark said President Donald Trump had “lost his mind” after he told a Nebraska rally that Iran could “take out” Los Angeles and San Diego, and she said Republican leaders in Congress had not responded. The White House said he was describing a threat a nuclear-armed Iran would have posed, not the destruction of the cities.
“Donald Trump has lost his mind,” Clark, a Massachusetts Democrat who represents the state’s Fifth District, wrote Tuesday in a post on X. “He thinks the destruction of American cities is ‘a small price to pay’ for his reckless war. And not a peep from GOP leadership.”
Clark was responding to a clip of Trump’s Monday remarks at a campaign rally in Grand Island, Nebraska. In the remarks, he said: “And again, remember, with the war, it’s just artificial. It’s a little bit high. It’s a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe. They can take out a city. Let them take, let it, let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego. That’s, this is a very small price to pay, and it’s gonna be over with very soon.”
He continued: “It’s essentially almost over with, and they might keep going a bit long, you know? They always say they have a big threshold for pain. They need it, let me tell you. They need it. But it’s gonna end very soon, and it’ll end one way or the other, and your gas and your gasoline and all of the things.” Clark applied “a small price to pay” to the destruction of American cities. In the remarks, Trump used the phrase first for prices he tied to the war, and again immediately after naming Los Angeles and San Diego.
White House communications director Steven Cheung rejected that reading. “The media freakout over President Trump’s comments is not rooted in reality,” he wrote in a post on X. “He was clearly stating U.S. cities would have been threatened if a nuclear Iran hadn’t been stopped. America is safer because of the President. Iran has no nuclear, no navy, no air force, and no money.”
The White House rapid-response account wrote that Trump “was saying the U.S. is fighting to STOP Iran from having the ability to take out LA and San Diego with a nuclear weapon — which they would if they had the chance.” Those statements came from the executive branch. Clark’s post referred to Republican leadership in Congress.
No statement addressing the rally remarks appeared on the official accounts or office sites of the House speaker or the House majority leader in a review of those records. On Wednesday, Speaker Mike Johnson posted about the third anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack, which he said was carried out by “terrorists funded by Iran,” in a post on X. That post did not mention Los Angeles, San Diego, or the Nebraska remarks.
Before the rally, Majority Leader Steve Scalise had defended the war in official remarks. In a March 5 press release, his office quoted him saying Iran’s leaders “wanted to strike America” and that a nuclear weapon in their hands would mean “no hesitation trying to kill Americans.” That release did not address the October rally.
Clark has represented Massachusetts’ Fifth District since 2013 and was elected Democratic whip in 2022, the second-ranking post in the House Democratic Caucus, according to her official biography. The office describes her as the highest-ranking woman in Congress. Her office site did not carry a separate press release on the rally remarks.
Both cities named in the remarks host major military installations. Naval Base San Diego, which the Navy calls its premier Pacific Fleet surface installation, supports 54 homeported ships and more than 150 tenant commands. Naval Base Coronado includes Naval Amphibious Base Coronado and supports aircraft carriers, helicopter squadrons and SEAL teams.
In a July 30 Statement of Administration Policy, the White House said the president ordered a ceasefire on April 7, that the United States and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding on June 17, and that Iran attacked neutral-flagged commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz on July 6 and 7. It said U.S. forces began strikes inside Iran on July 7 against missile sites, air defenses, maritime assets and command facilities, and described those operations as separate from earlier ones.