White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt holds a press briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 4, 2026. REUTERS/Nathan Howard
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared to struggle with the messaging from the White House on Wednesday when she claimed that President Donald Trump had decided to strike Iran before he spoke to Israel about Saturday's location of the Iranian president. Her statement prompted questions as to why the U.S. didn't begin evacuating Americans sooner.
NBC News reporter Garrett Haake asked Leavitt about the timeline and where Israel fit in with the intelligence. A follow-up came from the reporter next to him, who asked why more wasn't done to help Americans abroad.
"Just in the context of what you just told Garrett about the president's decision on a timeline, if he had decided to do this strike before receiving the specific intelligence about the meeting on Saturday, should there have been more done in advance of the strikes to try to get those Americans in the region resources and information to get home before day three of the war?" she asked.
Leavitt said that there were "many signs" that a war was coming from the State Department and that Americans should get home. She claimed that they issued travel advisories in late 2025 to some Middle Eastern countries and outright "do not travel" notices to other countries like Iran itself.
However, multiple countries, including the United Arab Emirates, didn't issue a "do not travel" warning until after the bombing. According to older estimates, there are over 50,000 Americans living in the UAE. In fact, at least 88 percent of residents of the UAE are not from the UAE, a Pew Research Center survey said.
Leavitt was asked for another follow-up, saying that as late as last night, the State Department was telling people "we can't help you" when they called to leave the area.
"Well, the line was updated," Leavitt said, before demanding journalists in the room fulfill their duty to report that the State Department is no longer telling Americans abroad that it can't help them get home or to safety.
"I saw many people in this room very quick to do selfie videos with the [phone] line yesterday, but not so quick to report on the corrected message today. So, that is something the administration quickly worked to address. And we have fixed that problem. However, we're also pointing people to the website, again, to register so that we know exactly where you are. So, when there are commercial flights moving into that area, when there are chartered flights moving into that area, we can get Americans on planes as quickly as possible," Leavitt said.
She did not address why it took so many days for the State Department to "fix that problem" if the administration knew that they were going to bomb Iran last week.
One reporter later compared the situation to Trump's complaints that former President Joe Biden flubbed his evacuation of Afghanistan.