Overview
- In a March 13 YouTube interview with Jake Paul, President Trump said, “We support gays, but they throw gays off the buildings.”
- He invoked the line to defend Operation Epic Fury, the administration’s strikes on Iranian military and nuclear infrastructure portrayed as preventing a nuclear weapon.
- Coverage notes the phrase is a long-standing conservative device that cites real anti-LGBTQ persecution to argue for hawkish policy.
- Earlier this year, U.S. immigration authorities sought to deport two gay Iranian men who fled morality-police arrests and were detained for more than a year while seeking asylum.
- Independent reporting confirms damage to Iranian military assets but does not support Trump’s claim that Iran’s forces were “wiped out,” and he also repeated the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen.