Analysis: Karoline Leavitt wants you to know she loves Jesus – and that Iranians who defy Trump deserve annihilation
Let’s begin where Karoline Leavitt began: with God. Specifically, with a solemn prayer, shared between her and her staff members just offstage before she started today’s Iran war-heavy press briefing by boasting about killing people who lie to Donald Trump.
“Could you hear our amen in there?” she asked White House reporters, as she walked out, which is not a question you usually expect from a government spokesperson in a constitutional democracy, but anyway. The Lord has entered the briefing room. He is, one gathers, extremely supportive of Operation Epic Fury. It’s a name surely picked out from the Bible.
Yes, the regular briefings on the war that’s always been a war but also isn’t a war and has already been won but also is currently being negotiated get weirder by the week. Leavitt is sent out to repeatedly remind people that “the regime chanted ‘Death to America'” – as if that actually means anything of substance – and that “the president always said” the campaign would be over in “four to six weeks.” In response to a question about Iran war timelines today, 30 days since Israel and the United States started bombing Iran, she repeated the “four to six weeks” line and then told the reporter, triumphantly: “You do the math.”
Tara Cobham30 March 2026 21:30
Spain says it has closed its airspace to US planes involved in Iran war
Spain said it has closed its airspace to US planes involved in the Iran war, another step by Europe’s loudest critic of US and Israeli military actions in the month-long conflict.
The country earlier said the US could not use jointly operated military bases in the war that Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has described as illegal, reckless and unjust.
Defence minister Margarita Robles said the same logic applied to the use of Spanish airspace.
“This was made perfectly clear to the American military and forces from the very beginning. Therefore, neither the bases are authorised, nor, of course, is the use of Spanish airspace authorised for any actions related to the war in Iran,” Ms Robles told reporters, describing the war in Iran as “profoundly illegal and profoundly unjust”.
Mr Sanchez has called on the US, Israel and Iran to end the war, saying earlier this month: “You cannot respond to one illegality with another, because that’s how humanity’s great disasters begin.”
After Mr Sanchez’s government denied the US use of the Rota and Moron military bases in southern Spain, US President Donald Trump threatened to cut trade with Madrid.
The US made trade threats last year, too, when Mr Sanchez said his government would not increase its defence spending in accordance with a deal agreed to by other Nato members following Mr Trump’s pressure.
At the time, Mr Sanchez’s government said Spain could meet its military commitments by spending 2.1 per cent of gross domestic product on defence, instead of the 5 per cent the rest of the 32-nation military alliance agreed upon.
Mr Sanchez has also been among the most vocal critics of Israel’s actions in the war in Gaza, which has invited criticism from Israel’s government on several occasions.
Spain’s new decision against a Nato ally is rare, though not unprecedented.
Tara Cobham30 March 2026 20:51
