Trump shared a clip from an episode in which the fictional president, played by actor Martin Sheen, dismisses the idea of a “proportional response” following the downing of a U.S. aircraft.
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President Donald Trump on Tuesday night appeared to defend his latest military strikes on Iran by posting a short clip from “The West Wing,” the popular NBC television drama about a fictional U.S. president, in which the show’s characters debate their own military action.
In real life, the U.S. military earlier Tuesday launched a new round of strikes after Iranian forces downed a U.S. Army helicopter. Trump said retaliation was “necessary,” and military officials characterized the strikes as “a proportional response to recent attacks on U.S. forces and international commercial ships transiting regional waters.”
The clip that Trump shared comes from a Season 1 episode of “The West Wing” titled “A Proportional Response.” The episode, which originally aired in October 1999, centers on what action the U.S. president should take after the Syrian government downs a U.S. military plane, with his aides recommending the U.S. strike military targets of equivalent value in Syria.
“What is the virtue of a proportional response?” President Josiah “Jed” Bartlet — portrayed throughout the series by actor Martin Sheen — asks his aides, growing steadily agitated by their answers and arguing that such strikes would be predictable. “If it’s what we do, if it’s what we’ve always done, don’t they know we’re going to do it?”
“It isn’t virtuous, Mr. President. It’s all there is, sir,” Adm. Percy Fitzwallace, played by actor John Amos, finally concedes.
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Bartlet then says that the United States should engage in a “disproportional response” to Syria’s military action to deter foreign aggression.
“Let the word ring forth from this time and this place, gentlemen — you kill an American, any American, we don’t come back with a proportional response. We come back with total disaster!” the fictional president says.
Trump posted the “West Wing” clip twice on his Truth Social platform, in one case alongside a post from U.S. Central Command announcing the strikes on Iran.
Trump did not share other scenes from the episode, which concludes with Bartlet opting for the proportional response he initially dismissed after realizing that carrying out a “disproportional response” would lead to many civilian deaths.
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