Welcome to pushback. I'm Aaron Mate. Despite alleging an imminent threat, the Trump

administration has been unable to defend its rationale for the killing of Qasem Soleimani

and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandas in Iraq.

There is no doubt that there were a series of imminent attacks that were being plotted by Qasem Soleimani. We don't know precisely when, and we don't know precisely where, but it was real. Well, the president didn't say there was a tangible, he didn't cite a specific piece of evidence. What he said is he probably, he believed. Are you saying there wasn't one? I didn't see one with regard to four embassies. what I'm saying is I assure the president that probably my expectation was they were going to go after our embassies.

The Washington Post reports that President Trump has privately shifted to a new explanation.

At a dinner with donors at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, Trump reportedly said he heard hearsay that Soleimani, quote,

was saying bad things about our country, like we're going to attack, we're going to kill your people,

unquote.

Trump reportedly went on to say, quote, I said, listen, how much of this shit do we have to listen to, right?

Unquote.

Trump also called Soleimani the father of the roadside bomb responsible for U.S.

combat injuries in Iraq.

Well, according to the investigative journalist, Gareth Porter, the actual story is far different.

The killing of Qasem Soleimani was in fact the culmination of a lengthy

provocation campaign involving Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, and the Israeli government, which

carried out a number of underreported bombings inside Iraq and Syria in the months leading

up to the Soleimani assassination. Gareth Porter is a journalist and historian.

His latest book, co-authored with John Kariakou, is called the CIA Insider's Guide to the Iran Crisis.

Gareth Porter, welcome to pushback.

We have seen over the last few weeks the Trump administration's story about how it came to kill Qasem Soleimani

pretty much fall apart before our eyes. You've been doing some digging into what actually

happened, what was the real lead-up to this assassination? What to you is the context that people

...