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  "path": "/post/207651/donald-trump-plays-dumb-strike-iran-girls-school",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-11T19:16:53.000Z",
  "site": "https://newrepublic.com",
  "tags": [
    "Breaking News",
    "Politics",
    "Republican Party",
    "Donald Trump",
    "Foreign Policy",
    "Middle East",
    "Iran",
    "War",
    "Military",
    "American military",
    "Strikes",
    "Schools",
    "Children",
    "asked",
    "report",
    "spoke at length",
    "_The New York Times_",
    "using outdated data",
    "showed",
    "condemned"
  ],
  "textContent": "President Donald Trump has doubled down on playing dumb about killing dozens of school-age girls in Iran.\n\nOutside the White House Wednesday, a reporter asked Trump about a new U.S. military report that found the United States was responsible for a deadly missile strike on a girls’ primary school miles from Tehran. The strike killed 175 people, many of them young girls.\n\n“As commander in chief do you take responsibility for that?” the reporter asked.\n\n“That is—what? What did you—? For what?” Trump said, as a helicopter whirred loudly behind him. The reporter repeated the question.\n\n“I don’t know about it,” Trump said before moving on.\n\nEarlier this week, Trump spoke at length about a report that the strike had involved a Tomahawk missile—a weapon primarily used by the U.S. military—and claimed Iran could be behind it. When pressed on his accusation, he admitted: “I just don’t know enough about it.”\n\nTrump said Saturday that it was his “opinion” that the strike was done by Iran. “They’re very inaccurate, as you know, with their munitions,” he said while on Air Force One. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who stood lurking behind the president, had done his best to dodge the question, saying that the strike was under investigation, “but the only side that targets civilians is Iran.”\n\n _The New York Times_ reported that the February 28 strike on Shajarah Tayyebeh, a girls’ primary school in Minab, was due to a targeting error by the U.S. military as it conducted a strike on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps naval base next door.\n\nU.S. Central Command determined the target using outdated data provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency, people briefed on the investigation told the _Times_. Satellite images from 2013 showed that the school was previously connected to the IRGC naval base, while more recent satellite images from 2016 showed that the school had been separated from the base by a wall.\n\nUnesco condemned the attack on Shajarah Tayyebeh as a grave violation of international law, which prohibits attacks on schools. But evidently Trump is uninterested in taking responsibility—or accountability—for the brutal war crime.",
  "title": "Trump Suddenly Plays Dumb About Strike on Iranian Girls’ School"
}