“The president had a feeling, again, based on fact, that Iran was going to strike the United States, was going to strike our assets in the region, and he made a determination to launch Operation Epic Fury based on all of those reasons,” Leavitt said.

“We knew that there ​was going to be an Israeli action, ​we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we ​didn’t preemptively go after them before they ​launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” Rubio said Monday.