He Knew. He Approved. He Didn’t Care: Trump’s Disturbing Boast About the Lebanon Pager Blasts

By Al-Ahed News

In one of his most disturbing admissions yet, US President Donald Trump has casually revealed that he knew about — and supported — the devastating pager bombings in Lebanon last year, attacks that left dozens martyred, including children.

The 79-year-old president, who was not in office at the time of the explosions, told TIME magazine that “all of those attacks were done under my auspices,” referring to the “Israeli”-engineered operation that used booby-trapped pagers to target Lebanon's Resistance members across Lebanon on September 17 and 18, 2024.

What Trump didn’t mention — or maybe just didn’t care to — is that those pagers weren’t only used by fighters. In southern Beirut and other neighborhoods, ordinary people: shopkeepers, students and even children, were among those affected. When the blasts went off, they tore through markets and crowded streets, injuring bystanders. The explosions, described by investigators as equivalent to hand grenades, left behind survivors with shattered hands, lost eyes and burns that will never fully heal.

Yet, Trump spoke of the attack as if it were just another tactical operation — one that he says to have endorsed. “They let me know everything,” he told TIME. “And sometimes I’d say no — and they’d be respectful of that.”

The remark suggested a shocking level of pre-knowledge and approval for one of the most brutal covert acts of recent years — and an alarming disregard for civilian lives. Even the United Nations labeled the incident a “terrifying” violation of international law after a second wave of explosions hit the following day, this time through walkie-talkies, one of which detonated during a funeral for four of the first day’s victims, including an 11-year-old boy.

When pressed about the details, Trump seemed confused — at first conflating the pager bombings in Lebanon with an “Israeli” airstrike in Doha a year later. The White House initially tried to walk back his words, insisting the president had “misspoken”. But hours later, his communications director contradicted that statement, confirming that Trump “supported the action” and that “the definition of auspices is support and approval.”

The exchange has once again raised questions about the president’s mental state — and whether his increasingly erratic behavior is crossing into dangerous territory. Psychologist Dr. John Gartner told The Daily Beast that Trump’s recent string of nonsensical remarks and confused recollections point to “immense cognitive decline”.

Just days before his TIME interview, Trump had boasted that he personally prevented a “nuclear” war between Iran and Pakistan — only to repeatedly mix up Iran and India in the same sentence. A week earlier, he declared he had “solved” a non-existent conflict between Cambodia and Armenia, before claiming credit for averting a showdown between Azerbaijan and Albania — two countries that don’t even share a border.

It’s the portrait of a man both powerful and unmoored — one who now openly confesses to backing an attack that slaughtered civilians, while simultaneously struggling to remember which war he’s supposedly ended.

For the families still grieving in Beirut, Trump’s words confirm what many already suspected: that in the eyes of Washington and its allies, Lebanese lives were expendable. For the rest of the world, it’s another glimpse into the mind of a leader whose grasp on reality — and morality — appears to be slipping fast.