President Trump on Tuesday attacked the “fake news” New York Times for reporting that the White House is mulling a plan to send 120,000 troops to the Middle East—but then immediately doubled down, saying that if he were to order troops overseas, he’d send “a hell of a lot more.” The drama began Monday night, when the Times reported that Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan presented an updated plan to President Trump’s top national-security aides that could send up to 120,000 troops to the Middle East if Iran attacks U.S. forces or accelerates its work on nuclear weapons. It’s not yet clear if Trump was briefed on the alleged plan—but he denied its existence Tuesday while speaking to reporters on the White House lawn. “It’s probably fake news,” Trump said. “I read that this morning. I don’t know anything about it.” “Now, would I do that?” the president added. “Absolutely. But we have not planned for that. Hopefully we’re not going to have to plan for that and if we did that, we’d send a hell of a lot more troops than that.”
