White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday claimed that the US bombing campaign in Yemen has been “incredibly successful” even though the Houthis have shown no sign of backing down.
“These Houthi strikes have been incredibly successful,” Leavitt said. “Last time I was at this podium, there were more than 100 successful strikes. There have now been over 200 successful strikes — Iran is incredibly weakened as a result of these attacks.”
Around the same time as Leavitt’s press briefing, the Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, released footage and photos of a US MQ-9 Reaper drone that was downed over Yemen a day earlier. The Houthis have also continued to fire missiles at Israel and claim attacks on US warships in the region, and the group’s message has been that they will meet “escalation with escalation.”
Leavitt defended the bombing campaign in response to a question about a letter sent to President Trump by Senators Rand Paul (R-KY) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) questioning the airstrikes and the president’s authority to carry them out.
Leavitt claimed President Trump had the authority to bomb Yemen because the strikes were “defensive.” But the US began bombing Yemen on March 15 in response to the Houthis announcing they would re-impose a blockade on Israeli shipping over Israeli violations of the Gaza ceasefire.
The Houthis didn’t start targeting US warships and firing missiles at Israel again until after the Trump administration began the airstrikes. The leaked Signal chat that showed Trump administration officials discussing the plan to bomb Yemen also revealed there was no imminent threat to the US, with two officials suggesting to delay the strikes by a month and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth saying the plans could be “easily paused.”
In their letter, Paul and Merkley pointed out that previous US interventions in Yemen, including President Biden’s bombing campaign from January 2024 to January 2025 and the US-backed Saudi war from 2015 to 2022, failed to defeat the Houthis and only “emboldened” them. Leavitt said that she “absolutely rejected” the idea that the Trump administration’s campaign would embolden the Houthis.
