White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday brushed aside questions about Trump’s incendiary language, asserting it in no way ceded the moral high ground.

“What the president cares most about is results, and in fact, his very tough rhetoric and his tough negotiating style is what has led to the result that you are all witnessing today,” she said.

“It was a very strong threat that led to results and .

it was not an empty threat by any means.” But experts fear that Trump’s repeated statements show a pattern that could become a reality on the ground — and carry significant risk even if he doesn’t follow through.

“There are real practical consequences for us believing the rules don’t apply to us, because if they don’t apply to us, they don’t apply to anybody,” said Daniel Maurer, an associate law professor at Ohio Northern University and retired Army lieutenant colonel.

“If the absence of rules becomes the rule, then we are in danger too.” For years, Trump has dismissed the idea of any limits on war fighting, saying the US should be as vicious as its enemies, even though all nations are obligated to abide by rules of war set out by treaties they have signed.

He has endorsed tactics such as targeting families of terrorists and interrogating prisoners using a simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding, considered by many to be a form of torture prohibited by US and international law.

“I would bring back waterboarding, and I’d bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding,” Trump said at a New Hampshire Republican presidential debate in 2016.

Trump has criticized international humanitarian laws designed to limit the most brutal practices of war, arguing they unfairly constrain US forces in the fight against terrorists and rogue nations.

“We can’t waterboard, but they can chop off heads,” Trump said at a Wisconsin town hall event later in the 2016 campaign.

“The problem is we have the Geneva Convention, we have all sorts of rules and regulations.

They have none.” Drawn up in the immediate aftermath of World War II, the Geneva Conventions have been ratified by the United States and nearly 200 other countries.

They outlaw the targeting of civilian infrastructure, such as the bridges and power plants that Trump threatened to destroy in Iran, saying warring parties should distinguish “between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives.” But Trump told reporters on Monday that “very little is off limits” to US attacks.

If Iran did not agree to stop the war, then “every bridge in Iran will be decimated” and “every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding, and never to be used again.” Past presidents have challenged the laws of war, as George W.

Bush did in arguing that waterboarding was legal.

But Trump “attacks the validity of the laws of war” themselves, said Thomas Gift, author of the 2026 book “Killing Machines: Trump, the Law of War, and the Future of Military Impunity.” “The US has historically positioned itself as a defender of the laws of war,” said Gift, director of the Centre on US Politics at University College London.

“If it openly flirts with violating them, it weakens Washington’s credibility and its ability to criticize others for abuses.” Trump’s threats also put military commanders and service members in an untenable position where they’re faced with potentially violating the law....