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Trump Says Houthis Asked US Not to Target Them

6 sources · updated 2026-09-13
Left 50% Center 0% Right 50%
1 left · 0 center · 1 right

What happened

Iran-backed Houthi forces seized Mocha, Dhubab, Perim Island and other Red Sea positions from Saudi-backed Yemeni government troops in a roughly 18-hour offensive, taking Yemen's entire Red Sea coastline and the Yemeni shore of the Bab al-Mandab Strait, a major global oil-shipping chokepoint. Government forces withdrew from Perim Island, which splits the strait at its narrowest point. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman called President Donald Trump at least twice to request U.S. strikes; Washington refused direct military action but offered intelligence and targeting support, with more than 100 U.S. advisers already in the kingdom. Projectiles struck pump stations on Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline, the kingdom's main high-volume crude route that avoids the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively closed to most shipping since a U.S.-Iran war began on February 28. Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree said navigation remains safe except for Saudi vessels, already under a Houthi ban; Yemeni, Iranian, and regional sources told Reuters that Iran's Revolutionary Guards had directed the group to escalate, which Tehran publicly denies.
Sourcing check · Fully on the record · 2 articles

2 of 2 articles cite a named source for the story. It was on the record from the first report.

What these terms mean and how they're counted
On the record · names a source 2 of 2
On the record means the article cites a source by name for the story's main claim: a person, or an institution speaking officially, such as a company statement or a named agency's spokesperson. The opposite is an unnamed source. The count is how many of the counted articles cite at least one such source; the names are everyone named across them, each once however the articles spell it. Here: Donald Trump and Morgan Murphy
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How it developed
When the first report landed and whether it named anyone; when the first named source and the first document appeared. Here: First report Sep 12, 10:53 UTC by Bloomberg, naming its source.
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This is about who is cited, not whether the story is true. Each source below says what it names. How we count
Omitted — what each side leaves out

Unpacked

Left-leaning coverage never reports that Washington refused Saudi Arabia's request for American strikes, so the Houthi dash to the Bab al-Mandab reads as a lost war rather than a refused second front. The Atlantic records the crown prince's call for attacks, then says bombs would achieve little without a ground force because Yemeni allies are now battered and divided. Right-leaning coverage in the Daily Caller reports the decision the Atlantic leaves out: the United States declined direct military action and offered intelligence and targeting support instead. Left-leaning coverage branded last week's outlook as "delusions." Right-leaning coverage quoted a Heritage fellow calling Trump's refusal "correct." Who ordered Yemeni government forces to abandon Perim Island before the Houthi boats arrived at the strait?
Bottom line

Skip the Daily Caller and you never hear that Trump told Saudi Arabia no on bombing as Houthis took the Red Sea coast. The Atlantic still files that seizure as him losing a strait.

The receipts — 6 facts one side's coverage lacks
  • Washington told Riyadh it would not take direct military action for now but would share intelligence and targeting official statementin Daily Caller · absent from left-leaning coverage
  • In July the crown prince told Trump the kingdom could handle the Houthis without U.S. military help official statementin Daily Caller · absent from left-leaning coverage
  • Iran's Revolutionary Guards told the Houthis last week to escalate against Saudi Arabia and promised more money, weapons, and senior officers contextin Daily Caller · absent from left-leaning coverage
  • Riyadh demanded in December that the Emiratis withdraw from Yemen, leaving a patchwork of militias contextin The Atlantic · absent from right-leaning coverage
  • Houthi commander Mohammad Ali al-Houthi was filmed riding through Mokha in an Emirati armored vehicle individual casein The Atlantic · absent from right-leaning coverage
  • Houthis seized Yemen's entire Red Sea coastline in an 18-hour push numberin Daily Caller · absent from left-leaning coverage
The Left View
Left-leaning outlets frame the coastal capture as a strategic reversal in which Trump "loses the other strait," leaving Iran's allies astride both Middle East chokepoints through which about a third of the world's oil typically moves. The Atlantic argues that an "ideological fervor and an esprit de corps" on the Axis of Resistance side is "sorely lacking" among Gulf states whose "failure to work together against the Houthis has been catastrophic," and that this "echoes Trump's own failure to devise a plausible or coordinated strategy against Iran." Yemen expert April Longley Alley said shore control "means you can literally sit on the coast and fire at passing ships," making attacks "easier and cheaper" and solidifying "a stranglehold on the strait"; the magazine contends U.S. bombs "would achieve little without a ground force" and notes last year's seven-week U.S. campaign "did not dislodge the group or alter its ability to wage war, as Trump had promised." Bloomberg casts Mohammed bin Salman as facing "few good options": escalate a campaign that has "for years failed to defeat the militants" or "tolerate greater rebel leverage" over a Red Sea export route. The Atlantic adds that the Houthis "do not need to win every battle" so long as they can "sink an occasional oil tanker" and thus "hold a whip hand."
The Right View
Right-leaning coverage treats Trump's refusal to strike as a deliberate limit, not a collapse. A senior administration official said the United States is "focused on protecting our core national security interests — such as ensuring freedom of navigation in the Red Sea—while empowering our regional partners to take the lead." Heritage Foundation fellow Brent Sadler called that approach "correct," arguing Washington should keep the focus on "the economic warfare against the Iranian regime" and that Houthi "renewed assaults on shipping will have little new impact" while pressure on Tehran "affords President Trump the luxury of time." Stimson's Dan Grazier warned that munitions stockpiles are depleted and the Navy is struggling to keep ships on station, so officials "would rather have the Saudis deal with the Houthis" than pull vessels from other missions. Maritime historian Salvatore Mercogliano noted the group "could already strike vessels transiting the area" and that Saudi cargoes have already been rerouted through the Suez Canal. The Daily Caller also records the energy hit — Saudi supply at a multi-decade low, tanker rates at records — and Andreas Krieg's assessment that the new positions give a "dramatically stronger ability to contest, threaten and potentially deny" the waterway, even as Riyadh "still desperately wants to avoid another 2015-style war."
Our Take (balanced)
The left's strongest case is qualitative: experts quoted in The Atlantic say holding the coast is not merely more of the same Red Sea harassment but a cheaper, tighter "stranglehold," and they point to last year's inconclusive U.S. air campaign plus documented Saudi-Emirati disunity as evidence that neither bombs nor the current Yemeni coalition can reverse it. The right's strongest case is capacity and marginality: Heritage and Stimson voices argue the fleet and munitions are already consumed by Hormuz, partners should own the Houthi file, and because the group could already hit shipping — with Saudi barrels already diverted via Suez — new shoreline posts do not automatically justify a second U.S. combat front. The unresolved tension is whether those posts are a decisive new chokepoint that partner-led, intelligence-only support cannot contain, or an incremental worsening of a threat already being absorbed while the center of gravity remains Iran.

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