President Donald Trump was heading to Florida on Friday, watching Fox News, when he saw the network run a story on how Christians were being targeted by Islamic groups in Nigeria, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
The president was “immediately” angered by it, one of the sources said, and asked to get further read in on the issue. Shortly after Air Force One touched down in West Palm Beach, he began posting on Truth Social.
“Christianity is facing an existential threat in Nigeria. Thousands of Christians are being killed. Radical Islamists are responsible for this mass slaughter,” he posted, adding that he is making Nigeria a “Country of Particular Concern” under the International Religious Freedom Act.
A White House official told CNN the president has “been tracking this issue previously and had already begun thinking about Truthing it out.”
From there, the plight of Christians in Nigeria became a focal point of Trump’s throughout the weekend, leading him to call directly on his secretary of defense to “prepare for possible action” and warn the US would enter Nigeria “guns-a-blazing” to protect the Christian population of Africa’s most populous country.
One of the sources familiar with Trump’s thinking on the issue told CNN that the president’s threats toward the country are meant to “see how Nigeria responds.”
“It’s an ‘Art of the Deal’”-type strategy, the source said. And a key part of it has already been met with the intended effect: The actions by Islamist groups are gaining attention thanks to his posts, they argued.
“At President Trump’s direction, the Department of War is planning options for possible action to stop the killing of Christians in Nigeria,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement to CNN. “Any announcements will come from the President directly.”
The plight of Nigeria’s Christians has been an animating subject for American conservatives for years, with some of Trump’s top allies, including Sen. Ted Cruz, in recent months calling for US intervention after claiming Nigeria’s government wasn’t doing enough to prevent attacks on Christians.
Nigeria has denied the accusations, and both Christians and Muslims have been victims of attacks by radical Islamists in the country.
Trump’s directive to the Pentagon to “prepare for possible action” in Nigeria — including, in his telling, potential US boots on the ground — caught many by surprise, including in the military.
Personnel within US Africa Command were abruptly recalled to headquarters over the weekend following Trump’s post on Saturday vowing potential military action in Nigeria, two sources familiar with the situation told CNN.
The post left many wondering what the president wanted the military to do, the sources said. A small group of personnel with AFRICOM, which is based in Germany, were quickly recalled to discuss potential courses of action.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Saturday that the Pentagon was “preparing for action,” and one of the sources said there was a request from the Pentagon to build out various contingency plans.
It remained unclear what the plans entail, though creating contingency plans for a range of scenarios to provide to the president and secretary of defense is one of the primary functions of the military.
“President Trump was elected in a landslide victory to accomplish his peace through strength agenda. The Department of War stands ready to execute the Commander in Chief’s direction,” chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement to CNN.
The snap-to reaction on Saturday was indicative of a broader frustration with the way potential policy decisions are relayed over social media, one of the sources familiar said, with little planning done ahead of time.
Trump, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday, declined to rule out sending American troops to Nigeria to protect Christians there.
“Could be,” Trump said when asked about the prospect of US troops or airstrikes. “I envisage a lot of things. They’re killing a record number of Christians in Nigeria,” the president told reporters, saying other countries in Africa were doing similar.
While Trump claimed a “mass slaughter” of Christians was underway in Nigeria, there exists a more nuanced reality on the ground. Both Christians and Muslims — the two main religious groups in the country of more than 230 million people — have been victims of attacks by radical Islamists, experts and analysts say.
The West African nation has grappled for years with deep-rooted security problems that are driven by various factors, including religiously motivated attacks. Observers say other violent conflicts arise from communal and ethnic tensions, as well as disputes between farmers and herders over limited access to natural resources.
Massad Boulos, Trump’s adviser on Arab and African affairs, told Nigerian media last month that “People of all religions and of all tribes are dying, and it is very unfortunate, and we even know that Boko Haram and ISIS are killing more Muslims than more Christians.”
The Nigerian government rejects claims that it is not doing enough to protect Christians from violence, saying it was bewildered by Trump’s suggestion of a potential military intervention.
“We are shocked that President Trump is mulling an invasion of our country,” Nigerian presidential spokesperson Bayo Onanuga told CNN after the US president instructed the Pentagon to prepare for possible military action.
Within US conservative circles, however, the situation in Nigeria has caused growing alarm. Trump himself raised the issue during a first-term meeting with then-President Muhammadu Buhari at the White House in 2018.
“We are deeply concerned by religious violence in Nigeria, including the burning of churches and the killing and persecution of Christians. It’s a horrible story,” Trump said during a joint news conference afterward.
Buhari said he had explained to Trump the security situation in Nigeria was more complicated than mere religious persecution, saying groups sometimes used religious violence as they pursued economic interests.
Nonetheless, Trump designated Nigeria a “Country of Particular Concern” two years later, citing “severe violations of religious freedom.” The Biden administration reversed the decision.
With Trump’s return to office came a renewed effort by American conservatives to apply pressure on the Nigerian government to stem violence against Christians.
Trump, who has earned overwhelming support from evangelical Christians during his campaigns for president, vowed during last year’s election to combat anti-Christian bias. And administration officials have stated previously that protecting Christians is a key tenet of Trump’s foreign policy.
Paula White-Cain, the senior adviser to the White House faith office and Trump’s longtime spiritual adviser, has previously traveled to Nigeria to minister. She thanked Trump on social media this weekend for his “strong stand on Christian persecution in Nigeria.”
Cruz, an evangelical Christian from Texas, is one of the GOP lawmakers who has been working to get his fellow Christians and Congress to designate Nigeria as a violator of religious freedoms.
Cruz, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, introduced a bill in September to sanction Nigerian officials whom he accused of “ignoring and even facilitating the mass murder of Christians.” The measure would also require the State Department to redesignate Nigeria as a “Country of Particular Concern” — something the president noted in his first post on the matter.
Last month, the issue was amplified on “Real Time with Bill Maher” on HBO. Maher said Islamic militants in Nigeria were “attempting to wipe out the Christian population of an entire country.” HBO is owned by CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.
None of those calls seemed to go as far as Trump did, however, in threatening US military action on the ground.
“If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians,” he wrote.
How such an intervention is carried out remains to be seen. Last year, the US completed a withdrawal of some 1,000 US troops from Niger, which neighbors Nigeria, ending a longtime presence in the nation.
This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN’s Nimi Princewill contributed to this report.
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