'Blame the media?' Jake Tapper calls out White House's excuse for stranding Americans

CNN's Jake Tapper shaded White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday over her explanation for why the State Department is scrambling to help U.S. citizens leave Iran after the bombing strikes over the weekend.

During a press briefing on Wednesday, Leavitt was asked why the U.S. appeared not to have a plan to evacuate U.S. citizens from the 14 neighboring countries surrounding Iran following the coordinated strikes that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several top military and political leaders. Leavitt said there were "many signs" put out by the State Department, and she said the media would not report on them.

CNN's Jake Tapper shaded those claims during his opening monologue on "The Lead."

"The White House is aiming to blame the news media, not the most powerful government on earth, for leaving its citizens stranded in a war zone," Tapper said sarcastically. "In any case, the only countries that had the highest travel advisory before the war began were Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon. Those are clearly not the only countries that now find themselves on the wrong end of Iranian missiles."

Early Saturday, U.S. forces coordinated more than 100 bombing strikes across Iran. Trump has called on the Iranian people to rise up and form a new government, a goal that some experts have said gave the remaining Iranian regime guards more reason to crack down on protesters.