Title: US President Donald Trump met this evening at the White House with Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, and in a conversation with reporters in the Oval Office raised one moment of raised eyebrows when he mentioned the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the attack that led to the United States joining World War II.

Text: US President Donald Trump met this evening at the White House with Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, and in a conversation with reporters in the Oval Office raised one moment of raised eyebrows when he mentioned the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the attack that led to the United States joining World War II.

The president was asked by one of the Japanese reporters why the United States did not update in advance its allies, including Japan, before the opening strike in the war against Iran — and replied: "You don’t want to signal too much. When we went in, we went in very strong, and we did not tell anyone about it, because we wanted surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan? Why did you tell me about Pearl Harbor?"