Donald Trump says Syria airstrike ordered while eating ‘most beautiful piece of chocolate cake’

U.S. President Donald Trump told Fox News he was enjoying “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake” when he ordered 59 missiles to rain down on Syria in response to the chemical weapons attack.

In an interview with Fox Business that aired on Wednesday, Trump recalled the conversation he had with his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping at his Mar-a-Lago resort while 59 missiles were launched from the U.S. warships.

“I was sitting at the table, we had finished dinner we are now having dessert, and we had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you’ve ever seen and President Xi was enjoying it,” Trump said. “And I was given the message from the generals that the ships are locked and loaded, what do you do. And we made a determination to do it. So the missiles were on the way.”

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Trump launched the attack in response to the April 4 chemical attack in northern Syria where nearly 90 people, many of whom were children, were killed in the airstrike.

“And I said, ‘Mr. President, let me explain something to you,’ this is during dessert,” Trump said in the interview. “We’ve just fired 59 missiles, all of which hit by the way, unbelievable, from you know hundreds of miles away, all of which hit.”

Trump went on to boast about the U.S. technology and the country’s equipment being “better than anybody by a factor of five” before adding that the “military has been cutback and depleted so badly by the past administration and by the war in Iraq.”

“So what happens is I said we’ve just launched 59 missiles heading to Iraq,” Trump said before being corrected by reporter Maria Bartiromo.

“Yes, heading toward Syria, and I want you to know that,” Trump said of his conversation with China’s president. “I didn’t want him to go home, we were almost finished it was a full day, in Palm Beach, we’re almost finished. What does he do, finish his dessert and go home and then they say ‘You know the guy you just had dinner with just attacked a country.”

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Trump said in the interview that President Xi “paused for 10 seconds and then he asked the interpreter to please say it again.”

Trump said his counterpart was “OK with it.”

Trump also noted in the interview the U.S. is not going to get involved in Syria but he had to act because of the chemical attack.