WASHINGTON — The Trump administration Monday night sent the kind of dire warning — of the Syrian regime’s apparent preparation for another chemical weapons attack, and a threat of U.S. retaliation — that requires credibility to have a receptive national and foreign audience.

Yet the initial bafflement about the warning among U.S. defense officials, and the simultaneous distraction of President Donald Trump’s unrelated tweets, seemed to undercut the seriousness of the moment. More broadly, the episode is testing the damage Trump has done to his and his administration’s trustworthiness by his assaults on the intelligence community as well as other perceived enemies.

Trump has spent months attacking the credibility of the intelligence community, at one point comparing their tactics to those of the Nazis and repeatedly calling its findings of Russian meddling in the election a “hoax” and “witch hunt,” even as foreign policy experts cautioned that he was diminishing the reputation of a community he would need in times of crisis to rally public support.

“At a moment of crisis when U.S. decisions and actions rest upon information coming from the intelligence community, (Trump) may have diminished the credibility of that information in the eyes of the public and the eyes of the international community,” said Daryl G. Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association.

Kimball called the White House statement “unusual” and said such messages would normally be sent through private diplomatic channels. He added that the public allegation should be followed by a formal presentation of the evidence to the United Nations Security Council, to build international support against suspected Syrian violations of the chemical weapons ban.

The four-line statement on Syria from the White House press secretary came just after 9:44 p.m. EDT Monday.

“The United States has identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime that would likely result in the mass murder of civilians, including innocent children,” the statement read. “The activities are similar to preparations the regime made before its April 4, 2017 chemical weapons attack.”

If Syrian President Bashar Assad “conducts another mass murder attack using chemical weapons, he and his military will pay a heavy price,” it concluded, citing a U.S. missile strike after the previous chemical attack to reinforce the new threat.

A Pentagon spokesman confirmed Tuesday that preparations for a chemical attack were observed at the same base in Syria from which its military launched a sarin nerve gas attack that killed 86 people, including children, in April.

“We have observed activities at Shayrat Air Base that suggest possible intent by the Syrian regime to use chemical weapons again,” Pentagon spokesman Maj. Adrian J.T. Rankine-Galloway said in a statement. “These activities are similar to what we observed prior to the regime chemical weapons attack against Khan Sheikhoun in April.”

But some senior U.S. defense and intelligence officials reached late Monday and early Tuesday were caught off guard by the White House statement. “Some knew, some didn’t,” said a U.S. official who sought anonymity to discuss the intelligence matter.

The official described the release of the nighttime statement as “ungraceful,” but said the assessment that Syria was preparing for an attack is “sound.”

Such official statements are typically distributed widely across an administration for internal vetting before they’re publicly released. The White House said the relevant agencies were informed before the statement was published.

Yet Trump lent further confusion about the urgency of the matter and his own level of concern by sending out a tweet about domestic politics only minutes later. He cited a Fox news report about the FBI’s Russia investigation, writing as he often does about the probe, “Witch Hunt!”

Indeed, Trump continued through the next morning to demonstrate his frustration with the Russia investigation and what he calls the American media’s “fake news” with posts on his Twitter feed.

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Many tweets quoted supportive conservative commentators and Fox News reports. Trump was eager to go after CNN, one of his top media targets, after it retracted a Russia-related story and three journalists involved resigned.

Trump’s willingness to mix politics and his administration’s ominous red line to Syria opened him up to criticism that he was trying to divert attention from other unfavorable news Monday. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office had found that the Republican plan to replace Obamacare would strip 22 million people of health insurance coverage over the next decade.

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The Syria statement also prompted a sharp backlash from the Kremlin, which is Assad’s military ally in his nation’s civil war. Russian officials denied there is evidence of an imminent chemical attack and called the White House threat “unacceptable.”

The tensions have heightened as Trump is expected to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin next week at the G-20 Summit of industrialized nations in Germany. Monday’s statement may be seen as a warning not just to Syria but to Russia, which is widely seen as enabling Assad’s harsh tactics by bolstering his military as he has tried to retain power.

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