LONDON — President Donald Trump once more claimed “whole obliteration” of Iran’s nuclear program in the course of the NATO summit within the Netherlands on Wednesday, dismissing an early Pentagon report suggesting the joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Tehran’s services might have solely set its program again by a matter of months.
“I imagine it was whole obliteration,” Trump informed reporters talking alongside NATO Secretary Common Mark Rutte in The Hague, Netherlands.
A preliminary evaluation of the strikes by the Protection Intelligence Company and U.S. Central Command prompted questions because the efficacy of the operation. Two folks acquainted with the report informed ABC Information it instructed the strikes did restricted injury and that Iran was capable of relocate extremely enriched uranium shares earlier than the strikes occurred.
“I imagine they did not have an opportunity to get something out, as a result of we acted quick,” Trump mentioned. “If it will have taken two weeks, perhaps. Nevertheless it’s very exhausting to take away that sort of materials, very exhausting and really harmful. Plus, they knew we have been coming, and in the event that they know we’re coming, they don’t seem to be going to be down there.”
Iranian International Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei mentioned Wednesday that the nation’s nuclear services had been “badly broken,” as quoted by the Related Press.
This satellite tv for pc image by Planet Labs PBC reveals Iran’s underground nuclear enrichment web site at Fordo following U.S. airstrikes focusing on the ability, on June 22, 2025.
Planet Labs Pbc/AP
Trump insisted Iran’s nuclear program had been set again “principally many years,” including, “It is gone for years.”
Requested if they might rebuild and whether or not the U.S. would strike once more, Trump mentioned that might be another person’s drawback.
“I am not going to have to fret about that,” he mentioned. “It is gone for years, years, very robust to rebuild, as a result of the entire thing is collapsed. In different phrases, inside, it is all collapsed. No person can get in to see it, as a result of it is collapsed.”
Requested if he trusted U.S. intelligence, the president mentioned the preliminary report was “very inconclusive. The intelligence says we do not know, it might have been very extreme, that is what the intelligence says. So I assume that is appropriate, however I believe we are able to take the ‘we do not know.’ It was very extreme. It was obliteration.”
Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio additionally spoke in help of the president’s place, having accompanied Trump to The Hague.
“Given the 30,000 lbs of explosives and functionality of these munitions, it was devastation beneath Fordo,” Hegseth mentioned.
“Any evaluation that tells you it was one thing in any other case is speculating with different motives,” Hegseth continued. “And we all know that as a result of while you truly take a look at the report, by the best way, it was a high secret report, it was preliminary, it was low confidence.”
Hegseth instructed the leak of the report had “a political motive,” including, “We’re doing a leak investigation with the FBI proper now as a result of this info is for inside functions.”
Rubio additionally claimed that the leak of the preliminary report was politically motivated, saying that the assaults led to “full and whole obliteration.”
“However all this leaker stuff, these leakers are skilled stabbers,” he mentioned. “They exit they usually learn these things, after which they inform you what it says towards the regulation, however they characterize it for you in a manner that is completely false.”
The report prompted additional consternation amongst Trump’s opponents in Washington. Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Chris Coons informed ABC Information on the NATO summit it’s too quickly to find out the success of U.S. strikes, including that the current spherical of combating might have been averted if Trump had not withdrawn from the Iran nuclear deal in his first time period.
“The American public wants solutions for what what’s actually occurring,” Shaheen, rating member of the Senate International Relations Committee and senior member of the Senate Armed Companies Committee, mentioned. “If what we see is Iran’s nuclear program has not been obliterated, then we have to attempt to get Iran again to the negotiating desk,” she added.
Shaheen mentioned additional nuclear tensions are additionally attainable, as Tehran might “be satisfied their race to get a nuclear weapon is much more essential — given North Korea’s instance — and they’ll do all the pieces attainable to get there as rapidly as attainable.”
President Donald Trump speaks on the NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands, on June 25, 2025.
Piroschka Van De Wouw/Reuters
In the meantime, Trump mentioned the ceasefire is “going very properly” regardless of Tuesday’s continued exchanges, which prompted him to lambast each Israel and Iran and to talk with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to warn him off additional assaults.
“Israel got here again yesterday,” he mentioned. “I used to be so happy with them, as a result of they got here again, , they went out as a result of they felt it was a violation. And technically they have been proper, however it simply would not have labored out very properly. They usually introduced the planes again.”
“They don’t seem to be going to be combating one another,” he added of Israel and Iran. “They’ve had it. They’ve had an enormous struggle, like two children in a schoolyard. You already know, they struggle like hell. You may’t cease them. Allow them to struggle for about two, three minutes. Then it is simpler to cease them.”
Trump mentioned the U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear services on Saturday proved decisive. “That hit ended the warfare,” he mentioned, likening the U.S. atomic bomb assaults on Japan on the finish of World Struggle II.
“I do not wish to use an instance of Hiroshima, I do not wish to use an instance of Nagasaki, however that was primarily the identical factor that ended that warfare,” Trump mentioned. “If we did not take that out, they might have been, they’d be combating proper now,” he continued.
The president expressed optimism about the way forward for U.S. and Iranian relations.
“I believe we’ll find yourself having considerably of a relationship with Iran,” he mentioned. “I’ve had a relationship during the last 4 days. They agreed to the stop hearth, and it was a really equal settlement. They each mentioned, that is sufficient. They each mentioned it.”
ABC Information’ Joe Simonetti, Luis Martinez, Anne Flaherty and Ivan Pereira contributed to this report.
