LONDON — President Donald Trump once more claimed “overall obliteration” of Iran’s nuclear program all through the NATO summit within the Netherlands on Wednesday, brushing aside an early Pentagon record suggesting the joint U.S.-Israeli moves on Tehran’s amenities will have handiest set its program again via an issue of months.
“I consider it used to be overall obliteration,” Trump informed journalists talking along NATO Secretary Normal Mark Rutte in The Hague, Netherlands.
A initial research of the moves via the Protection Intelligence Company and U.S. Central Command induced questions because the efficacy of the operation. Two other people acquainted with the record informed ABC Information it advised the moves did restricted harm and that Iran used to be ready to relocate extremely enriched uranium shares prior to the moves came about.
“I consider they did not have a possibility to get the rest out, as a result of we acted rapid,” Trump mentioned. “If it will have taken two weeks, perhaps. However it is very onerous to take away that more or less subject matter, very onerous and really unhealthy. Plus, they knew we had been coming, and in the event that they know we are coming, they are no longer going to be down there.”
This satellite tv for pc image via Planet Labs PBC displays Iran’s underground nuclear enrichment website at Fordo following U.S. airstrikes focused on the ability, on June 22, 2025.
Planet Labs Pbc/AP
Trump insisted Iran’s nuclear program were set again “principally a long time,” including, “It is long past for years.”
Requested if they may rebuild and whether or not the U.S. would strike once more, Trump mentioned that may be somebody else’s drawback.
“I am not going to have to fret about that,” he mentioned. “It is long past for years, years, very difficult to rebuild, as a result of the entire thing is collapsed. In different phrases, inside of, it is all collapsed. No one can get in to peer it, as a result of it is collapsed.”
Requested if he relied on U.S. intelligence, the president mentioned the preliminary record used to be “very inconclusive. The intelligence says we do not know, it will were very serious, that is what the intelligence says. So I suppose that is right kind, however I believe we will take the ‘we do not know.’ It used to be very serious. It used to be obliteration.”
Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio additionally spoke in make stronger of the president’s place, having accompanied Trump to The Hague.
“Given the 30,000 lbs of explosives and capacity of the ones munitions, it used to be devastation beneath Fordo,” Hegseth mentioned.
“Any evaluate that tells you it used to be one thing differently is speculating with different motives,” Hegseth persisted. “And we all know that as a result of while you in fact have a look at the record, via the best way, it used to be a best secret record, it used to be initial, it used to be low self assurance.”
Hegseth advised the leak of the record had “a political reason,” including, “We are doing a leak investigation with the FBI at this time as a result of this data is for inside functions.”
Rubio additionally claimed that the leak of the initial record used to be politically motivated, announcing that the assaults resulted in “whole and overall obliteration.”
“However all this leaker stuff, those leakers are skilled stabbers,” he mentioned. “They cross out and so they learn these items, after which they let you know what it says a criminal offense, however they symbolize it for you in some way that is completely false.”
The record induced additional consternation amongst Trump’s warring parties in Washington. Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Chris Coons informed ABC Information on the NATO summit it’s too quickly to resolve the luck of U.S. moves, including that the hot spherical of preventing may have been have shyed away from if Trump had no longer withdrawn from the Iran nuclear deal in his first time period.
“The American public wishes solutions for what what is actually happening,” Shaheen, rating member of the Senate Overseas Family members Committee and senior member of the Senate Armed Services and products Committee, mentioned. “If what we see is Iran’s nuclear program has no longer been obliterated, then we want to check out and get Iran again to the negotiating desk,” she added.
Shaheen mentioned additional nuclear tensions also are conceivable, as Tehran might “be satisfied their race to get a nuclear weapon is much more vital — given North Korea’s instance — and they’re going to do the whole lot conceivable to get there as briefly as conceivable.”
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 rather well” regardless of Tuesday’s persisted exchanges, which induced him to lambast each Israel and Iran and to talk with Israeli High Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to warn him off additional assaults.
“Israel got here again the day gone by,” he mentioned. “I used to be so pleased with them, as a result of they got here again, you recognize, they went out as a result of they felt it used to be a contravention. And technically they had been proper, nevertheless it simply do not need labored out rather well. They usually introduced the planes again.”
“They are no longer going to be preventing every different,” he added of Israel and Iran. “They have got had it. They have got had a large struggle, like two youngsters in a schoolyard. You recognize, they try like hell. You’ll be able to’t forestall them. Allow them to struggle for approximately two, 3 mins. Then it is more uncomplicated to prevent them.”
Trump mentioned the U.S. moves on Iran’s nuclear amenities on Saturday proved decisive. “That hit ended the battle,” he mentioned, likening the U.S. atomic bomb assaults on Japan on the finish of International Warfare II.
“I do not wish to use an instance of Hiroshima, I do not wish to use an instance of Nagasaki, however that used to be necessarily the similar factor that ended that battle,” Trump mentioned. “If we did not take that out, they might were, they might be preventing at this time,” he persisted.
The president expressed optimism about the way forward for U.S. and Iranian members of the family.
“I believe we’re going to finally end up having rather of a dating with Iran,” he mentioned. “I have had a dating during the last 4 days. They agreed to the stop fireplace, and it used to be an excessively equivalent 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 record.
