After blasting the 'fake news' and mainstream outlets NY Times and CNN in particular in Wednesday comments at the NATO summit, President Trump will continue 'setting the record straight' on the Iran bombings, as the Pentagon is set to hold an "irrefutable" press conference on Thursday morning, providing more details on last weekend's B-2 bomber raids on the Iranian nuclear sites of (per AI summary)--
- Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant: A heavily fortified, deeply buried uranium enrichment site near the northern city of Qom.
- Natanz Nuclear Facility: Iran's main uranium-enrichment complex, located near Isfahan in central Iran.
- Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center: A key conversion and research facility south of Isfahan city.
Very unusually, the US President claimed that 'fake news' reports upset the pilots who flew the bombs over Iran, by claiming that Iran's nuclear capability was not in fact completely destroyed.
"Secretary of Defense (War!) Pete Hegseth, together with Military Representatives, will be holding a Major News Conference tomorrow morning at 8 A.M. EST at The Pentagon, in order to fight for the Dignity of our Great American Pilots," Trump posted to Truth Social.
"These Patriots were very upset! After 36 hours of dangerously flying through Enemy Territory, they landed, they knew the Success was LEGENDARY, and then, two days later, they started reading Fake News by CNN and The Failing New York Times. They felt terribly," he continued.
WATCH LIVE (to start at 0800ET):
Hegseth is also expected to address a controversial leaked Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report, first revealed by CNN, which strongly suggested that the US strikes did not destroy Iran's nuclear capability:
Two of the people familiar with the assessment said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed. One of the people said the centrifuges are largely “intact.” Another source said that the intelligence assessed enriched uranium was moved out of the sites prior to the US strikes.
“So the (DIA) assessment is that the US set them back maybe a few months, tops,” this person added.
Most recently the CIA has since backed the Trump admin's claims, with CIA Director John Ratcliffe on Wednesday having sought to clarify in a statement that the agency had obtained "a body of credible evidence [that] indicates Iran’s Nuclear Program has been severely damaged" by recent strikes. But then this too includes somewhat ambiguous language.
