Tulsi Gabbard reversed course and admitted that Iran actually does have the ability to create nuclear weapons after a public rebuke by her boss Donald Trump as Israel continues to wage war against the country.
The director of national intelligence blamed the ‘dishonest media’ for a week of confusion about whether the administration believes the Persian country can develop a weapon of mass destruction.
‘America has intelligence that Iran is at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months, if they decide to finalize the assembly,’ she wrote on X. ‘President Trump has been clear that can’t happen, and I agree.’
Trump warned that Tehran has a ‘maximum’ of two weeks to avoid possible American air strikes if they don’t abandon their nuclear ambitions.
In New Jersey on Friday, however, the president dismissed Gabbard’s testimony in March that the intelligence community ‘continues to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.’
The president responded, ‘Well then, my intelligence community is wrong. Who in the intelligence community said that?’
Informed that it had been Gabbard, Trump said, ‘She’s wrong.’
Gabbard responded on X Friday that ‘The dishonest media is intentionally taking my testimony out of context and spreading fake news as a way to manufacture division.’
She included video of her testimony that claims Iranians appear clearly to have ‘enriched uranium stockpiles at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons.’
She also noted that Iran ‘contains a wide range of threats’ to the United States and Israel.
Gabbard said that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had ‘not authorized a nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.’
But Trump said Friday as he was departing for his Bedminster, New Jersey golf club ‘it looked like I’m right about the material that they’ve gathered already.’
‘It is a tremendous amount of material and I think within a matter of weeks or certainly within a matter of months they will be able to have a nuclear weapon and we can’t let that happen,’ Trump said.
After landing in New Jersey for an evening fundraiser for his super political action committee, Trump was asked about Gabbard’s comments to Congress in March that U.S. spy agencies believed that Iran wasn’t working on nuclear warheads.
Still, disavowing Gabbard´s previous assessment came a day after the White House said Trump would decide within two weeks whether the U.S. military would get directly involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran.
The White House said seeking additional time was ‘based on the fact that there´s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future.’
Israel, meanwhile, claimed on Saturday it has already set back Iran’s presumed nuclear program by at least two years.
Trump himself seemed to cast doubts on the possibility of talks leading to a pause in fighting between Israel and Iran. He said that, while he might support a ceasefire, Israel’s strikes on Iran could be ‘very hard to stop.’
Asked about Iran suggesting that, if the U.S. was serious about furthering negotiations, it could call on Israel to stop its strikes, Trump responded, ‘I think it´s very hard to make that request right now.’
‘If somebody is winning, it´s a little bit harder to do than if somebody is losing,’ Trump said. ‘But we´re ready, willing and able, and we´ve been speaking to Iran, and we´ll see what happens.’
The president later added, ‘It´s very hard to stop when you look at it.’
‘Israel´s doing well in terms of war. And, I think, you would say that Iran is doing less well. It´s a little bit hard to get somebody to stop,’ Trump said.
Earlier Friday, DailyMail.com reported that Gabbard has been the target of a smear campaign from ‘deep state’ intelligence officials seeking to undermine her influence through strategic leaks as President Trump ponders whether to join Israel’s war against Iran, those close to her tell the Daily Mail.
Gabbard is in the room, helping the president and his team determine an informed path forward, these officials stressed, pushing back against multiple reports indicating that she’s been sidelined.
In fact, the president is calling on her, the sources claim.
Multiple intelligence officials spoke with the Daily Mail about Trump’s spy chief’s schedule and work since Israel launched an attack on Iran last week, shedding light on a normally clandestine affair.
‘All the National Security Council meetings she’s in on, and then, I mean, there’s lots of impromptu ones where he’s calling her into the office,’ one senior intelligence official shared. ‘She’s in there at all the key junctures,’ the source added.
‘She’s been in every meeting,’ a White House official told the Daily Mail, adding the DNI ‘has not been sidelined whatsoever.’
Reports have suggested that Trump has been advised by a smaller cohort, including VP J.D. Vance, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine.
They say Gabbard and Pentagon Sec. Pete Hegseth are on the outside looking in.
But these Gabbard allies told the Daily Mail the DNI has attended practically every crucial meeting at the White House and Situation Room since the conflict began.
Vice President Vance also threw his weight behind Gabbard with a glowing social media post: ‘She’s an essential member of our national security team, and we’re grateful for her tireless work to keep America safe from foreign threats.’
The White House official added that Hegseth has also been an integral member of ongoing military discussions regarding the Middle East.
Trump campaigned on decrying ‘endless wars’ and has vowed to be an international peacemaker.
That’s led some, even among conservatives, to point to Trump´s past criticism of the U.S. invasion of Iraq beginning in 2003 as being at odds with his more aggressive stance toward Iran now.
Trump suggested the two situations were very different, though.
‘There were no weapons of mass destruction. I never thought there were. And that was somewhat pre-nuclear. You know, it was, it was a nuclear age, but nothing like it is today,’ Trump said of his past criticism of the administration of President George W. Bush.
He added of Iran´s current nuclear program, ‘It looked like I´m right about the material that they´ve gathered already. It´s a tremendous amount of material.’
Trump also cast doubts on Iran’s developing nuclear capabilities for civilian pursuits, like power generation.
‘You´re sitting on one of the largest oil piles anywhere in the world,’ he said. ‘It´s a little bit hard to see why you´d need that.’
Israel said Saturday it’s air force had launched fresh airstrikes against missile storage and launch sites in central Iran, as it kept up a wave of attacks it says are aimed at preventing their rival from developing nuclear weapons — an ambition Tehran has denied.
‘According to the assessment we hear, we already delayed for at least two or three years the possibility for them to have a nuclear bomb,’ Israel’s foreign minister Gideon Saar said in an interview published Saturday.
Saar said Israel’s week-long onslaught will continue. ‘We will do everything that we can do there in order to remove this threat,’ he told German newspaper Bild.
Top diplomats from Britain, France and Germany met their Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi in Geneva on Friday and urged him to resume talks with the United States that had been derailed by Israel’s attacks.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said ‘we invited the Iranian minister to consider negotiations with all sides, including the United States, without awaiting the cessation of strikes, which we also hope for.’
But Araghchi told NBC News after the meeting that ‘we’re not prepared to negotiate with them (the United States) anymore, as long as the aggression continues.’
Trump was dismissive of European diplomacy efforts, telling reporters, ‘Iran doesn’t want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us. Europe is not going to be able to help in this.’
Trump also said he’s unlikely to ask Israel to stop its attacks to get Iran back to the table.
‘If somebody’s winning, it’s a little bit harder to do,’ he said.
Any US involvement would likely feature powerful bunker-busting bombs that no other country possesses to destroy an underground uranium enrichment facility in Fordo.
On the streets of Tehran, many shops were closed and normally busting markets largely abandoned on Friday.
The U.S. evacuated 79 staff and families from the U.S. Embassy in Israel on Friday as the conflict between Israel and Iran intensifies and growing numbers of private American citizens seek information on how to leave Israel and Iran.
An internal State Department memo says the military flight, the second known to have occurred this week, left Tel Aviv for Sofia, Bulgaria, where some or all of the passengers were to get a connecting charter flight to Washington.
