President Donald Trump called Saturday’s strikes on a trio of Iranian nuclear sites a ‘spectacular military success’ and gave a stark warning to Tehran that more attacks would be coming if the regime didn’t make peace.
Trump surprised the world a little before 8 p.m. Saturday by announcing on Truth Social that he had given the go-ahead to attack Iran, using six massive 30,000-pound ‘bunker buster’ bombs and 30 Tomahawk missiles to destroy Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan.
The president’s decision to join Israel on a mission to wipe out the Islamic republic’s nuclear program comes nine days after Israel first attacked.
Shortly after 10 p.m., Trump addressed the nation in the White House’s Cross Hall, flanked by Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
He spoke for less than four minutes.
‘Tonight I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success,’ Trump said. ‘Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.’
‘Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks will be far greater and a lot easier,’ Trump warned.
The president opened his remarks by calling Iran the ‘world’s No. 1 state-sponsor of terror.’
‘For 40 years, Iran has been saying “death to America, death to Israel,”‘ Trump said. ‘They have been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their legs with roadside bombs. That was their specialty.’
He blamed the deaths of thousands on Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, who the U.S. assassinated under the direction of Trump at the Baghdad airport in January 2020.
‘It will not continue,’ Trump warned.
Trump thanked and congratulated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who the president spoke to by phone after the U.S.’s bombing campaign, the Daily Mail confirmed.
‘We worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before,’ Trump boasted. ‘And we’ve gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel.’
The president then thanked the U.S.’s top military officials – saying that he hoped he would not have to order a strike on Iran again.
‘This cannot continue. There will either be peace or there will be tragedy for Iran far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days,’ he warned.
‘Remember, there are many targets left. Tonight’s was the most difficult of them all, by far, and perhaps the most lethal. But if peace does not come quickly we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill,’ the president said.
He warned that most Iranian targets can be taken out ‘in a matter of minutes.’
‘There’s no military in the world that could have done what we did tonight. Not even close. There’s never been a military that could do what took place just a little while ago,’ Trump said.
Trump ended his brief remarks by thanking God.
‘I want to just say we love you God, and we love our great military, protect them. God bless the Middle East. God bless Israel and God bless America,’ Trump said.
As the president was speaking, the White House released a number of images of Trump and his top officials meeting Saturday in the Situation Room.
Trump was still wearing the red Make America Great Again ballcap as Vance, Hegseth, Rubio, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine are gathered around him.
The president’s address came after he announced the attacks on Iran using his Truth Social network, a little before 8 p.m. Saturday.
‘We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan,’ the president said.
‘All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow,’ he continued. ‘All planes are safely on their way home.’
‘Congratulations to our great American Warriors. There is not another military in the World that could have done this,’ Trump said. ‘NOW IS HE TIME FOR PEACE!’
‘Thank you for your attention to this matter,’ he added.
The president revealed to Fox News’ Sean Hannity that the U.S. military used six massive 30,000-pound ‘bunker buster’ bombs on Iran’s Fordow nuclear site.
The other two nuclear sites were targeted with 30 Tomahawk missiles launched from submarines 400 miles away.
Prior to the Truth Social post, the president hasn’t showed his hand, walking into the White House Saturday evening without speaking to reporters around 6 p.m.
The White House even called a ‘lid’ – which is when the press pool, which tracks the president’s movements, is dismissed for the day.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that the president was giving himself two weeks to decide whether or not to attack Iran, with diplomatic options seemingly still on the table.
The Europeans had met with the Iranians on Friday in Geneva, Switzerland, but Trump had dismissed those talks.
‘Iran doesn’t want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us. Europe is not going to be able to help them,’ Trump said after landing in New Jersey on Friday.
Israel’s bombing campaign had started a week before, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyanu warning that Iran was coming too close to making a nuclear bomb.
Trump joined in on that assessment Friday, telling reporters as he landed in Morristown, New Jersey that ‘it looked like I’m right about the material 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.
He smacked down an assessment made by his Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard when she testified before Congress in March.
Gabbard had told lawmakers that the U.S. intelligence community ‘continues to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.’
She also said that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had ‘not authorized a nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.’
Trump told reporters when asked about Gabbard’s statement: ‘Well, then my intelligence community is wrong.’
Gabbard since clarified her comments.
‘The dishonest media is intentionally taking my testimony out of context and spreading fake news as a way to manufacture division,’ she posted to X on Friday. ‘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.’
‘President Trump has been clear that can’t happen, and I agree,’ she said.
