Trump promises ‘irrefutable’ facts about Iran bombing

Trump has touted a ‘major’ update will be provided to the American people at 8am EST.

He shared a Truth Social post on Wednesday revealing Pete Hegseth, who he described as the ‘Secretary of Defense (War!)’ will deliver the briefing alongside military representatives.

The conference will be to ‘fight for the Dignity of our Great American Pilots.’

‘These Patriots were very upset! After 36 hours of dangerously flying through Enemy Territory, they landed, they knew the Success was LEGENDARY.

‘Then, two days later, they started reading Fake News by CNN and The Failing New York Times.’

Trump said ‘they felt terribly’ about what they were reading, but were assured the stories were ‘solely for the purpose of demeaning PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP.

‘The Fake News (Times and CNN) lied and totally misrepresented the Facts, none of which they had (because it was too soon, there were no Facts out there yet!).

‘The News Conference will prove both interesting and irrefutable,’ he vowed.

Donald Trump bashed Zohran Mamdani after the democratic socialist´s surprise trouncing of former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in last night´s Democratic primary in the city´s mayoral race.

‘It’s finally happened, the Democrats have crossed the line,’ Trump wrote Wednesday in a social media post crafted during his flight back from the NATO Summit.

He branded the mayoral hopeful as ‘a 100% Communist Lunatic’.

‘We’ve had Radical Lefties before, but this is getting a little ridiculous,’ he went on adding: ‘He looks TERRIBLE, his voice is grating, he’s not very smart.’

Mamdani has publicly described himself as being ‘Trump’s worst nightmare’.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres ‘very much hopes’ the talks between the US and Iran will lead to an end to the conflict, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

Guterres also hopes the momentum from the Israel-Iran ceasefire will lead to negotiations to end the conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.

Trump, providing little detail about the talks, said they will take place next week.

All of the roughly 20,000 passengers who were on flights that were diverted Monday night after Iran fired missiles towards a US military base in the Gulf country were put on new flights within 24 hours, Qatar Airways confirmed Wednesday.

Iran launched a missile attack on Al Udeid Air Base in Doha after the US bombed key Iranian nuclear sites – threatening a further escalation in regional tensions before a ceasefire between Iran and Israel was announced.

The attack forced Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain to shut their airspace temporarily while Dubai’s two airports in the United Arab Emirates briefly halted operations.

The closures created a backlog of thousands of passengers at Doha’s Hamad International Airport who waited for hours, facing long delays and flight cancellations.

Trump has hit out at CNN again in another Truth Social post on Wednesday night.

The president has been raging against the network for claiming that his precision strikes on Iran weren’t as effective as authorities had hoped.

On Wednesday night, he wrote: ‘FAKE NEWS CNN IS SO DISGUSTING AND INCOMPETENT. SOME OF THE DUMBEST ANCHORS IN THE BUSINESS!’

Israeli commandos were secretly operating inside Iran during the countries’ 12-day war, the head of Israel’s military said Wednesday.

‘We achieved full control over Iranian airspace and in every location where we chose to operate,’ chief of staff Eyal Zamir said in a televised address.

‘This was made possible thanks to, among other things, coordination and tactical deception carried out by our air force and ground commando units,’ he added.

‘The forces operated in secret deep within enemy territory and created operational freedom of action for us.’

Zamir was the first Israeli official to say publicly that Israeli soldiers had operated on the ground in Iran.

‘The campaign is not yet finished,’ he added. ‘We must remain on guard – many challenges await.’

Pictured: Smoke and flames rise, following Israeli strikes on Iran, in Piranshahr, Iran on June 13, 2025

The all-Senate classified briefing on Iran has been rescheduled for Thursday as lawmakers look for more answers from President Donald Trump’s decision to strike Tehran’s nuclear facilities.

The Trump administration on Tuesday postponed the classified briefings for both Senate and House members.

The Senate briefing has been rescheduled for Thursday so that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio could attend.

Sources with knowledge of the scheduling change told CNN the briefing with now take place at 2pm.

The House is scheduled to be briefed on Friday.

The head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service has thanked the US Central Intelligence Agency for its help in ‘joint’ operations during its 12-day war with Iran.

Israeli spy chief David Barnea in a video Wednesday thanked his agents for their work making Israel ‘safer, more powerful and better prepared for the future’.

‘I also wish to express my gratitude and appreciation to our key partner – the CIA – for the joint action and the operations that were successfully carried out, as well as to its director, who supported the Mossad in making the right decisions,’ Barnea added.

Israel’s attacks on Iran starting June 13 targeted not only the Islamic republic’s missile and nuclear facilities, but also senior military figures and atomic scientists.

Analysts say the strikes underlined how Israel’s intelligence services had succeeded in penetrating the Iranian state, although the extent of the purported help provided by the CIA is unknown.

The US military helped shoot down Iranian missiles fired at Israel, and President Donald Trump ultimately joined Israel’s campaign with strikes using massive bunker-busting bombs on Iranian nuclear facilities.

‘We will continue to keep our eyes wide open on all of Iran’s undertakings – projects we know in depth – and we will be there, as we always have been,’ Barnea said in his video statement.

After the ceasefire went into effect on Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Israel would crush any effort by Iran to rebuild its nuclear program.

Pictured left to right: Israel’s Head of the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters Major-General Nitzan Alon, Israeli army Chief of the General Staff Lieutenant-General Herzi Halevi, Israel Security Agency director Ronen Bar, and Israeli intelligence agency Mossad director David Barnea at the Hostages and Missing Persons situation room on January 25, 2025

President Donald Trump revealed he’s already vetting candidates to replace Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, while once again blasting the central banker and calling him ‘stupid’ for failing to bring down a key interest rate.

‘I think he’s terrible,’ Trump interjected when a reporter asked him during his press conference at The Hague for NATO meetings whether he was considering replacements for the Fed chair.

Trump disclosed that he was – after speaking openly about getting rid of Powell, despite uncertainty over whether he has the authority to fire the head of the independent Fed.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has denied calling Donald Trump ‘daddy’.

He used the word ‘daddy’ during a news conference in reference to Trump’s intervention in the Israel-Iran conflict, which the president had compared to two children fighting in a school playground.

But Rutte later clarified the remark in an interview with reuters:

I said, that sounds a little bit like a small child asking his daddy, ‘hey, are you still staying with the family?’ So, in that sense, I use ‘daddy,’ not that I was calling President Trump daddy

Donald Trump and his NATO counterparts jointly underlined their ‘ironclad commitment’ to come to each other’s aid if attacked.

‘They want to protect their country, and they need the United States, and without the United States, it’s not going to be the same,’ Trump told reporters in The Hague on Wednesday.

‘I left there saying that these people really love their countries. It’s not a rip off. And we’re here to help them protect their country,’ he added.

That security guarantee is the reason previously neutral Finland and Sweden sought to join NATO after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and why Ukraine itself and other countries in Europe also want in.

Trump has hit out at a ‘witch hunt’ against Benjamin Netanyahu as he faces accusations of corruption.

‘Bibi and I just went through HELL together, fighting a very tough and brilliant longtime enemy of Israel, Iran,’ Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Wednesday.

‘Bibi could not have been better, sharper, or stronger in his LOVE for the incredible Holy Land. Anybody else would have suffered losses, embarrassment, and chaos! Bibi Netanyahu was a WARRIOR, like perhaps no other Warrior in the History of Israel.’

Trump heaped praise on his ally, revealing ‘there is no one that I know who could have worked in better harmony with the President of the United States, ME.’

‘It was the United States of America that saved Israel, and now it is going to be the United States of America that saves Bibi Netanyahu.

‘THIS TRAVESTY OF “JUSTICE” CAN NOT BE ALLOWED!’

Trump said he and Netanyahu were fighting ‘literally for the Survival of Israel.’

‘Such a WITCH HUNT, for a man who has given so much, is unthinkable to me. He deserves much better than this, and so does the State of Israel.’

Trump called for a full and sweeping pardon of Netanyahu, or for the entire trial to be ‘cancelled immediately’ in honor of the ‘Great Hero, who has done so much for the State.’

British Prime Minisiter Keir Starmer met Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday, along with leaders from France, Germany, Italy and the secretary general of Nato.

The Prime Minister said there was ‘an opportunity to seize the momentum from the summit’ to continue to step up support for Ukraine and ‘apply further pressure on Russia’.

Zelensky and President Donald Trump shared a meeting during the NATO Summit to discuss similiar objectives.

‘The Prime Minister met the Nato secretary general, the presidents of France and Ukraine, the chancellor of Germany and the prime ministers of Italy and Poland this afternoon,’ Starmer’s spokesperson said.

‘The leaders began by reflecting on the success of the Nato summit in The Hague and welcomed the strong backing for Ukraine from allies.

‘There was now an opportunity to seize the momentum from the summit to continue to step up support for Ukraine and apply further pressure on Russia, the Prime Minister said.

‘Discussing the situation in Ukraine, including the horrific attacks on civilians in the days leading up to the Nato summit, the leaders agreed it was clear Putin was not serious about securing peace.’

Starmer’s office added the ‘leaders agreed to stay in close touch’.

NATO leaders agreed on Wednesday on a massive hike in defense spending to 5 per cent of GDP after pressure from Donald Trump, and expressed their ‘ironclad commitment’ to come to each other’s aid if attacked.

Spain had already officially announced that it cannot meet the target, and others have voiced reservations, but the investment pledge includes a review of spending in four years.

Trump, however, is upset by Spain’s decision and said he’d have the country make up for it by paying higher tariffs to the United States as part of a trade deal.

‘I think Spain is terrible what they’ve done,’ Trump told a Spanish news reporter.

He said it is ‘the only country out of all of the [NATO] countries that refuses to pay 2 per cent, they want a little bit of a free ride.’

He said that was even though their economy was doing ‘very well’, warning ‘that economy could be blown right out of the water.’

Trump then threatened: ‘We’re negotiating with Spain on a trade deal, you know what we’re going to do? We’re going to make Spain pay twice as much, and I’m actually serious about that.’

Pictured: Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez pauses during a press conference after the plenary session at the NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands

The White House will limit the its sharing of classified information with Congress after CNN leaked a preliminary assessment on the Iran strikes.

The Trump adminsitration believes the Defense Intelligence Agency report was leaked Monday night after being posted on a system used to share classified intelligence with Congress, a US official confirmed.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered an investigation into the leak.

Trump is ‘well intentioned’ regarding Turkey’s request to obtain F-35s fighter jets, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday, a day after the two met on the sidelines of a NATO summit.

Turkey was removed from the US-led F-35 program in 2019 – during Trump’s first term in office – after it acquired Russian S-400 missile systems.

Turkey is now trying to return to the project.

Erdogan told reporters that Turkey paid more than $1.3 billion toward the jets before its ouster.

‘We saw that Mr. Trump has good intentions about delivering them,’ he shared.

The US previously made Turkey’s return to the F-35 program conditional on Ankara abandoning the Russian air defense system.

Erdogan said the two pair not discuss ‘the S-400 issue’.

CIA intelligence ‘contradicts’ the ‘illegally sourced’ reporting about the US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, director John Ratcliffe has claimed.

He issued a statement on X Wednesday afternoon confirming Tehran’s nuclear program was ‘severly damaged’ by the strikes.

President Trump demonstrated compassion towards a journalist at his NATO Summit press conference who revealed her husband is fighting on the frontlines in Ukraine.

BBC Ukrainian reporter Myroslava Petsa asked Trump about Patriot missile systems during the briefing, which saw the lay into several media outlets.

‘Are you living yourself, now, in Ukraine?’ Trump questioned after Petsa asked her question.

‘My husband is there and me, with the kids, I’m in Russia actually,’ she replied.

When she confirmed her husband was a soldier, the president admitted their family’s situation is ‘rough’.

Trump said her question was ‘very good’ and revealed the US is going to try to get to Patriot air defence systems to Ukraine, noting the missile systems are ‘very hard to get’.

‘I wish you a lot of luck. I mean, I can see it’s very upsetting to you,’ he concluded, adding: ‘Say hello to your husband.’

President Trump suggested renaming the Department of Defense after the ‘great victory’ in Iran.

The governmental agency used to be called the War Department – but the moniker was changed by President Truman after World War II.

Trump, hailing America’s success in Iran, jokingly told reporters at the NATO Summit in the Netherlands today that Pete Hegseth should be called teh ‘secretary of war’.

‘You know it used to be called secretary of war,’ Trump said of Hegseth’s title within the defense department. ‘Maybe for a couple of weeks we’ll call it that because we feel like warriors.’

He then introduced Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth as ‘secretary of state and secretary of war’.

Trump also revealed that the name War Department can still be found inscribed on the wall of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House, where the department was once housed.

Donald Trump has called on CNN to fire Pentagon Correspondent Natasha Bertrand in a fiery post on his Truth Social platform.

Trump said Bertrand, 33, should be ‘thrown out “like a dog”‘ for her alleged continuous spreading of ‘fake news’.

‘She lied on the Laptop from Hell Story, and now she lied on the Nuclear Sites Story, attempting to destroy our Patriot Pilots by making them look bad when, in fact, they did a GREAT job and hit “pay dirt” — TOTAL OBLITERATION!’ he wrote.

Trump demanded she be ‘immediately reprimanded’ and said she should ‘ not be allowed to work at Fake News CNN’.

‘It’s people like her who destroyed the reputation of a once great Network. Her slant was so obviously negative, besides, she doesn’t have what it takes to be an on camera correspondent, not even close,’ he concluded, adding: ‘FIRE NATASHA!’

Trump and other White House officials have pointed out Bertrand was also the journalist who reported that some worried Hunter Biden’s laptop was a Russian disinformation campaign, which ultimately ended up not being the case.

Bertrand was a reporter for Politico at the time and later joined CNN to cover national security issues.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard says ‘new intelligence’ has confirmed that Iran’s nuclear facilities were destroyed.

She did not reveal what specifically this ‘new intelligence’ includes.

‘If the Iranians chose to rebuild, they would have to rebuild all three facilities (Natanz, Fordow, Esfahan) entirely, which would likely take years to do,’ she tweeted.

She claimed the evidence echoed what President Trump has stated ‘numerous times’ and then hit out at the ‘propaganda media’ that leaked the a classified preliminary assessment of the mission.

She said the outlets – likely referring to CNN and the New York Times – chose to ‘selectively release portions of illegally leaked classified intelligence assessments’.

Gubbard, highlighting how they ‘intentionally’ failed to mention the report was written with ‘low confidence’, claimed the move was an attempt ‘to undermine President Trump’s decisive leadership and the brave servicemen and women who flawlessly executed a truly historic mission to keep the American people safe and secure’.

Her comments mirror that of Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who also both hit out at the media earlier Wednesday.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt blasted CNN for its report on an intelligence assessment that cast doubt on the outcome of President Donald Trump’s airstrike against Iran nuclear targets.

She praised Trump for negotiating a quick ceasefire between Iran and Israel and added: ‘No other president in history could have ever dreamed of such a success. That is exactly why the fake news media is now trying to demean and undermine the president,’ she told Fox News.

Leavitt pointed out this was a ‘low confidence preliminary intelligence assessment’ and noted the Pentagon ‘themselves have now come out and said this was a preliminary report. The CNN story got it completely wrong.’

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wants the person who leaked the classified Iran report to serve time.

‘They should go to jail,’ she told Fox News’ Ryan Schmelz when probed about potential consequences for the leaker.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at the NATO summit today that there would be an investigation into how the intelligence assessment leaked and dismissed it as ‘preliminary’ and ‘low confidence’.

The FBI is aiding in the probe, he added.

On a day when President Trump hammered CNN and the New York Times for revealing material from a preliminary Defense Intelligence Agency document on bomb damage in Iran, the White House piled on and dismissed the ‘low confidence’ report that got leaked.

‘President Trump directed the most complex and secretive military operation in history, and it was a resounding success, resulting in a ceasefire agreement and the end of the “12-day-war,” said the statement to the White House, seemingly overlooking D-Day and other military feats.

‘The precision strikes perfectly hit their targets and destroyed Iran’s nuclear facilities, resulting in the total obliteration of Iran’s ability to create a nuclear weapon,’ it continued.

‘Parts of this inconclusive, low-confidence intelligence assessment were leaked to Fake News CNN to undermine the President and more egregiously, disparage the brave pilots who successfully conducted this mission.’ Then came the ‘bottom line’ conclusion: ‘Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000-pound bombs perfectly on their targets: Total Obliteration.’

The White House has accused CNN of ‘spewing fake news’ based on leaked classified data at a ‘low confidence’ level.

In a blistering statement today, the Trump Adminstration hit out at CNN again – echoing remarks from the president himself.

‘President Trump directed the most complex and secretive military operation in history, and it was a resounding success, resulting in a ceasefire agreement and the end of the “12-day-war”,’ the White House said.

Officials applauded how the precision strikes ‘perfectly hit their targets’ and ‘destroyed’ Iran’s nuclear facilities, resulting in ‘total obliteration’ of Tehran’s ability to create nuclear weapons.

‘Parts of this inconclusive, low-confidence intelligence assessment were leaked to Fake News CNN to undermine the President and more egregiously, disparage the brave pilots who successfully conducted this mission,’ the statement blasts.

‘BOTTOM LINE: Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000-pound bombs perfectly on their targets: Total Obliteration.’

The classified report on the strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities was based on only ‘one day’s worth of intelligence reporting’, a US official confirmed to Daily Mail.

The strikes took place between 6 and 7pm EST on Saturday, but the Defense Intelligence Agency’s preliminary assessment report was based on data as of 9pm Sunday.

Officials claim additional intelligence was gethered through various ‘sources and methods’ in the days following the devastating mission.

It will also take ‘days to weeks’ for officials to ‘accumulate necessary data to assess the effects’ of the mission, the DIA report states.

The DIA report was delivered with ‘low confidence’ and was ‘not coordinated’ with other US intelligence agencies, the official notes.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence will rely on data from all 17 intelligence services when composing reports for the president and his team.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised his ‘good meeting’ with President Donald Trump at the NATO Summit today.

Zelensky says he applauded Trump’s ‘successful operation in the Middle East’ and says they discussed how to two nations could ‘strengthen each other’.

‘We discussed the protection of our people with the President — first and foremost, the purchase of American air defense systems to shield our cities, our people, churches, and infrastructure,’ he revealed in a post on X.

‘Ukraine is ready to buy this equipment and support American weapons manufacturers. Europe can help.’

He said the pair also talked about the ‘potential for co-production of drones’.

They also addressed the situation on the frontlines in Ukraine, vowing: ‘Putin is definitely not winning. I presented the President with the facts about what is really happening on the ground.’

Zelensky also thanked Trump for his ‘support’ and ‘truly kind words about our people’.

President Donald Trump has launched another attack on CNN and the New York Times for leaking a ‘top secret’ early assesment on the attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said the outlets were trying to ‘demean the great work’ of the B2 pilots and accused their journalists of ‘cheating again’.

‘These reporters are just BAD AND SICK PEOPLE,’ he wrote.

‘You would think they would be proud of the great success we had, instead of trying to always make our Country look bad. TOTAL OBLITERATION!’

President Donald Trump has left the Netherlands to return to Washington D.C.

He was on the ground less than 24 hours but crammed in a dinner with world leaders, breakfast with Dutch royalty, meetings with NATO President Mark Rutte and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.

He capped off his time with a 45-minute press conference where he defended his air strike against Iran.

Donald Trump doubled down on his assertion that American airstrikes over the weekend had destroyed the Islamic Republic’s nuclear sites.

Opening his remarks, Trump claimed Iran’s nuclear laboratories had been rendered ‘totally inoperable,’ citing official statements from both Tehran and Tel Aviv that acknowledged significant destruction.

He told reporters that US intelligence had been corroborated by sources on the ground in Iran who confirmed that the targeted facilities had been completely wiped out.

President Trump declared Finland the ‘king of icebreakers’ and revealed during his press conference today that he has offered to purchase some from the country.

‘You’re very good at icebreakers,’ Trump told a reporter from Finland. The ships can help bolster US defenses in the Arctic.

Trump said he’s gone to Finnish President Alexander Stubb seeking to buy a ‘fairly used icebreaker’ and offered ‘about one third of what he asked for’.

‘But we’re negotiating,’ Trump said. ‘We need icebreakers in the US. And, if we can get some inexpensively, I’d like to do that.’

He suggested the US might be willing to buy as many as 15 of them, including the used icebreaker that Trump said might be immediately available.

‘We’re trying to make a good deal,’ Trump said.

The Pentagon has launched a criminal probe into a leaked top-secret military intelligence report alleging that the U.S. strikes in Iran were underwhelming.

The leaked report from the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) reportedly states that the U.S. strikes only delayed Iran from getting a nuclear weapon by a couple of months.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the FBI has taken the lead on conducting the probe after CNN, the New York Times and other outlets disclosed the report’s findings.

‘Oh, fake news CNN? Ay yay yay. Here you go,’ Trump said after picking on a reporter later revealed to be Collins. ‘Wait until you hear this question.’

Seemingly wary given their history, the president pleaded: ‘You should really say how great our soldiers and our warriors are.’

Collins quipped back, ‘I think everyone appreciates our soldiers and our warriors’ –  before continuing with her questions.

By Geoff Earle, Deputy U.S. Political Editor

President Trump tore into NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell at his press conference when she pressed him on a Pentagon intelligence assessment about the bomb damage to Iran’s nuclear sites.

It started when she tried to get Trump to confirm the authenticity of the preliminary assessment following press reports about it.

‘They presented a report that wasn’t finished,’ Trump said. ‘The report said what it said, and it was fine. It was severe, they think, but they had no idea,’ he said.

Then he went after the longtime correspondent and accused her of attacking the US pilots who flew the bombing mission.

‘You – especially you – should be proud of those pilots, and you shouldn’t be trying to demean them,’ Trump said.

O’Donnell pushed back, but a White House aide gripped the microphone, making it hard to hear her retorts.

‘Let me just tell you, you and NBC, fake news, which is one of the worst, and CNN, New York Times, they’re all bad, they’re sick. There’s something wrong with them. You know what? You should be praising those people, instead of trying to find something,’ Trump lectured.

Then Trump claimed the pilots were ‘devastated’ by the reporting. ‘You should make them heroes and heroines,’ Trump urged.

Trump says Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s title should be changed to Secretary of War after the successful strike in Iran.

‘Should we say Secretary of War?’ Trump said of Hegseth.

‘Maybe, for a few weeks, we’ll call it that because we feel like warriors.’

He added: ‘It used to be Secretary of War and then we became politically correct and it became Secretary of Defense.’

The Secretary of War title was eliminated by President Truman in 1947 in the aftermath of the Second World War.

Donald Trump said he is considering sending more Patriot missile batteries to Ukraine after talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Trump said the anti-missile missiles are ‘very hard to get’ but that ‘we are going to see if we can make some of them available.’

The president said Zelensky would like to end the war and claimed he would speak to Putin about it soon.

‘Look, Vladimir Putin really has to end that war,’ Trump said.

Pictured: A Patriot weapons system being fired at the NATO Missile Firing Installation, in Chania, Greece, on Nov. 8, 2017

NATO Chief Mark Rutte says the US ‘has to take action when it is necessary’ to secure world peace.

Rutte, speaking to CNN reporters at the NATO Summit in The Hague today, addressed Donald Trump’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

‘Nobody in the world is able to do this. Only the United States,’ he said.

‘You’re 25% of the world’s economy, you are by far the biggest military power in the world.

‘History makes you the leader. History makes you the ones who have to take action when it is necessary.’

Donald Trump boasted about the strength of the US military during his press conference in The Hague today.

He claimed the US has now ‘reasserted the credibility of the American deterrence’.

‘The people at NATO said there’s never been anything [like it],’ Trump said.

‘We have a great military, we have great generals.’

He also addressed Iran’s attack on the US base in Qatar, saying: ‘Out of 14 high-end missiles that were shot at the base in Qatar, all 14 have been shut down, as you know, by our equipment.’

Secretary of State Marco Rubio broke character when a reporter from Sky News asked President Trump about NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte calling him ‘daddy.’

‘Do you regard your NATO allies as kind of children?’ the reporter asked.

The usually serious-faced Rubio bent over laughing in response to the question.

Trump has said Russian President Vladimir Putin is ‘misguided’ over his country’s war with Ukraine.

Asked about the Russia-Ukraine war, Trump said Putin called him to ask if he needed help with a settlement with Iran and he told him, ‘no you’re going to help me with Russia’.

Trump said: ‘I know one thing, he’d like to settle. He’d like to get out of this thing, it’s a mess for him.’

He then reeled off several global conflicts the US had helped to ‘take care of’ including India and Pakistan before coming back to Putin who he said he believed was ‘misguided’.

‘I’m very surprised actually. I thought we should have settled that easily,’ Trump added.

Trump said Iran ‘fought bravely’ in its war against Israel as he told reporters he would the country to make a recovery.

Asked if he was abandoning his maximum pressure on Iran by allowing China to purchase its oil, Trump said.

‘They’ve just had a war’ which was ‘fought bravely’.

He then added, ‘If they’re going to sell oil, they’re going to sell oil’.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth tore into CNN for leaking the ‘top secret’ Iran assessment, which he says was ‘preliminary’ and deemed to be ‘low confidence’ in its data.

‘There’s a reason the president calls out fake news for what it is,’ Hegseth told a press conference at the NATO Summit today.

‘These pilots, these refuellers, these fighters, these air defenders – the skill and courage it took to go into enemy territory flying 36 hours on behalf of the American people and the world to take out a nuclear program is beyond what anyone in this audience can fathom.’

The Defense Intelligence Agency assessment leaked by CNN yesterday contradicted Trump’s claims that Iran’s nuclear program was ‘obliterated’.

It further alleged the bombing only set the program back by months.

But Hegseth today said releasing the ‘top secret’ and ‘preliminary’ report was an attempt to push their own ‘agendas’.

‘The instinct of CNN, the instinct of the New York Times is to try to find a way to spin it for their own political reasons to try to hurt President Trump or our country.

‘They don’t care what the troops think. They don’t care what the workld thinks. They want to spin it to try to make the President look bad based on a leak.’

Trump also said the internal assessment on the strikes in Iran was still in progress at the time it was leaked.

‘They presented a report that wasn’t finished. We’re talking about something that took place three days ago,’ the president added.

Hegseth noted the leak will be investigated with FBI involvement.

President Donald Trump downplayed that any move toward a ceasefire in the Ukraine war was accomplished during his sit-down Wednesday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of the NATO Summit.

‘No, no, I wanted to know how he’s doing. He was very nice actually. We had a little rough times sometimes. He couldn’t have been nicer. I think he’d like to see an end to this, I do,’ Trump said. ‘What I took from the meeting … that he’d like to see it end.’

Trump and Zelensky kept the press out of their meeting, which happened directly before the U.S. president’s whirlwind press conference, after there were famously fireworks during their February meeting in the Oval Office in Washington, D.C.

The president was also asked why he wasn’t able to resolve the Ukraine war within 24 hours of taking office, which he reiterated was a ‘sarcastic’ comment when he repeatedly said so on the campaign trail.

‘Because it’s more difficult than people would have any idea,’ Trump responded.

Trump revealed during his press conference in the Hague that his administration will soon speak with Iran.

But said he isn’t particularly interested in restarting negotiations with Iran, insisting that US strikes had destroyed its nuclear program.

‘We’re going to talk to them next week, with Iran, we may sign an agreement. I don’t know,’ he said.

‘To me, I don’t think it’s that necessary. They had a war they fought, now they’re going back to their world.’

Trump added: ‘I don’t care if I have an agreement or not.’

By Geoff Earle, Deputy U.S. Political Editor

Israel’s intelligence services believe the combined U.S. and Israeli strikes have done ‘very significant’ damage to its nuclear facilities, Axios reported Tuesday.

The country itself has not put out an analysis of the strike. The White House earlier Tuesday pushed out an assessment by the Israel Atomic Energy Commission concluding that the joint strikes put down its weapons program by ‘many years.’

Trump cited that letter at his press conference in The Hague, saying: ‘This is an official letter. They’re very serious people, as you know.’ He has been attacking CNN and the New York Times following reports of a classified Defense Intelligence Agency that Iran’s program may have been set back by only a matter of months.

Axios called it an ‘emerging assessment’ that was more optimistic than that of the DIA.

Trump begrudgingly took a question from CNN’s Kaitlan Collins during the NATO press conference – moments after branding the network as ‘fake news’.

He told the White House correspondent that her network should show respect to US fighter pilots, which she said everyone could agree on.

She asked him whether US was relying on Israeli intelligence for its assessment of damage to Iranian sites.

‘Iran also made this statement,’ he said, in apparent reference to the Iranian foreign minister admitting that the sites were ‘badly damaged’.

Referring to the leaked US intelligence report covered by CNN and other outlets, he said: ‘The document said it could be very severe damage… you didn’t choose to put that.

‘Since then we’ve collected different intelligence, there have been people down there,’ he claimed.

He added that he believes uranium was not moved from the sites. ‘We think everything nuclear is in there, they didn’t take it out,’ he said.

Donald Trump has told how Iran warned Washington before it carried out an attack on an American air base in Qatar.

Talking at The Hague, Trump suggested Iran asked ‘is one o’clock okay?. He said Washington’s reply was: ‘That’s fine.’

The President said all 14 missiles fired at the base were shot down.

Trump has said that the Israel-Iran conflict could start again ‘some day’.

The President said that while he believed the ceasefire would hold, he did not deny that it could erupt again.

But he suggested this would be in the future, possibly after his term as President is over.

‘It won’t be me, it will be someone else, but we will have to deal with it,’ he said.

Trump bashed ‘fake news’ CNN over the leaked assesment they published yesterday that claimed the US strikes did not wipe out Iran’s nuclear program.

During his NATO press conference, Trump read the Israel Atomic Energy Commission assessment about the mission’s susccess.

‘This is an official letter and they’re very serious people as you know,’ Trump said and he read Israel’s statement.

He then criticized several news outlets: ‘What bothered me about these reports— the fake reports put out by the New York Times… and by fake news CNN and MSDNC, all of these terrible people, you know they have no credibility.’

President Trump praised the Netherlands for its hosting of the NATO summit.

‘Couldn’t, couldn’t have been nicer,’ he said. ‘And it’s a beautiful country, really a beautiful country.’

‘I saw the most beautiful trees,’ he added. ‘In fact, I want to bring some back with me.’

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has thanked Donald Trump after a ‘long and substantive’ meeting at the NATO summit.

Zelensky said the leaders covered ‘all the truly important issues’ which included how to achieve a ceasefire in the war against Russia.

President Trump started off his press conference at NATO by bragging about his air strike in Iran.

He said Iran’s nuclear sites were rendered ‘totally inoperable. It was devastated.’

Trump also noted that the U.S military base in Qatar – which the Iranians fired missiles at, was emptied ahead of that attack.

‘Everybody was emptied off the base so they couldn’t get hurt, except for the gunners,’ he said.

President Donald Trump has begun his press conference at the NATO summit.

Standing next to him are Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Trump heads back to the United States once the press conference concludes.

President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky met behind closed doors at the NATO summit in The Hague.

The two men sat down together as Trump’s final meeting of the day before his formal press conference.

White House press traveling with the president noted they waited outside the meeting room for 30 minutes before being told there would be no media access. No explanation was given as to why.

Earlier Wednesday Trump said he and Zelensky would discuss the ‘obvious.’

‘We’ll discuss the obvious. We’ll discuss his difficulty. He’s got a little difficulty, Zelensky,’ Trump said at the start of the summit.

‘He’s a nice guy. I mean, I’m going to meet him today. I don’t know, I assume we’re going to be discussing Ukraine.’

NATO chief Mark Rutte has denied that the flattery he has aimed at Donald Trump is ‘demeaning’.

The secretary-general earlier called the US president ‘daddy’ in reference to his intervention in the Israel-Iran conflict, which Trump had compared to two children fighting in a school playground.

Rutte told a news conference in The Hague: ‘It is a question of taste.

‘He is a good friend, and when he is doing stuff, which is forcing us… when it comes to making more investments, would that have been the result of this summit if he would have not been re-elected president?’

Israeli officials have said they are unaware of any operation inside the Fordow nuclear site after Donald Trump indicated they inspected the facility following US strikes on Sunday.

Speaking at NATO earlier today, Trump suggested Israeli operatives had gone inside Fordow after bunker-busting bombs were dropped on it and reported back it had been obliterated.

Trump said:

It was hit brutally, and it knocked it out. The original word that I use, I guess it got us in trouble, because it’s a strong word. It was obliteration, and you’ll see that, and it’s going to come out.

Israel is doing a report on it – now I understand. And I was told that they said it was total obliteration. You know, they have guys that go in there after, after the hit, and they say it was total obliteration.

But Israeli officials told the Kan public broadcaster that they are unaware of any Israeli activity inside Fordow.

Earlier, the Israeli military said it is still ‘too early’ to assess what damage has been done to Iran’s nuclear programme after the 12-day war.

Body language expert Judi James had the same ‘Daddy’ interpretation of Trump’s actions as NATO chief Mark Rutte.

After Trump used the f-word in telling Israel and Iran to stop fighting, James told the Daily Mail: ‘It’s an alpha technique to intimidate and to reduce your enemy verbally, to the level of warring rebellious children that need Dad to come along to sort them out.’

James was speaking before Rutte said Trump was like a ‘Daddy’ who uses ‘strong language’ to stop two children fighting in a schoolyard.

A poll taken in the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump’s decision to unleash ‘bunker buster’ bombs on Iran’s nuclear facilities reveals how Americans feel about the attack.

The poll numbers reveal the potential risks of an ongoing conflict – although Trump dramatically announced a ceasefire Monday night.

He also told reporters Tuesday that it was holding after dressing down Israel and calling for the US ally to have its planes ‘turn around and head home.’

The US ‘torpedoed democracy’ after it ‘greenlighted’ Israeli strikes on Iran, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman has said.

In comments published by Al Jazeera, Esmaeil Baghaei said Iran would have to ascertain whether the US is ‘really serious’ about diplomacy before any form of engagement after being asked about Trump’s suggestion that America would have ‘some sort of a relationship’ with his country.

Questioning how any trust could remain between the US and Iran, Baghaei said:

While they [US officials] have been talking about diplomacy, they greenlighted the Israelis to attack Iran. They [the US] torpedoed diplomacy.

By Geoff Earle, Deputy U.S. Political Editor

The White House has pushed out an Israeli assessment that attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities have set back its weapons program by ‘many years.’

It provided the document after Trump called the U.S. attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities with bunker buster bombs a ‘complete obliteration.’ But a leaked Defense Intelligence Agency preliminary assessment was far less certain – prompting Trump to rail against networks and leakers while diminishing the early secret analysis.

‘The devastating US strike on Fordo destroyed the site’s critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable,’ said the statement titled ‘On behalf of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission.’

The statement, which carries no official letterhead, continues: ‘We assess that the American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, combined with Israeli strikes on other elements of Iran’s military nuclear program, has set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years.’

It says the achievement can continue ‘indefinitely’ if Iran doesn’t’ get access to nuclear material.

Iran has branded NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s gushing note to President Donald Trump on US strikes targeting key nuclear sites as ‘disgraceful, despicable and irresponsible’.

On Tuesday, Rutte hailed in a pre-NATO summit note to Trump what he called his ‘decisive action’ in Iran, days after the United States conducted unprecedented strikes on its nuclear facilities.

Rutte said the move ‘was truly extraordinary and something no one else dared to do. It makes us safer.’

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei hit back today, saying it was ‘disgraceful, despicable and irresponsible for #NATO’s SG to congratulate a ‘truly extraordinary’ criminal act of aggression against a sovereign State.’

Whoever ‘supports a crime is regarded as complicit,’ Baqaei said in a post on X.

President Donald Trump is a ‘daddy’ who has used ‘strong language’ to stop the warring parties in the Middle East, NATO chief Mark Rutte suggested.

The US president said during a press conference that he believes the ceasefire between Iran and Israel will hold because they have had enough of fighting.

‘They’re not going to be fighting each other, they’ve had it,’ he told reporters.

‘Like two kids in the schoolyard, they fight like hell, you can’t stop them. Let them fight for two or three minutes then it’s easy to stop them.

Rutte interjected with a laugh: ‘Daddy has to use strong language.’

‘You have to use strong language, every once in a while you have to use a certain word!’ Trump replied, referencing his use of the f-word yesterday.

NATO leaders on Wednesday signed onto a plan that has long been pushed by President Donald Trump – to get Europeans to foot more of the defense alliance’s bill.

The 32 NATO countries agreed to language that said ‘allies commit to invest 5 percent of GDP annually on core defense requirements as well as defense-and security-related spending by 2035.’

On Tuesday, Trump was still complaining about Spain’s resistance to the spending hike.

Madrid pushed for the language in the summit declaration to be changed from ‘we commit’ to ‘allies commit,’ giving the country some spending flexibility still.

President Donald Trump had high words of praise for Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima, calling them straight from ‘central casting.’

‘I actually had breakfast today with a king and a queen who were beautiful, beautiful people. Central Casting,’ he told reporters at the NATO summit.

Trump is a former TV star and producer, so his words are a high compliment to the royals.

The king and queen invited Trump to spend the night at Huis Ten Bosch palace, an offer the president accepted. It marks the first time an American president stayed at palace.

Donald Trump said that ‘great progress’ was being made to end the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza as a new ceasefire push began more than 20 months since the start of the conflict.

‘I think great progress is being made on Gaza,’ Trump told reporters ahead of a NATO summit in the Netherlands, adding that his special envoy Steve Witkoff had told him ‘Gaza is very close.’

He linked his optimism about imminent ‘very good news’ for the Gaza Strip to a ceasefire agreed on Tuesday between Israel and Hamas backer Iran to end their 12-day war.

Pictured: Smoke billows during Israeli strikes east of Jabalia city in the northern Gaza Strip on June 22, 2025

Pictured: Palestinians are seen liviing in makeshift tents and the rubble of collapsed buildings in Jabalia, Gaza on June 24, 2025

Pictured: Makeshift tents housing Palestinians and buildings destroyed in Israeli attacks in the Sheikh Ridvan neighborhood of Gaza City, Gaza on June 24, 2025

Donald Trump went on a foul-mouthed tirade yesterday saying that both Israel and Iran violated the ceasefire deal that he announced Monday evening.

‘We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f*** they’re doing,’ Trump said before boarding Marine One en route to the NATO Summit early Tuesday morning.

But this was not the first time Trump’s fury has boiled over.

All 32 NATO heads of state have gathered in The Hague for the summit, joined by senior European Union officials and Ukrainian representatives.

Ukraine is not a member of NATO.

Here are some of the summit’s most notable attendees:

• US President Donald Trump
• UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
• Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney
• French President Emmanuel Macron
• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz
• Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni
• Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez
• Netherlands Prime Minister Dick Schoof
• Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
• Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban
• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen

Donald Trump will meet with meet with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky at the NATO Summit.

‘We’ll discuss the obvious. We’ll discuss his difficulty. He’s got a little difficulty, Zelensky,’ Trump told reporters today before joining the summit.

‘He’s a nice guy. I mean, I’m going to meet him today. I don’t know, I assume we’re going to be discussing Ukraine.’

The pair famously had an explosive dispute in the Oval Office in February.

They were meant to meet up at the Group of Seven summit in Canada earlier this month, but Trump departed the event early.

The Trump administration has blocked Ukraine’s bid to join NATO.

President Trump said he was ‘proud’ of Israel for recalling jets poised to strike Iran in what could have been a threat to a fragile ceasefire.

‘Israel came back yesterday. I was so proud of them, because they came back, they went out because they felt it was a violation,’ Trump said at the NATO summit in The Hague.’

Trump said ‘technically’ the Israelis were right – Israel says Iran had fired three missiles toward its territory.

‘But it just wouldn’t have worked out very well,’ Trump continued, before minimizing a powerful attack. ‘They brought the planes back, they had gone on to another journey because it was a little bit of a violation. I said, You got to get them back. And they came back, and it was great thing.’

Trump had posted online in all caps after leaving the White House Tuesday: ‘Israel. Do not drop those bombs. If you do it is a major violation. Bring your pilots home. Now!’

President Donald Trump repeatedly slammed the media for its reports on a U.S. intelligence assessment that cast doubts on the airstrike’s ability to take out Iran’s nuclear program.

CNN and The New York Times both reported on a leaked intelligence assessment that stated the weekend strikes against key nuclear facilities in the country only set back Iran’s nuclear programme by a couple months.

‘We had a tremendous success,’ Trump told reporters at his first NATO meeting. ‘And this is the New York Times. I call it the failing New York Times. It’s going to hell. And CNN, which is, you know, very few people are watching, and you would think they’d do the opposite.’

‘So it’s just fake news by CNN, which has got no ratings. It’s a failed network,’ he added.

‘CNN is scum, the New York Times is scum, MSNBC is scum,’ he said.

‘They’re bad people, they’re sick. And what they’ve done is they want to turn this incredible victory into something less,’ he noted.

The president also made a furious post on the matter to his Truth Social account from the Netherlands at what would have been near 4am local time.

‘Fake news CNN, together with the failing New York Times, have teamed up in an attempt to demean one of the most successful military strikes in history,’ he wrote.

The Pentagon has begun an investigation into the leaked intelligence report on the airstrike on Iran.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the FBI has taken the lead on conducting the probe after CNN, the New York Times and other outlets obtained the report.

‘We’re doing a leak investigation with the FBI right now, because this information is for internal purposes, battle damage assessments, and CNN and others are trying to spin it to make the president look bad,’ he said during the NATO meeting.

And Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued the leakers had an agenda.

‘This is what a leaker is telling you the intelligence says,’ he said of the report. ‘That’s the game these people play. They read it and then they go out and characterize it the way they want it characterized. And they’re leakers. This is the game they play.’

He added it was ‘against the law’ to leak the information and told the media the leakers ‘characterize it for you in a way that’s absolutely false.’

President Donald Trump compared his airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear sites to the two nuclear bombs dropped on Japan that ended World War II.

His strikes also ended a war, he noted, pointing to the Israel and Iran ceasefire.

‘That hit ended the war,’ Trump said. ‘I don’t want to use an example of Hiroshima. I don’t want to use an example of Nagasaki. But that was essentially the same thing. That ended that war.’

‘If we didn’t take that out, they would have been they’d be fighting right now,’ he added.

Trump didn’t rule out another airstrike if necessary.

When asked whether the US would strike again if Iran built its nuclear enrichment program, he replied: ‘Sure.’

President Donald Trump doubled down on the success of the American airstrike on Iran after an intelligence assessment cast doubt about it.

‘I believe it was total obliteration,’ the president said.

And he cast doubt on the intelligence report.

‘The intelligence was very inconclusive. The intelligence says “we don’t know,”’ he said.

He also dismissed reports the Iranians were able to remove enriched uranium ahead of the strike.

‘I believe they didn’t have a chance to get anything out, because we acted fast. If it would have taken two weeks, maybe. But it’s very hard to remove that kind of material, very hard and very dangerous for them to remove it,’ the president said.

‘Plus they knew we were coming, and if they know we’re coming, they’re not going to be down there. There aren’t too many people that are going to be down there.’

Trump’s top aides, sitting next to him in his meeting with NATO President Mark Rutte, backed the president.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called it a ‘flawless mission’ and slammed the intelligence report’s findings.

‘When you actually look at the report, by the way, it was a top secret report. It was preliminary. It was low confidence,’ he said.

NATO President Mark Rutte had news that pleased President Donald Trump: the alliance will decide unanimously for countries to raise defence spending to 5% of gross domestic product.

Trump has long wanted a 5% contribution, up from the 2% being used.

‘I’ve been asking them to go up to 5% for a number of years, and they’re going up to 5%,’ the president said in his one-on-one with Rutte.

Rutte repeatedly praised Trump for pressuring the member states to ramp up their spending. He has courted Trump ahead of the trip, texting him a congratulations note on the strike on Iran that Trump shared on social media.

The NATO president also noted the contribution increase would not have happened ‘if Trump would not have been elected president of the United States.’

‘This would not have happened if you would not have been elected in 2016 and

re elected last year and back into office in January. So I want to thank you,’ Rutte told the president.

There could, however, be some objections from member nations who aren’t happy about the new spending level. Spain, in particular, is angry about it. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said that his country would contribute ‘no more, no less’ than 2.1%.

It also remains unclear if the United States will meet the 5% contribution mark. Currently the U.S. contributes 3.5% and Trump has argued that is enough.

President Donald Trump offered uneasy NATO members some reassurance about his commitment to the alliance, saying he was with them ‘all the way.’

Trump has long cast doubt he would support NATO’s Article 5, which requires members to defend each other from attack.

On the plane ride over on Tuesday, he was noncommittal when asked about.

But he was more reassuring on Wednesday.

When asked about Article 5, Trump told reporters: ‘We’re with them all the way.’

Article 5 is seen as a sacrosanct pillar of the NATO alliance. It has only been used once: on September 11, 2001 when the NATO countries backed America after the terrorist attack.

President Donald Trump arrived in The Hague Tuesday night for the fourth international trip of his second term.

The president is expected to spend less than 24 hours in the Netherlands, where, in addition to meeting with NATO leaders, he’ll meet with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Trump started his trip with a family photo and a group dinner on Tuesday night, where he sat next to Dutch Queen Maxima.

President Donald Trump started off his day at NATO on a royal note, having breakfast with Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima.

The Dutch royals invited Trump to spend the night at Huis Ten Bosch palace, an offer the president accepted.

It marks the first time an American president stayed at palace.

And Trump expressed his appreciation.

‘The day begins in the beautiful Netherlands. The King and Queen are beautiful and spectacular people. Our breakfast meeting was great! Now it’s off to the very important NATO Meetings. The USA will be very well represented!,’ the president wrote on his Truth Social account.