The White House has released some photos of President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and other members of his national security team as they huddled in the Situation Room during Saturday’s strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
In addition to the president and vice president, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, White House Chief of Staff Suzie Wiles, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard were also present.
The president addressed the nation following the attacks.
“A short time ago, the U.S. military carried out massive precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime: Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan,” he said. “Everybody heard those names for years as they built this horribly destructive enterprise.
“Our objective was the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity, and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s number one state sponsor of terror. Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success,” he added.
“For 40 years, Iran has been saying, ‘Death to America. Death to Israel.’ They have been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their legs with roadside bombs,” Trump continued. “That was their specialty. We lost over a thousand people and hundreds of thousands throughout the Middle East and around the world have died as a direct result of their hate in particular.”
Trump also said that Iran’s nuclear facilities had been “obliterated” and that the country has been backed into a corner and “must now make peace.”
“Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,” Trump said. “And Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier.”
Trump’s address came shortly after he announced on Thursday, through Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, that he would decide whether to strike Iran within a two-week timeframe, which now appears to have been a purposeful misdirection.
“I have a message directly from the president, and I quote, ‘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, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks,’” Leavitt said at a White House briefing quoting the president.
Trump had repeatedly called on Iran to reach an agreement on its nuclear program before taking military action against its nuclear facilities. However, Iran withdrew from scheduled talks with the U.S. on June 15 in Oman and declined to return to negotiations in the following days. On June 12, Israel launched preemptive strikes on Iran after intelligence indicated rapid progress in Iran’s nuclear program.
Trump praised the U.S. military for executing the successful operation and commended Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for collaborating with the U.S. during the mission.
“I want to thank and congratulate Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. We worked as a team, like perhaps no team has ever worked before, and we’ve gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel. I want to thank the Israeli military for the wonderful job they’ve done,” the president said. “And most importantly, I want to congratulate the great American patriots who flew those magnificent machines tonight and all of the United States military on an operation the likes of which the world has not seen in many, many decades.”