Trump issues bleak warning about Iran conflict and hints at need for ‘Secretary of War’: Live updates

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, appearing alongside President Trump at his press conference today, revealed the leaked Iran assessment report was ‘preliminary’.

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 ‘make the president look bad’.

He hailed the US military’s ‘flawless’ and ‘devastating’ attacks on the three nuclear sites and said any assessment suggesting anything to the contrary ‘is speculating with other motives’.

Hegseth noted the leak will be investigated by the FBI.

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 says Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s title should be changed should be 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.’

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.

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.