President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday pushed back against a preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment suggesting that recent airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities caused only limited damage. Both men accused the media of disrespecting the U.S. Air Force pilots involved in the mission.
Speaking at a press conference in the Netherlands as he prepared to leave the NATO summit, Trump dismissed reports that the strikes on Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordo had set back Iran’s nuclear program by only a few months. He claimed such accounts undermined the efforts of the B-2 bomber crews who carried out the operation.
“You should be praising those people instead of trying to get me,” Trump told reporters. “You’re hurting those people.”
He acknowledged having seen the preliminary report from the Defense Intelligence Agency but argued it was incomplete. Trump insisted the strikes had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and redirected focus to the emotional toll on the pilots.
“I spoke to one of them,” Trump said. “He said, ‘Sir, we hit the site. It was perfect. It was dead on.’ They don’t understand fake news.”
Trump added that he had received calls from Missouri, where the pilots are based, saying the crews were “devastated” by how their mission was being portrayed.
In a post on Truth Social later Wednesday, Trump announced that Defense Secretary Hegseth would hold a press conference the following morning “to fight for the Dignity of our Great American Pilots.” He accused the media of using the intelligence report as a way to attack him, writing, “They felt terribly! Fortunately for them and, as usual, solely for the purpose of demeaning PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP.”
At the press conference, Hegseth stood beside Trump and criticized the media directly, saying, “They don’t care what the troops think.”
The Pentagon declined to comment on the intelligence assessment, referring questions to the White House. Meanwhile, questions about the long-term effectiveness of the strike remain, even as Trump and his team continue to highlight the bravery and precision of the mission’s pilots.
