U.S. President Donald Trump said in an interview reported by Axios that American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities prevented a nuclear attack and left Tehran militarily defeated. He argued that the Obama-era JCPOA was a path to nuclear weapons, saying, “Israel was not existing today,” and claiming Iran would have obtained the bomb years ago and used it against Israel and regional Arab states.
Trump described the attack as having been carried out by stealth B-2 bombers, saying the bombers hit the site before enriched material could remain there and that the mountain collapsed onto the facility. He said Iran was “a month away” from a bomb and added that, without the strike, it would have had nuclear weapons ready to use against Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Bahrain. He also claimed, “We defeated them completely militarily,” saying he destroyed their air force and anti-aircraft weapons and that “159 ships are now at the bottom of the sea.”
Trump praised cooperation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but stressed U.S. dominance in the alliance. “If it weren’t for Donald Trump and Bibi Netanyahu, who worked with me very well,” he said, then added, “but he will tell you, we are the ones with the weapons, we are the ones with ‘the whole deal,’ we are the ones with the B-2 bombers.” Asked about his current relationship with Netanyahu, Trump said, “It is good, but we need to keep him a little sane.”
On Lebanon, Trump said he would stop Israel from escalating there, answering directly, “I will control it. They have a lot of respect for me, and they do what I say.” The remarks come amid rising tensions between Washington and Jerusalem, after reports that Netanyahu has recently tried to cool the situation and make clear that cabinet ministers’ critical posts about Trump do not reflect his own position.
