President Donald Trump addressed the nation just after 10 p.m. Eastern Time following the U.S. military’s successful strikes on a trio of Iranian nuclear facilities.
‘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.’
‘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 reported 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 followed him announcing just Thursday, via his Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, that he would make a decision on whether to strike Iran within a two-week period.
‘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 Trump.
Trump had repeatedly urged Iran to make a deal on its nuclear program before striking its nuclear facilities, but the country pulled out of ongoing talks with the U.S. scheduled for June 15 in Oman and refused to return to the table in the days following. Israel preemptively ordered strikes on Iran June 12 as Israeli intelligence indicated Iran’s nuclear program was rapidly progressing.
Trump went on to congratulate the U.S. military for carrying out the successful attack, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for working with the U.S. during the operation.
‘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. 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,’ he said.
Trump warned Iran that ‘there will be either peace or there will be tragedy’ for the country following the strikes.
‘Remember, there are many targets left. Tonight’s was the most difficult of them all by far, and perhaps the most lethal. But if peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill. Most of them can be taken out in a matter of minutes. There’s no military in the world that could have done what we did tonight. Not even close. There’s never been a military that could do what took place just a little while ago,’ Trump said.
The president previewed that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine will hold a press conference on the strikes at 8 a.m. Eastern Time Sunday.
‘I want to just thank everybody. And in particular, God, I want to just say, we love you, God, and we love our great military. Protect them. God bless the Middle East. God bless Israel, and God bless America,’ he said before ending his address.
Trump announced Saturday evening via a Truth Social post, which was not preceded by media leaks, that the U.S. had carried out three successful attacks.
Fox News’ Sean Hannity reported Saturday that the U.S. used six bunker-buster bombs — each of which weighed 15 tons — in its strikes on Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility. The bombs were dropped from American B-2 stealth bombers.
Additionally, 30 tomahawk missiles launched from U.S. submarines were used in the attacks on the Nanatz and Isfahan facilities, he reported.
Ahead of the Saturday evening strikes, six B-2 stealth bombers from an Air Force base in Missouri appeared to be en route to a U.S. Air Force base in Guam, U.S. officials confirmed to Fox News Saturday.
Reports of the bombers were likely part of the ‘misleading tidbits put out there to suggest that maybe President Trump had had put off the decision,’ Fox News Chief National Security Correspondent Jennifer Griffin said during an appearance Saturday evening as news broke of the strikes.
‘Those six B-2 bombers that were heading west toward Guam, they would not have made it to Iran in time to take part in this strike,’ she said while speaking with Fox News’ Bret Baier Saturday evening. ‘So, that suggests to me that there was an additional B-1 package that perhaps flew eastward from Whiteman Air Force Base. Again, this was all part of the deception. There was a great deal of sort of misleading tidbits put out there to suggest that maybe President Trump had put off the decision and that this would happen two weeks from now.’
Israel launched pre-emptive strikes on Iran June 12 after months of attempted and stalled nuclear negotiations and subsequent heightened concern that Iran was advancing its nuclear program. Netanyahu declared soon afterward that the strikes were necessary to ‘roll back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival.’
He added that if Israel had not acted, ‘Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time.’
Dubbed ‘Operation Rising Lion,’ the strikes targeted Iran’s nuclear and missile infrastructure and killed a handful of senior Iranian military leaders.
Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin and Rachel Wolf contributed to this report.