A short press-pool transcript from a June 25, 2025 video capturing President Trump and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte discussing the effects of a recent strike on Iran’s nuclear sites. Speakers claim the strike caused ‘obliteration’ and set Iran’s program back "years" ("way behind... seven days ago"); the transcript also covers media criticism of leaks and a brief preview of a planned meeting with Ukraine’s President Zelensky. Tone is combative toward certain media outlets and triumphant about the military action.
Chapters
Statement of the IAEA, Mr. Grossi, you know what he said? He said there was Iran. The way it looked the day before the attack and what their nuclear program looks like now. Two very different things. They are way behind where they were just seven days ago. Now, anything in the world can be rebuilt, but now we know where it is. And if they try to rebuild it, we'll have options there as well. But all this leaker stuff. These leakers are professional stabbers. That's what they are. They go out and they read this stuff and then they tell you what it says against the law. But they characterize it for you in a way that's absolutely false. There's no way Iran comes to the table if somehow nothing had happened. This was complete and total obliteration. They're in bad shape. They are way behind today compared to where they were just seven days ago because of what the President did.
Marco, alert you to one other aspect. So great thing is you took out the nuclear capability of Iran. This was crucial. You did it in a way which is extremely impressive. But the signal sends to the rest of the world that this president, when it comes to it, yes, he's a man of peace, but if necessary, he is willing to use strength, the enormous strength of the American military. So I think that signal to the rest of the world, this is far beyond Iran, is extremely important. So let me also point us to that aspect of what happens.
They went down.
Iran went down to the site afterwards. They said it's so devastated. And they settled when they saw what we did to it. And frankly, if we didn't do that, they would have had a lot of ammunition to keep going. They wouldn't have settled. Somebody brought that up and two Iranians went down to see it, and they called back and they said, this place is gone. So it's just fake news by cnn, which has got no ratings. It's a failed network. Anybody here from cnn, by the way? Good, because you're really disgraceful network. Msnbc, I think, is actually worse, but they're all pretty bad. But yours is good, Katie. I'll tell you know what? Marco reminded me that he did such a nice job there. It was nine years ago. I had to debate this guy. He was not easy. I think he even got better. But when you were into your little thing, I said, this is when I had to debate this guy. You think it's not easy. How long do you think that the Iranian nuclear program has been put back by these mighty strikes? Years, I think, basically decades. Because I Don't think they'll ever do it again. I just don't think they're going to. I think they're going to take their oil, they're going to have some missiles and they'll have some defense. I think they've had it. I mean, they just went through hell. I think they've had it. The last thing they want to do is enrich. They've been trying to do it, by the way. It's hard to enrich. And, you know, when you look at a site like that, very, very hard to build. Very, very hard. Very expensive. They spent trillions of dollars trying to do this thing and they didn't come up with it. And we're actually getting along with them very well right now. But had we not succeeded with that hit? That hit ended the war. That hit ended the war. 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. This ended that war.
War.
If we didn't take that out, they would have been. They'd be fighting right now. Mr. President. Yeah.
If the Iranians do rebuild, would the.
United States, if they rebuild, would the.
United States strike again? And I'd also have a question about.
But I'm not going to have to worry about that. It's gone for years. Years. Very tough to rebuild because the whole thing has collapsed. In other words, inside, it's all collapsed. Nobody can get in to see it because it's collapsed. You can't go in to see a room that has, you know, 10 million tons of rock in it. And the tunnels are totally collapsed. But did they rebuild? Well, they've already looked at the tunnels. This was an unbelievable hit by genius pilots and genius people in the military. And they're not being given credit for it because we have scum that's in this group. And not all of you are. You have some great reporters, but you have scum. CNN is scum. MSDNC is scum. The New York Times is scum. They're bad people. They're sick. And what they've done is they tried to make this unbelievable victory into something less. Now, even they admit that it was hit very hard, okay? But it wasn't. 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 the hit and they say it was total obliteration. And, you know, I don't want it for me, I want it for the pilots. I want it for the military. They did such a good job. If you were in the Situation Room with me, with the generals and all of the people that did such a good job and, and then they get demeaned by these idiots at CNN who can't get ratings. The place is dying. Nobody wants to even waste their time going on their shows. So they form with the New York Times, who's dying. Also without Trump, you wouldn't have a New York Times.
And then just changing gears to your meeting with Zelensky later today. Can you give us any preview of what the two of you might be discussing?
No. Well, we'll discuss the obvious. We'll discuss his difficulties, get a little difficulty. Zelensky 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. Yes, I mean, it seems like the most likely.
Any restart jobs there or anything that you might do?
Well, we're going to see. I mean, I've spoken to Putin a lot and he actually was very nice. He volunteered help on, as you know, Iran. I said, no, I don't need help on Iran, I need help on Russia. Okay. I said, do me a favor, help us on Russia, not on Iran. But he was very nice. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk. I think progress is being made. I think great progress is being made on Gaza. I think the, because of this attack that we made, I think we're going to have some very good news. I was talking to Steve Witkoff, who, by the way, is terrific and who knows more about this subject than anybody. The subject of what we were just talking about, he was on last night with Jesse and with Laura and with Sean and boy, he has Susan. He has a great take on it. He just explains it so easily. He's really very knowledgeable. But he did tell me that Gaza is very close. One follow up on Iran.
Both you and Secretary Rubio and Hexef mentioned the leak. But can you clarify, is the intelligence correct or is the intelligence wrong?
Well, the intelligence was very inconclusive. The intelligence says we don't know. It could have been very severe. That's what the intelligence says. So I guess that's correct. But I Think we can take that? We don't know. It was very severe. It was obliteration. And you'd think that a media outlet would say, isn't that a great thing? I mean, more importantly for the pilots, for the military, you take their guts out. You take their absolute guts out. They had a tremendous attack. It was a complete obliteration. The other team, the other group, Iran, said, let's stop this. And you know what? Israel said it, too. Very smart. They fought like hell. And then they said, let's stop, and they're going to build themselves. And I really see it just sticking. I mean, we may do papers on it. Marco, maybe we're going to do papers. I don't even know if you need them. They're not going to be fighting each other. They've had it. They've had a big fight, like two kids at a schoolyard. You know, they fight like hell. You can't stop them. Let them fight for about two, three minutes, then it's easier to stop them.
And then Daddy has to sometimes use strong language against the strong language.
Every once in a while, you have to use a certain word.
I think we have to join the other side.
Yes. We're going to join some other group. Yes. Thank you. Katie, one last question.
Do you.
Do you believe that she's so good about the IRA army? Thank you, Mr. President. She used to be very difficult. Go ahead.
Do you believe that this strike on the Iranian nuclear program will lead to the release of the hostages in Gaza?
I think that it helped a little bit. It showed a lot of power. Yeah, I think it helped. But we're going to get separately. Even before this, we were very close to making a deal on Gaza. I think this helped. Yes.
