President Donald Trump told the American people tonight in a brief address to the nation that Iran's nuclear program has been ""completely totally obliterated" after U.S. airstrikes on Iran overnight into Sunday morning, Tehran time.
He congratulated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who launched Israel's strikes against Iran on June 13 and has been asking for U.S. assistance ever since. "We have worked as a team like no team has worked together before."
According to Trump and confirmed by reports earlier, the mountain facility at Fordo was struck, as well as the enrichment plant at Natanz, as well as another site at Isfahan. The strikes were carried out in part by B-2s, which can carry payloads of 30,000-pound "bunker buster" bombs. Later reports indicated that dozens of bunker busters were used on Fordo and Natanz, and that Navy submarines fired 30 TLAM cruise missiles at the Natanz and Isfahan sites.
Trump praised the "brilliant military minds" who helped plan the successful attacks — "the likes of which the world has not seen in many, many decades."
That said, now there "will be either peace or there will be tragedy for Iran, far greater for Iran than we have witnessed in the last many days," he added, noting there "are many other targets." He then proceeded to say "God Bless the Middle East, God Bless Israel" and then blessed the U.S. military.
His remarks came after he first announced the strikes around 8 PM EST on his Truth Social account:
Adam Weinstein, a Quincy Institute Middle East fellow who served as a combat Marine in Afghanistan, said the U.S. has now officially put the 40,000 troops in the Middle East in harm's way, a warning that many had tried to convey to the president and administration all week in the run up to tonight's action.
"You’ve put every U.S. troop and embassy in the region at risk and squandered America’s diplomatic leverage—though you’ll likely think you’ve strengthened it."
Some lawmakers pounced on the fact the president did not have Congressional authorization to attack, knowing that there was no imminent threat to the country.
“This is not Constitutional,” posted Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky), who had been vocalizing opposition to the strikes and had proposed legislation to stop them.
