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  • 4 months ago
At the NATO Summit, President Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth refuted reports that the strikes on Iran didn't destroy their nuclear facilities.
Transcript
00:00We're going to be building bombs for a long time.
00:02Mr. President, what's your reaction to the intelligence reports saying that the Iranian nuclear sites were only partially devastated, not entirely?
00:11Yeah, well, they said it was actually the report.
00:14It could have been very, they don't know.
00:17I mean, they did a report.
00:19I could have Pete talk to it because his department did the report.
00:23They really don't know.
00:24I think Israel is going to be telling us very soon because Bibi is going to have people involved in that whole situation.
00:32We hear it was obliteration.
00:34It was a virtual obliteration.
00:35When you take a look at the ground above, don't forget, the flame is all underground.
00:40But everything above, if you look at the before and the after picture, everything above is burned black.
00:45The trees, everything.
00:47There's one building, but that's a building that sunk substantially into the granite so that, you know, the fire goes right over it.
00:54It was, I believe it was total obliteration.
00:58I believe they didn't have a chance to get anything out because we acted fast.
01:01If it would have taken two weeks, maybe.
01:04But it's very hard to remove that kind of material.
01:06Very hard and very dangerous for them to remove it.
01:09Plus, they knew we were coming.
01:11And if they know we're coming, they're not going to be down there.
01:15There aren't too many people that are going to be down there.
01:17Pete, do you have something to say about that?
01:18Well, Mr. President, when you talk to the people who built the bombs, understand what those bombs can do, and deliver those bombs, they landed precisely where they were supposed to.
01:28So it's a flawless mission.
01:29Flawless.
01:30Right down where we knew they needed to enter.
01:32And given the 30,000 pounds of explosives and capability of those munitions, it was devastation underneath Fordell.
01:40And the amount of munitions, six per location, any assessment that tells you it was something otherwise, is speculating with other motives.
01:49And we know that because when you actually look at the report, by the way, it was a top secret report.
01:53It was preliminary.
01:55It was low confidence.
01:57All right.
01:57So this is a you make assessments based on what you know.
02:00They don't said it could be very devastating, very moderate to severe.
02:04And we believe far more likely severe and obliterated.
02:08So this is a political motive here.
02:11Of course, we're doing a leak investigation with the FBI right now because this information is for internal purposes.
02:17Battle damage assessments and CNN and others are trying to spin it to make the president look bad when this was an overwhelming success.
02:24We had we had a tremendous success.
02:26And this is the New York Times.
02:27I call it the failing New York Times.
02:29It's going to hell.
02:30And CNN, which, as you know, very few people are watching.
02:33And you would think they'd do the opposite.
02:36You would think they'd want to say this was an unbelievable success.
02:40And the thing that hurts me is it's really demeaning to the pilots and the people that put that whole thing together, the generals.
02:46That was a perfect operation.
02:49And when you look at the holes and this was done from 52,000 feet, there was no moon, there was no light.
02:55And those three holes are right together.
02:58And also, and nobody talks about this, we shot 30 tomahawks from submarines, in particular one submarine.
03:05But that was 400 miles away.
03:08And every one of those tomahawks hit within a foot of where they were supposed to hit, took out a lot of buildings that Israel wasn't able to get.
03:17We took them out with tomahawks.
03:18We don't even talk about that.
03:20This was a devastating attack.
03:23And it knocked them for a loop.
03:26And, you know, if it didn't, they wouldn't have settled.
03:29If they had won, if we didn't take it out, they wouldn't have settled.
03:32Somebody mentioned that to me last night.
03:34If that thing wasn't devastated, they would have never settled.
03:37Marco, do you have something to say?
03:38No, first of all, on the stuff about the intelligence, this is what a leaker is telling you the intelligence says.
03:43That's the game these people play.
03:45They read it, and then they go out and characterize it the way they want it characterized, and they're leakers.
03:49This is the game they play.
03:50So that's number one.
03:51Number two, here's a fact.
03:53The conversion facility, which you can't do with a nuclear weapon without a conversion facility.
03:57You can't, we can't even find where it is, where it used to be on the map.
04:00You can't even find where it used to be, because the whole thing is just blackened out.
04:03It's gone.
04:04It's wiped out.
04:04It's wiped out.
04:05Then we drop 12 of the strongest bombs on the planet, right down the hole, in two places.
04:10Everything underneath that mountain is in bad shape.
04:13And I refer you to the statement of the IAEA, Mr. Grossi.
04:16You know what he said?
04:17He said there was Iran, the way it looked the day before the attack, and what their nuclear program looks like now.
04:23Two very different things.
04:24They are way behind where they were just seven days ago.
04:27Now, anything in the world can be rebuilt, but now we know where it is.
04:31And if they try to rebuild it, we'll have options there as well.
04:33But all this leaker stuff, these leakers are professional stabbers.
04:37That's what they are.
04:38They 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.
04:46There's no way Iran comes to the table if somehow nothing had happened.
04:49This was complete and total obliteration.
04:52They're in bad shape.
04:53They are way behind today compared to where they were just seven days ago because of what the president did.
04:57Marco, can I just alert you to one other aspect?
05:00So, the great thing is you took out the nuclear capability of Iran.
05:04This was crucial.
05:05You did it in a way which is extremely impressive.
05:08But the signal sends to the rest of the world that this president, when it comes to it, yes, he is a man of peace,
05:13but if necessary, he is willing to use strength, the enormous strength of the American military.
05:20So, I think that signal to the rest of the world, this is far beyond Iran, is extremely important.
05:25So, let me also point us to that aspect of what happened.
05:28They went down, Iran went down to the site afterwards.
05:33They said it's so devastated, and they settled when they saw what we did to it.
05:37And, frankly, if we didn't do that, they would have had a lot of ammunition to keep going.
05:42They wouldn't have settled.
05:44Somebody brought that up, and two Iranians went down to see it, and they called back, and they said,
05:48this place is gone.
05:50So, it's just fake news by CNN, which has got no ratings.
05:54It's a failed network.
05:55Anybody here from CNN, by the way?
05:57Because you're a really disgraceful network.
06:00MSNBC, I think, is actually worse.
06:02But they're all pretty bad.
06:03But yours is good, Katie, I'll tell you.
06:04You know what Marco reminded me of?
06:07He did such a nice job there.
06:09It was nine years ago I had to debate this guy.
06:12He was not easy.
06:14I think he even got better.
06:16But when you were into your little thing, I said, this is when I had to debate this guy.
06:20You think it's easy to debate?
06:22It's not easy.
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