Washington — President Trump on Friday said his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was “wrong” when she testified in March that Iran wasn’t building a nuclear weapon, marking the second time in a week the president has dismissed the assessment of the intelligence director he selected.
The White House this week said Iran has everything it needs to build a nuclear weapon and needs only the green light from Iran’s supreme leader, with the ability to ready a nuclear weapon within weeks. Mr. Trump said Iran was “very close to having” a nuclear weapon.
In March, Gabbard testified on Capitol Hill that the U.S. “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.” Gabbard later insisted she and the president are on the same page.
Mr. Trump dismissed his intelligence community’s public assessment of Iran on Friday, and Gabbard specifically, as the White House says the president will decide whether to join Israel in its strikes on Iran within two weeks.
When the president arrived in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Friday, a reporter asked him: “What intelligence do you have that Iran is building a nuclear weapon? Your intelligence community had said they have no evidence that they are at this point.”
“Well then, my intelligence community is wrong,” Mr. Trump responded. “Who in the intelligence community said that?”
“Your director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard,” the reporter answered.
“She’s wrong,” Mr. Trump said, moving on to the next question.
The president previously dismissed Gabbard’s testimony earlier this week, on his way back from a G7 summit in Canada. A reporter noted that Gabbard testified in March that the intelligence community said Iran wasn’t building a nuclear weapon.
“I don’t care what she said,” the president told reporters aboard Air Force One. “I think they were very close to having one.”
Vice President JD Vance wrote on X on Tuesday that “Tulsi’s testimony was in March, and a lot has changed since then.”
The president has been briefed on the risks and the benefits of bombing Fordo, Iran’s most secure nuclear site, multiple sources told CBS News this week. His mindset is that disabling it is necessary because of the risk of weapons being produced in a relatively short period of time.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday that the president will make a decision on whether to join Israel’s strikes within two weeks and allow the diplomatic path to play out.
“Based on the fact that there is 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,” the president said in a statement read by Leavitt at the White House press briefing. The Iranian foreign minister met with a group of European diplomats in Geneva on Friday.
Asked Friday if a strike could be possible before the two-week deadline is up, the president said: “I’m giving them a period of time. We’ll see what that period of time is. I’m giving them a period of time. But two weeks would be the maximum.”
