President Donald Trump proclaimed that his own director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was "wrong" about Iran in an exchange with reporters on a New Jersey tarmac on Friday after it was pointed out to him that she had said the intelligence community currently has no evidence Iran posesses or is building a nuclear weapon.
Less than an hour after this exchange, Gabbard took to X to claim the media was making things up and she had never actually contradicted Trump on Iran at all.
"The dishonest media is intentionally taking my testimony out of context and spreading fake news as a way to manufacture division," wrote Gabbard. "America has intelligence that Iran is at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months, if they decide to finalize the assembly. President Trump has been clear that can’t happen, and I agree."
In the clip she posted, Gabbard said, "the IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon, and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003. The IC continues to monitor closely if Tehran decides to reauthorize its nuclear weapons program. In the past year we've seen an erosion of a decades-long taboo in Iran on discussing nuclear weapons in public, likely emboldening nuclear weapons advocates within Iran's decisionmaking apparatus. Iran's enriched uranium stockpiles are at its highest levels, and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons."
While Gabbard's assessment does warn Iran has the resources to manufacture nuclear weapons relatively quickly if they so choose, she also definitively stated they are not currently trying to build one — which is what Trump was specifically asked to comment on, and what he claimed was "wrong."
Trump has reportedly already approved a theoretical military attack plan against Iran to destroy their nuclear facilities, but has not yet decided to go ahead with it, saying he'll give it two weeks.
