Vice President JD Vance weighed in on the ongoing dispute between media outlets and the Trump administration regarding the recent military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities — specifically, over whether or not the strikes were successful in destroying the intended targets.
President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio — declared the strikes a success and pushed back on reports citing an intelligence report that said otherwise. Vance shared a clip of that exchange and explained what he thought was truly telling about the whole scenario: the leaked intelligence report and the media coverage of the strike on Iran.
“This is such a revealing clip,” Vance began his lengthy post on X. “The American media is full of the least curious, least insightful people in our country. To recap, an out of context, ‘low confidence’ and incomplete intelligence report was selectively leaked to the media. The media reported on the findings without any real effort to figure out whether they represent any part of (much less the full) truth. The way the media has presented the report is contradicted by the IAEA, the Iranians themselves, and the administration’s political and defense leadership. More importantly, the media’s reports are contradicted by common sense.”
This is such a revealing clip. The American media is full of the least curious, least insightful people in our country.
To recap, an out of context, “low confidence” and incomplete intelligence report was selectively leaked to the media. The media reported on the findings…
— JD Vance (@JDVance) June 25, 2025
Vance went on to describe what actually happened during the strikes on Iran, saying, “To summarize: a dozen 30,000-pound bunker busters were dropped on Iran’s main nuclear site. (The other two sites that were targeted suffered heavy damage too). No one disputes they hit their targets. No one disputes the explosive or destructive power of the weapons. No one disputes that a week ago, Iran could have easily assembled a nuclear weapon and now they can’t.”
Everyone stipulated that the United States military had, in fact, struck the intended targets and done damage, Vance explained, noting that the only element in question was how much damage was done — and how quickly, if they were so inclined, could the Iranians rebuild?
“The entire debate — even accepting the press’s dishonest framing — is not about whether Iran can now build a nuke. They can’t. It’s about how much rebuilding the Iranians would have to do in order to achieve a nuclear weapon,” Vance said. “In other words, after a wildly successful military operation with no American casualties, the American media is trying to blame Donald Trump for the existence of facilities *that haven’t even been built yet.* (Set to the side Iran’s willingness to rebuild their program. As the President himself said, they now know there are serious consequences for rebuilding. They also learned that we can very easily set their progress back.)”
The vice president concluded by pointing to the one story that he believed should be covered, though it was clear that he held out little hope in American media outlets doing so.
“There is actually an interesting story here, if the media was interested in telling it,” he said. “Why are members of the intelligence community leaking incomplete reports against the elected leadership of the country? Why have the same reporters who have gotten so much wrong learned so little? What is the purpose of these leaks — who is behind them, and what are they trying to achieve? The media won’t investigate that story, though it would be in the public interest to do so.”
“So pay attention to the reporters who are laundering talking points from junior careerists in the intelligence community,” he warned. “President Trump has obliterated the Iranian nuclear program. The American media seems destined to obliterate their own credibility on this fake story.”