President Donald Trump says he doesn’t “care” what director of intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has previously testified regarding Iran’s nuclear capabilities, telling reporters aboard Air Force One that Tehran was “very close” to getting a nuclear weapon. Trump spoke to reporters on his way back to the U.S. from a G-7 Summit in Canada, which he departed early to address the unfolding crisis in the Middle East amid Israel’s airstrike campaign in Iran.
Reporter: You’ve always said that you don’t believe Iran should be able to have a nuclear weapon. But how close do you personally think that they were to getting one? Because Tulsi Gabbard–
Trump: Very close.
Reporter: Tulsi Gabbard testified in March that — that the intelligence community said Iran wasn’t building a nuclear weapon.
Trump: I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having it.
The reporter’s question referenced Gabbard’s 2025 Annual Threat Assessment of the intelligence community in March, when she said: “The IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme leader Khomeini has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.”
Pressed by National Review on the president’s comments disputing Gabbard’s testimony, an ODNI official emphasized that mainstream reporting is leaving out important context from the DNI’s March ATA remarks regarding Iran’s enrichment aims.
“Iran’s nuclear program continues to pace,” Gabbard also said during her remarks. “It’s actively developing multiple space launch vehicles, which are a little more than flimsy cover for an intercontinental ballistic missile program that could hit the United States in a matter of years. But all this will soon come to an end. The supreme leader of Iran now faces a stark choice thanks to President Trump. The supreme leader can fully dismantle his nuclear program or he can have it dismantled for him.”
“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 decision-making apparatus,” Gabbard added. “Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons.”
Watch Trump’s comments here: