Maddow Blog-One day after strikes on Iran, Trump's 'totally obliterated' claims come into question

[LetMyPeopleVote]

One of the president's key assessments about the success of the U.S. mission in Iran was called into question within hours of his scripted remarks.

Trump's “completely and totally obliterated” line about the state of Iranian nuclear facilities proved impossible to believe — not within days, but within *hours* of his scripted remarks.

As the crisis intensifies, his non-existent credibility matters. www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-06-23T12:04:29.378Z

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/one-day-strikes-iran-trumps-totally-obliterated-claims-come-question-rcna214448

On Saturday night, the president delivered a televised address in which he sounded a triumphant note:

Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier.

The phrase “completely and totally obliterated” did not offer much in the way of nuance or wiggle room. Hours after Trump’s remarks, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth held a press conference at the Pentagon in which he used nearly identical phrasing: “Iran’s nuclear ambitions have been obliterated.”

Taken at face value, it suggested that the U.S. offensive was such a sterling success that Iran’s nuclear program effectively no longer existed. Indeed, it raised the question of whether additional negotiations over the future of Iran’s nuclear program would even be necessary: If the country’s nuclear ambitions have been completely and totally obliterated, what’s left to talk about?

But it wasn’t long before the reliability of the president’s claim came into question.

At Hegseth’s Sunday morning press conference, for example, Gen. Dan Caine, the Trump-appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it was “way too early” to offer a meaningful assessment of the damage done by U.S. strikes. Soon after, JD Vance appeared on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” and when host Kristin Welker asked if the Iran nuclear sites had, in fact, been completely and totally obliterated, the vice president hedged, saying only that the U.S. offensive “substantially delayed [Iranians’] development of a nuclear weapon.”......

One of his key assessments about the success of that mission was called into question, not weeks after its completion, but within hours of his remarks.

By late Sunday afternoon, Trump turned to his social media platform to argue, “The damage to the Nuclear sites in Iran is said to be ‘monumental.’” Almost immediately, however, the wording stood out as bizarre: The damage is “said to be” significant? By whom? The U.S. intelligence agencies that the president doesn’t believe? Was Trump, once again playing the role of President Bystander, distancing himself from the reliability of his assessment of the efficacy of the strike he ordered?

To be sure, it is possible that the Iranian sites were obliterated. For now, however, neither Trump nor anyone else seems to know for sure — which matters for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is the unnerving fact that the public cannot count on the American president for accurate and trustworthy information, even on profound matters related to national security.