Leftist “journalists” constantly try to trip up President Donald Trump, and it seems as if no matter how many times he puts them in their place and smacks them down with facts and straight talk about the issue at hand, there are always more propagandists eager to line up for a chance to make their bones by cornering the hated Orange Man with a question that he can’t answer, or that at least makes him squirm. Another one tried on Friday, and went down, like all the rest, in the entirely predictable flames.
The latest victim asked Trump: “Twenty years ago, you were skeptical of a Republican administration that attacked a Middle East country on the idea of questionable intelligence, of weapons of mass destruction. How is this moment different with Iran?” The “woke right” has been claiming that Trump has morphed into a Wilsonian nation-builder making the world safe for democracy, and that he has reneged on his promise of no new wars; the reporter was trying to entangle the president in some alleged contradiction between his Bush-era statements and what he is saying now.
JUST IN: President Trump says Iran is weeks or months away from having a nuclear weapon, says Tulsi Gabbard is “wrong.”
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) June 20, 2025
Reporter: What intelligence do you have that Iran is building a weapon? Your intel community said they have no evidence.
Trump: My intelligence community is… pic.twitter.com/eyuZIen51x
Trump, however, responded: “Well, there were no weapons of mass destruction. I never thought there were. And that was, uh, somewhat pre-nuclear, you know, it was, it was the nuclear age, but nothing like it is today.” Turning to Iran’s situation now, he added: “And it looked like I’m right about, uh, the material that they’ve gathered already. It’s a tremendous amount of material, and I think within a matter of weeks, or certainly within a matter of months, they were going to be able to have a nuclear weapon. We can’t let that happen.” Clearly, Trump has seen the evidence of Iran’s nuclear weapons program and finds it convincing.
The president then reminded the reporter, “I was very much opposed to Iraq. I was — I said it loud and clear, but I was a civilian, but I guess I got a lot of publicity. But I was very much opposed to the Iraq war. And I actually did say, ‘Don’t go in, don’t go in, don’t go in, but,’ I said, ‘if you’re going to go in, keep the oil.’ But they didn’t do that.”
Undaunted, the journo came back with this: “What intelligence do you have that Iran is building a nuclear weapon? Your intelligence community has said they have no evidence that they are at this point.” Trump’s response was blunt, unequivocal, and honest — just the sort of thing we ought always to have from presidents as well as other politicians, but so seldom get. “Well, then,” the president said, “my intelligence community is wrong. Who in the intelligence community said that?”
The hapless would-be new Woodward and/or Bernstein replied: “Your Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.” Trump didn’t flinch. He simply replied: “She’s wrong.” As it turned out, the reporter was repeating false information, likely based on a Washington Post report on Thursday, which said that “appearing before Congress in March, Gabbard testified that U.S. intelligence agencies assessed that Iran, despite its uranium enrichment work, has not restarted a nuclear weapons program it halted in 2003.”
Gabbard herself, however, has denied this, and revealed the establishment media to be as craven as ever:
The dishonest media is intentionally taking my testimony out of context and spreading fake news as a way to manufacture division. 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… pic.twitter.com/mYxjpJY2ud
— DNI Tulsi Gabbard (@DNIGabbard) June 20, 2025
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) appears to agree with Gabbard that Iran is close to developing nukes. In a May 31, 2025 report, it lamented that the Islamic Republic of Iran had ceased allowing all inspections of its nuclear sites that had been established under the Obama nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA): “The Agency’s JCPOA-related verification and monitoring has been seriously affected by the cessation of implementation by Iran of its nuclear-related commitments under the JCPOA. The situation has been exacerbated by Iran’s subsequent decision to have all of the Agency’s JCPOA-related surveillance and monitoring equipment removed.” Nothing suspicious there, right?
Related: Iran Has Been at War With the U.S. Since 1979
The IAEA explained that “Iran’s decision to remove all of the Agency’s equipment previously installed in Iran for JCPOA-related surveillance and monitoring activities has also had detrimental implications for the Agency’s ability to provide assurance of the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme.” Meanwhile, “the significantly increased production and accumulation of highly enriched uranium by Iran, the only non-nuclear-weapon State to produce such nuclear material, is of serious concern.”
Trump is duly concerned. Tulsi Gabbard is as well. And the reporter’s efforts at a gotcha moment for Trump backfired on the president’s forthright disavowal of any similarity between the situation in 2003 and the one now. Twenty years ago, the evidence was never discovered. Now, it seems to be all too clear.
The media will keep laying traps for Trump, and he will continue to elude them. Instead of these silly games, you need honest news reporting and insightful analysis. Get them as a PJ Media VIP. You'll get all our articles, our live chats, our podcasts, and more, all ad-free. Use the promo code FIGHT for 60% off.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member