Trump compares Iran strikes to atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: NATO Summit live

President Donald Trump compared his airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear sites to the two nuclear bombs dropped on Japan that ended World War II.

His strikes also ended a war, he noted, pointing to the Israel and Iran ceasefire.

‘That hit ended the war,’ Trump said. ‘I don’t want to use an example of Hiroshima. I don’t want to use an example of Nagasaki. But that was essentially the same thing. That ended that war.’

‘If we didn’t take that out, they would have been they’d be fighting right now,’ he added.

Trump didn’t rule out another airstrike if necessary.

When asked whether the US would strike again if Iran built its nuclear enrichment program, he replied: ‘Sure.’

The US ‘torpedoed democracy’ after it ‘greenlighted’ Israeli strikes on Iran, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman has said.

In comments published by Al Jazeera, Esmaeil Baghaei said Iran would have to ascertain whether the US is ‘really serious’ about diplomacy before any form of engagement after being asked about Trump’s suggestion that America would have ‘some sort of a relationship’ with his country.

Questioning how any trust could remain between the US and Iran, Baghaei said:

While they [US officials] have been talking about diplomacy, they greenlighted the Israelis to attack Iran. They [the US] torpedoed diplomacy.

By Geoff Earle, Deputy U.S. Political Editor

The White House has pushed out an Israeli assessment that attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities have set back its weapons program by ‘many years.’

It provided the document after Trump called the U.S. attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities with bunker buster bombs a ‘complete obliteration.’ But a leaked Defense Intelligence Agency preliminary assessment was far less certain – prompting Trump to rail against networks and leakers while diminishing the early secret analysis.

‘The devastating US strike on Fordo destroyed the site’s critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable,’ said the statement titled ‘On behalf of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission.’

The statement, which carries no official letterhead, continues: ‘We assess that the American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, combined with Israeli strikes on other elements of Iran’s military nuclear program, has set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years.’

It says the achievement can continue ‘indefinitely’ if Iran doesn’t’ get access to nuclear material.

Iran has branded NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s gushing note to President Donald Trump on US strikes targeting key nuclear sites as ‘disgraceful, despicable and irresponsible’.

On Tuesday, Rutte hailed in a pre-NATO summit note to Trump what he called his ‘decisive action’ in Iran, days after the United States conducted unprecedented strikes on its nuclear facilities.

Rutte said the move ‘was truly extraordinary and something no one else dared to do. It makes us safer.’

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei hit back today, saying it was ‘disgraceful, despicable and irresponsible for #NATO’s SG to congratulate a ‘truly extraordinary’ criminal act of aggression against a sovereign State.’

Whoever ‘supports a crime is regarded as complicit,’ Baqaei said in a post on X.

President Donald Trump is a ‘daddy’ who has used ‘strong language’ to stop the warring parties in the Middle East, NATO chief Mark Rutte suggested.

The US president said during a press conference that he believes the ceasefire between Iran and Israel will hold because they have had enough of fighting.

‘They’re not going to be fighting each other, they’ve had it,’ he told reporters.

‘Like two kids in the schoolyard, they fight like hell, you can’t stop them. Let them fight for two or three minutes then it’s easy to stop them.

Rutte interjected with a laugh: ‘Daddy has to use strong language.’

‘You have to use strong language, every once in a while you have to use a certain word!’ Trump replied, referencing his use of the f-word yesterday.

NATO leaders on Wednesday signed onto a plan that has long been pushed by President Donald Trump – to get Europeans to foot more of the defense alliance’s bill.

The 32 NATO countries agreed to language that said ‘allies commit to invest 5 percent of GDP annually on core defense requirements as well as defense-and security-related spending by 2035.’

On Tuesday, Trump was still complaining about Spain’s resistance to the spending hike.

Madrid pushed for the language in the summit declaration to be changed from ‘we commit’ to ‘allies commit,’ giving the country some spending flexibility still.

President Donald Trump had high words of praise for Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima, calling them straight from ‘central casting.’

‘I actually had breakfast today with a king and a queen who were beautiful, beautiful people. Central Casting,’ he told reporters at the NATO summit.

Trump is a former TV star and producer, so his words are a high compliment to the royals.

The king and queen invited Trump to spend the night at Huis Ten Bosch palace, an offer the president accepted. It marks the first time an American president stayed at palace.

Donald Trump said that ‘great progress’ was being made to end the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza as a new ceasefire push began more than 20 months since the start of the conflict.

‘I think great progress is being made on Gaza,’ Trump told reporters ahead of a NATO summit in the Netherlands, adding that his special envoy Steve Witkoff had told him ‘Gaza is very close.’

He linked his optimism about imminent ‘very good news’ for the Gaza Strip to a ceasefire agreed on Tuesday between Israel and Hamas backer Iran to end their 12-day war.

Pictured: Smoke billows during Israeli strikes east of Jabalia city in the northern Gaza Strip on June 22, 2025

Pictured: Palestinians are seen liviing in makeshift tents and the rubble of collapsed buildings in Jabalia, Gaza on June 24, 2025

Pictured: Makeshift tents housing Palestinians and buildings destroyed in Israeli attacks in the Sheikh Ridvan neighborhood of Gaza City, Gaza on June 24, 2025

Donald Trump went on a foul-mouthed tirade yesterday saying that both Israel and Iran violated the ceasefire deal that he announced Monday evening.

‘We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f*** they’re doing,’ Trump said before boarding Marine One en route to the NATO Summit early Tuesday morning.

But this was not the first time Trump’s fury has boiled over.

All 32 NATO heads of state have gathered in The Hague for the summit, joined by senior European Union officials and Ukrainian representatives.

Ukraine is not a member of NATO.

Here are some of the summit’s most notable attendees:

• US President Donald Trump
• UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
• Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney
• French President Emmanuel Macron
• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz
• Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni
• Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez
• Netherlands Prime Minister Dick Schoof
• Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
• Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban
• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen

Donald Trump will meet with meet with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky at the NATO Summit.

‘We’ll discuss the obvious. We’ll discuss his difficulty. He’s got a little difficulty, Zelensky,’ Trump told reporters today before joining the summit.

‘He’s a nice guy. I mean, I’m going to meet him today. I don’t know, I assume we’re going to be discussing Ukraine.’

The pair famously had an explosive dispute in the Oval Office in February.

They were meant to meet up at the Group of Seven summit in Canada earlier this month, but Trump departed the event early.

The Trump administration has blocked Ukraine’s bid to join NATO.

President Trump said he was ‘proud’ of Israel for recalling jets poised to strike Iran in what could have been a threat to a fragile ceasefire.

‘Israel came back yesterday. I was so proud of them, because they came back, they went out because they felt it was a violation,’ Trump said at the NATO summit in The Hague.’

Trump said ‘technically’ the Israelis were right – Israel says Iran had fired three missiles toward its territory.

‘But it just wouldn’t have worked out very well,’ Trump continued, before minimizing a powerful attack. ‘They brought the planes back, they had gone on to another journey because it was a little bit of a violation. I said, You got to get them back. And they came back, and it was great thing.’

Trump had posted online in all caps after leaving the White House Tuesday: ‘Israel. Do not drop those bombs. If you do it is a major violation. Bring your pilots home. Now!’

President Donald Trump repeatedly slammed the media for its reports on a U.S. intelligence assessment that cast doubts on the airstrike’s ability to take out Iran’s nuclear program.

CNN and The New York Times both reported on a leaked intelligence assessment that stated the weekend strikes against key nuclear facilities in the country only set back Iran’s nuclear programme by a couple months.

‘We had a tremendous success,’ Trump told reporters at his first NATO meeting. ‘And this is the New York Times. I call it the failing New York Times. It’s going to hell. And CNN, which is, you know, very few people are watching, and you would think they’d do the opposite.’

‘So it’s just fake news by CNN, which has got no ratings. It’s a failed network,’ he added.

‘CNN is scum, the New York Times is scum, MSNBC is scum,’ he said.

‘They’re bad people, they’re sick. And what they’ve done is they want to turn this incredible victory into something less,’ he noted.

The president also made a furious post on the matter to his Truth Social account from the Netherlands at what would have been near 4am local time.

‘Fake news CNN, together with the failing New York Times, have teamed up in an attempt to demean one of the most successful military strikes in history,’ he wrote.

The Pentagon has begun an investigation into the leaked intelligence report on the airstrike on Iran.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the FBI has taken the lead on conducting the probe after CNN, the New York Times and other outlets obtained the report.

‘We’re doing a leak investigation with the FBI right now, because this information is for internal purposes, battle damage assessments, and CNN and others are trying to spin it to make the president look bad,’ he said during the NATO meeting.

And Secretary of State Marco Rubio argued the leakers had an agenda.

‘This is what a leaker is telling you the intelligence says,’ he said of the report. ‘That’s the game these people play. They read it and then they go out and characterize it the way they want it characterized. And they’re leakers. This is the game they play.’

He added it was ‘against the law’ to leak the information and told the media the leakers ‘characterize it for you in a way that’s absolutely false.’

President Donald Trump doubled down on the success of the American airstrike on Iran after an intelligence assessment cast doubt about it.

‘I believe it was total obliteration,’ the president said.

And he cast doubt on the intelligence report.

‘The intelligence was very inconclusive. The intelligence says “we don’t know,”’ he said.

He also dismissed reports the Iranians were able to remove enriched uranium ahead of the strike.

‘I believe they didn’t have a chance to get anything out, because we acted fast. If it would have taken two weeks, maybe. But it’s very hard to remove that kind of material, very hard and very dangerous for them to remove it,’ the president said.

‘Plus they knew we were coming, and if they know we’re coming, they’re not going to be down there. There aren’t too many people that are going to be down there.’

Trump’s top aides, sitting next to him in his meeting with NATO President Mark Rutte, backed the president.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called it a ‘flawless mission’ and slammed the intelligence report’s findings.

‘When you actually look at the report, by the way, it was a top secret report. It was preliminary. It was low confidence,’ he said.

NATO President Mark Rutte had news that pleased President Donald Trump: the alliance will decide unanimously for countries to raise defence spending to 5% of gross domestic product.

Trump has long wanted a 5% contribution, up from the 2% being used.

‘I’ve been asking them to go up to 5% for a number of years, and they’re going up to 5%,’ the president said in his one-on-one with Rutte.

Rutte repeatedly praised Trump for pressuring the member states to ramp up their spending. He has courted Trump ahead of the trip, texting him a congratulations note on the strike on Iran that Trump shared on social media.

The NATO president also noted the contribution increase would not have happened ‘if Trump would not have been elected president of the United States.’

‘This would not have happened if you would not have been elected in 2016 and

re elected last year and back into office in January. So I want to thank you,’ Rutte told the president.

There could, however, be some objections from member nations who aren’t happy about the new spending level. Spain, in particular, is angry about it. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said that his country would contribute ‘no more, no less’ than 2.1%.

It also remains unclear if the United States will meet the 5% contribution mark. Currently the U.S. contributes 3.5% and Trump has argued that is enough.

President Donald Trump offered uneasy NATO members some reassurance about his commitment to the alliance, saying he was with them ‘all the way.’

Trump has long cast doubt he would support NATO’s Article 5, which requires members to defend each other from attack.

On the plane ride over on Tuesday, he was noncommittal when asked about.

But he was more reassuring on Wednesday.

When asked about Article 5, Trump told reporters: ‘We’re with them all the way.’

Article 5 is seen as a sacrosanct pillar of the NATO alliance. It has only been used once: on September 11, 2001 when the NATO countries backed America after the terrorist attack.

President Donald Trump arrived in The Hague Tuesday night for the fourth international trip of his second term.

The president is expected to spend less than 24 hours in the Netherlands, where, in addition to meeting with NATO leaders, he’ll meet with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Trump started his trip with a family photo and a group dinner on Tuesday night, where he sat next to Dutch Queen Maxima.

President Donald Trump started off his day at NATO on a royal note, having breakfast with Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima.

The Dutch royals invited Trump to spend the night at Huis Ten Bosch palace, an offer the president accepted.

It marks the first time an American president stayed at palace.

And Trump expressed his appreciation.

‘The day begins in the beautiful Netherlands. The King and Queen are beautiful and spectacular people. Our breakfast meeting was great! Now it’s off to the very important NATO Meetings. The USA will be very well represented!,’ the president wrote on his Truth Social account.