AILSA CHANG, HOST:
President Trump faced questions today about his assertion that U.S. strikes last weekend totally obliterated facilities where Iran could enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels. A preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment said that the damage appeared to be more limited than that. Then later today, the CIA weighed in with a statement saying that there's a, quote, "body of credible evidence that the damage is indeed severe." That statement from CIA director John Ratcliffe appears to back what Trump has been saying. NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith has been following the president's remarks all day and joins us now to talk about it. Hi, Tam.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Good morning, Ailsa. Not good morning - good afternoon.
CHANG: (Laughter) Time zones all mixed up. It's OK. How do you see the president grappling with this evolving intel on the strikes?
KEITH: Well, the president has been quite defensive, saying that anyone who questioned the overwhelming success of Saturday's mission was unfairly maligning the pilots who carried it out. So when the media started reporting on that preliminary intelligence report from the Defense Intelligence Agency, he was not happy. The White House initially said it was a leak meant to undermine the president. Earlier today, Trump did acknowledge that this report exists, but he emphasized that it was very early and that it didn't capture everything that he said he believes to be true about the effectiveness of the strikes.
CHANG: OK, so tell us more about this new assessment.
KEITH: Yeah, tonight, the White House circulated this statement from the CIA on social media. John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, said, there's new intelligence from, quote, "a historically reliable and accurate source or method" that several key facilities were destroyed and it would take years to rebuild them, which is much closer to how President Trump has been describing it than other outside experts and that earlier assessment that leaked to journalists.
I should say, it is unusual for the CIA to put out any public statements on such sensitive matters. In addition, battle damage assessments can take many days or weeks, so it's unusual to have it so quickly. Here's what President Trump said today about the damage to Iran's nuclear program at a formal press conference at the end of the NATO summit.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It was really bad. It was - they obliterated it. Like, you can't get into the tunnels. They just put that over. That just came out. They can't - there's nothing - there's no way you can even get down. The whole thing has collapsed in a disaster.
KEITH: And just an illustration of the confidence Trump is projecting - he was asked about whether he still intends to negotiate a deal with Iran to halt their nuclear ambitions, and he said he wasn't even sure that would be necessary because the U.S. has destroyed their nuclear program. Politically speaking, President Trump has already declared mission accomplished, and he really isn't interested in getting - anything getting in the way of that.
CHANG: Right. OK. Well, as the president was speaking from the NATO summit, he said something really remarkable, Tam, about the alliance. Let's just take a listen.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: It was great. And I left here differently. I left here saying that these people really love their countries. It's not a rip-off. And we're here to help them protect their country.
CHANG: Tam, what struck you about those remarks?
KEITH: They were just so warm. This is probably the first time I've heard him say something nice about the alliance. His feelings about NATO over time have ranged from ambivalence to hostility. Even on the flight over to Europe, he was waffling about what NATO's Article 5 clause means. That's the commitment that an attack on one is an attack on all. In the past, he has said he might not be willing to protect a country that isn't paying its fair share. But at the end of the summit, he expressed the most commitment he ever has to NATO in Article 5, in part because NATO nations agreed to a big hike in their defense spending.
CHANG: I mean, do you know, like, what happened there to make him change his mind on all of this? - just that hike in defense spending?
KEITH: That's it, and they figured out how to manage Trump. And, you know, getting that big hike in defense spending is something he's been trying to get. It's something American presidents for decades have been trying to get. But Trump is taking credit, though some should probably also go to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who scared them into spending more with the war on Ukraine.
CHANG: That is NPR's Tamara Keith. Thank you so much, Tam.
KEITH: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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