Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia said President Trump had "in all likelihood" exaggerated the impact that U.S. strikes had on Iran's nuclear program.
"If the president on Saturday night had said, 'We have taken this action and we've caused severe and significant damage to the Iranian nuclear program,' you wouldn't have seen all this damage control," Kaine told Morning Edition. "The president overstated it, in all likelihood."
"They're scrambling because the president has kind of dislocated his own shoulder by patting himself on the back in some ways that are unrealistic," he continued.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday briefed senators on Capitol Hill. Afterward, several senators emerged and said it was too early to tell the full extent of the damage U.S. bombs had on Iran's nuclear enrichment program.
U.S. airstrikes hit three separate nuclear sites south of Iran's capital, Tehran on June 21..
A leaked preliminary report from the Defense Intelligence Agency issued not long after the strikes described the damage as "limited" and said the strikes may have only set back the Iranian nuclear program by a matter of months. Trump has responded angrily to media stories citing that report and has claimed repeatedly that the Iranian program was "totally obliterated."
Hegseth backed the president Thursday, saying "President Trump created the conditions to end the war. Decimating, choose your word, obliterating, destroying, Iran's nuclear capabilities."
Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has said Iran's nuclear facilities suffered serious damage, but he didn't provide details. And Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog agency, also said there was significant damage, but he doesn't believe the entire nuclear program was destroyed.
NPR's Steve Inskeep spoke with Kaine further about the Thursday night briefing on Capitol Hill and what Trump could have done, in his opinion, to better and more accurately inform the public about the U.S. attack on Iran.
The following excerpt has been edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
Steve Inskeep: There is a Defense Intelligence Agency report that said, with low confidence, as they put it, that the military hit Fordo, that they did some damage, but that the Iranians might have moved uranium elsewhere just in time. Is that report that the White House has criticized, in fact, a decent bottom line for what the government knows at this point?
Sen. Tim Kaine: That report is classified. I read it in a classified setting, and I don't really want to talk about it. But let me just put it in this kind of a context: If the president on Saturday night had said, 'We have taken this action and we've caused severe and significant damage to the Iranian nuclear program,' you wouldn't have seen all this damage control for the last few days.
The president overstated it, in all likelihood. He compared it to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He put up an insulting and juvenile musical video on his Truth Social account with a 'bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran' song. And now you've had the Pentagon try to scramble to assuage his ego — yelling at reporters. They had to postpone the briefing that they gave the senators from Tuesday to Thursday. They had to disinvite Tulsi Gabbard from coming because apparently they didn't like what she might have said. They're scrambling because the president has kind of dislocated his own shoulder by patting himself on the back in some ways that are unrealistic.
Inskeep: You're criticizing the way the president committed this act of war, but it is a situation where Iran had a nuclear program. It was of grave concern to multiple U.S. administrations and both political parties. And then this situation comes up where Israel had started a war. What would you have done differently if you were the president? Iran does have this nuclear program, and the U.S. did have the available bomb for Fordo, which seems to have been developed just for that purpose.
Kaine: There's two things I would have done differently. First, this war really is sort of on Trump's shoulders because he tore up a nuclear deal that was working, that was limiting Iran's nuclear program even more than these bombs have limited it. This was a program that was working not only in the eyes of our allies and the [International Atomic Energy Agency] but also working in the eyes of Trump's Term One Cabinet — national security team — that said, 'Don't tear up this deal.' It's limiting Iranian centrifuges, limiting enrichment and limiting nuclear research. We had deep inspections into what Iran was doing. But when President Trump tore that up, Iran raced forward. So number one, prefer diplomacy over bombs. And number two, if Israel wants to start a war with Iran, we will help defend Israel. But we didn't need to join this war.
Inskeep: The White House claims it's going to limit classified information given to Congress from now on because somebody disclosed CIA findings, Defense Intelligence Agency findings, that the president didn't like. Did this subject come up in your meeting?
Kaine: A member of the Senate asked, 'Are you going to curtail information to us?' And the administration briefers said, 'No, we are not.' But we're still worried about it because the president chose to notify Republican leaders of the strike, but not Democratic leaders. And that is something that no president has done during the time that I've been here.
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