Trump plans Iran talks, insists nuke threat gone

What happened

President Donald Trump Wednesday doubled down on his initial assertion that Saturday's U.S. airstrikes had "totally obliterated" Iran's nuclear program. He dismissed a preliminary assessment from the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency that the bunker-buster bombs had set back Iran's program by mere months and said the news organizations that reported it were "scum." The U.S. and Iran will hold talks "next week," Trump said, but "I don't think it's that necessary" to sign an agreement because "the war is done" and "we destroyed the nuclear."

Who said what

Trump is "going to extraordinary lengths to defend his claim" about Iran's "obliterated" nuclear program, "determined to cement the operation as a defining victory of his presidency," Axios said. The White House cited statements from Israel, an Iranian official and CIA Director John Ratcliffe saying the program was severely damaged, but "those comments fell short of Trump's hyperbole," The Associated Press said.

The dispute will likely "bedevil U.S. intelligence analysis and experts for many months" as they undertake the "slow and difficult process" of determining the full extent of the damage, The Wall Street Journal said. The lack of "reliable conclusions," the AP said, leaves a "breeding ground for competing claims that could determine how American voters view Trump’s risky decision to join Israel's attacks on Iran."

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What next?

The Trump administration's "tour to convince lawmakers and Americans of the mission's success" continues Thursday with a news conference at the Pentagon and a classified Senate briefing on the attack, The Washington Post said. But the White House "plans to limit classified intelligence sharing with Congress after leaks" of the DIA assessment, so the Senate briefing could be "contentious."