President Donald Trump compared his airstrikes on Iran ‘s nuclear sites to the two atomic 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 at The Hague, where he is attending a NATO summit. ‘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.

The dropping of two nuclear bombs in World War II caused catastrophic damage and multiple deaths: 70,000 in Hiroshima and 40,000 in Nagasaki. It also changed the face of modern warfare and led to an intense debate about the morality and necessity of using such weapons. Trump’s boast came as Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson said the country’s nuclear installations were ‘badly damaged’ by the US airstrikes. Speaking to Al Jazeera, spokesman Esmail Baghaei refused to go into detail but conceded the Sunday strikes by American B-2 bombers using bunker buster bombs had been significant.

‘Our nuclear installations have been badly damaged, that’s for sure,’ he said. The White House also pushed out a statement from the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, which claims the combined airstrikes from Israel and the United States ‘set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years.’ Meanwhile, Trump warned Iran not to try and rebuild its nuclear program. ‘I don’t think they’ll ever do it again,’ he said. ‘They just went through hell. I think they’ve had it. The last thing they want to do is enrich.’

But the president also 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.’ Trump has spent much of his time at The Hague, where he is meeting with NATO leaders, bragging about his successful strike on Iran. ‘If we didn’t take that out, they would have been they’d be fighting right now,’ he said.

He also defended the airstrikes after several media outlets received leaked copies of an American intelligence assessment, that indicated the strikes merely set Iran’s nuclear program back by a few months. The president was visibly angry at the reports, calling the media ‘scum’ and casting doubt on the report’s findings. ‘I believe it was total obliteration,’ Trump said. ‘The intelligence was very inconclusive. The intelligence says ‘we don’t know.’

The damage to Iran’s nuclear capabilities remains unclear. Saturday’s bombing attack on Iran, called ‘Operation Midnight Hammer,’ saw seven B-2 bombers drop 14 bunker-buster bombs on three nuclear sites in Iran. In total, the U.S. launched 75 precision-guided munitions, including more than two dozen Tomahawk missiles, and more than 125 military aircraft in the operation against three nuclear sites. Trump also dismissed reports the Iranians were able to remove enriched uranium out of the sites ahead of the strike. There are reported to be 880 pounds that were moved before the bombs were dropped.

‘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 the airstrikes 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. And Trump repeatedly slammed the media for its reports on the U.S. intelligence assessment. CNN and The New York Times both reported on a leaked intelligence assessment that stated the weekend strikes against key nuclear facilities in only set back Iran’s nuclear program by a couple months.

‘We had a tremendous success,’ Trump said. ‘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. He also complained the reports were ‘very unfair to the pilots that risk their lives for our country, and then they get Fake News New York Times and CNN make up a phony story to get some hits.’

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. 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.’