A top Democrat accused President Donald Trump of lying to Americans about the real impact of the U.S. strikes on Iran.
After Trump officials gave lawmakers a classified briefing on Thursday, Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, a ranking member of the Senate Subcommittee on Homeland Security, told reporters he remained unconvinced that the attack “obliterated” Iranian nuclear facilities, as the president has repeatedly claimed.
“I walk away from that briefing still under the belief that we have not obliterated the program,” Murphy said. “The president was deliberately misleading the public when he said the program was ‘obliterated’ because it is certain that there is still significant capability and significant equipment that remain.”
“To me, it still appears that we have only set back the Iranian nuclear program by a handful of months,” he added, echoing the early findings of a leaked intelligence assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency that administration officials have attempted to downplay.
After American warplanes dropped 14 “bunker buster” bombs on three Iranian nuclear enrichment sites on Saturday, Trump told the nation that the facilities were “completely and totally obliterated.”
A preliminary report by the DIA, however, found that Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed and the centrifuges remained largely intact. Administration officials launched an offensive after the assessment was leaked to the media, waving it off as inconclusive.
Murphy acknowledged as much.
“There’s no doubt there was damage done to the program,” he said. “But the allegations that we have ‘obliterated’ their program just don’t seem to stand up to reason. I can’t share any details from this briefing, but I just do not think the president was telling the truth when he said this program was ‘obliterated.’”
Across the aisle, South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham hailed the strikes as “brilliant.”
“It was bold, it was necessary. It was effective,” he told reporters after the classified briefing. “They blew these places up in a major league way. Major league setback—years, not months.”
The White House has maintained that the attacks were effective, shutting down any statements to the contrary as “fake news.”
Iran’s Nuclear Facilities Have Been Obliterated — and Suggestions Otherwise are Fake News🧵WHAT THEY ARE SAYING:Israel Atomic Energy Commission:“The devastating US strike on Fordo destroyed the site’s critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility…
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) June 25, 2025
As debates continue to unfurl over the actual impact of the strikes, Trump said during the NATO Summit on Wednesday that Israel would soon release its own findings.
“It was hit brutally, and it knocked it out,” he said of the nuclear sites. “The original word that I used—I guess it got us in trouble because it’s a strong word—it was ‘obliteration.’ And you’ll see that.”
The post Top Dem: Trump Is Lying to You About Iran Strikes appeared first on The Daily Beast.
