Has a Pentagon leak shattered Trump’s claims on Iran?
Americast
BBC
4.2 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 25 June 2025
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Donald Trump has aimed his fury at the media after a Pentagon report was leaked to the press claiming that the US strikes on Iran only set back the country’s nuclear programme by a few months.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth says the FBI is investigating how the report ended up in the media, while Donald Trump aimed his fury at outlets like The New York Times and CNN for reporting the story.
Despite the report, Donald Trump has been boasting of the mission’s success while at a NATO summit in the Netherlands, where he compared the strikes to the American bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the Second World War.
Sarah and Anthony assess the president’s options if the strikes were not as successful as he claims.
HOSTS: * Sarah Smith, North America Editor * Anthony Zurcher, North America Correspondent
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This episode was made by George Dabby with Alix Pickles and Grace Reeve. The technical producer was Dafydd Evans. The series producer is Purvee Pattni. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:04.8 | Donald Trump's feeling very pleased with himself, convinced that he has brought peace to the |
| 0:09.3 | Middle East by the means of some massive airstrikes on the weekend. |
| 0:13.2 | And he's even compared those bombs to what happened to Japan in the Second World War. |
| 0:17.1 | But had we not succeeded with that hit, that hit ended the war. |
| 0:21.9 | That hit ended the war. |
| 0:24.5 | I don't want to use an example of Hiroshima. |
| 0:27.6 | I don't want to use an example of Nagasaki. |
| 0:30.5 | But that was essentially the same thing. |
| 0:32.8 | That ended that war. |
| 0:33.9 | This ended that with a war. |
| 0:35.5 | If we didn't take that out, they would have been, they'd be |
| 0:37.6 | fighting right now. That is a pretty tasteless comparison, but it could also be completely wrong. |
| 0:44.4 | There's been a leaked report from the Pentagon saying that actually the bombings didn't do |
| 0:48.9 | nearly as much damage as Donald Trump had claimed, maybe only set around's nuclear program |
| 0:53.6 | back by a few months. So can Donald Trump really claimed, maybe only set Iran's nuclear program back by a few months. |
| 0:55.0 | So can Donald Trump really be claiming victory in the Middle East or does not much change |
| 1:00.6 | at all? |
| 1:01.4 | Welcome to AmeriCast. |
| 1:05.4 | AmeriCast from BBC News. |
| 1:08.4 | You're gambling with the lives of millions of people. |
| 1:11.2 | You're gambling with World War III. |
... |
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