WH maintains Trump consistent in firm stance on Iran nukes — and shows off receipts
In October 2023, just days after Hamas' brutal massacre in Israel, Trump told a crowd at a campaign rally that Iran could not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.
"Don't let Iran have nuclear weapons. That's my only thing I have to tell you today. Don't let them have it," Trump said at the Oct. 16, 2023, Iowa rally.
Then in January 2024, Trump said, "I just don't want them to have a nuclear weapon, and they weren't going to have one."
A few months later, in June 2024, during an appearance on the podcast "All-In," Trump told the hosts that Iran could not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon.
"The main thing is Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. That was my main thing. The deal was a simple deal. Iran can't have a nuclear. You know, it can't have a missile, it can't have a nuclear missile. It cannot have that nuclear capability," Trump told the podcast hosts.
The most recent clip was from May 2025 in which Trump told the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum that "Iran can have a much brighter future — but we'll never allow America and its allies to be threatened with terrorism or a nuclear attack… they cannot have a nuclear weapon."
Vice President JD Vance also commented on the controversy regarding Trump's stance on Iran's nuclear ambitions. Vance defended his boss' Iran position as being focused only on "using the American military to accomplish American people's goals."
He also described Trump as someone who "has been amazingly consistent, over 10 years, that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon."
"I have yet to see a single good argument for why Iran needed to enrich uranium well above the threshold for civilian use. I've yet to see a single good argument for why Iran was justified in violating its non-proliferation obligations. I've yet to see a single good pushback against the IAEA's findings," Vance wrote on X.
Although the White House team's clips date back to 2023, there is even earlier evidence that Trump was against Iran having a nuclear weapon.
In 2018, during his first term in office, Trump withdrew from the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). At the time, Trump called the JCPOA "one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into."
The White House release on the U.S. withdrawal from the deal has several references to Trump's opposition to Iran developing a nuclear weapon. At one point it says that "Trump is committed to ensuring Iran has no possible path to a nuclear weapon."
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