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Time of India
7 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
$30bn for Iran? Never heard of this 'ridiculous idea', says Trump; dismisses report, calls it a 'hoax'
US President Donald Trump (AP) US President Donald Trump on Friday (local time) firmly denied reports in the US media that his administration is considering a $30 billion deal to help Iran develop a civil nuclear programme. "Who in the FAKE NEWS MEDIA is the SleazeBag saying that 'President Trump wants to give Iran $30 billion to build non-military Nuclear facilities.' Never heard of this ridiculous idea," he wrote on his Truth Social platform. "It's just another HOAX put out by the Fake News in order to demean. These people are SICK!!!," he added. Trump Truth Social post Under the alleged proposal, first reported by CNN, the Trump administration in recent days has explored possible economic incentives in return for the Iranian regime halting uranium enrichment. Iran would also be allowed to receive assistance from regional countries to help it build the civilian nuclear programme, granting Tehran access to as much as the reported $30 billion. If true, the potential deal would mark a major reversal in policy for the MAGA leader, who, in his first term, pulled the United States out of the previous Barack Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran, in 2018. At the time, he had argued that the sanctions relief and unfreezing of Iranian assets had provided a 'lifeline of cash" to the regime in Tehran to continue its "malign activities." Last week, the US struck three key nuclear facilities in Iran amid the conflict between US ally Israel and the Islamic Republic. The following day (June 23) Trump managed to broker a ceasefire deal between the Asian rivals.
Roya News
8 hours ago
- Politics
- Roya News
Trump slams report linking him to $30 billion Iran deal as ‘ridiculous'
US President Donald Trump lashed out at media reports suggesting he planned to offer Iran USD 30 billion to develop non-military nuclear facilities, calling the claim 'ridiculous' and branding it a 'hoax.' In a post published Saturday on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote, 'Who in the Fake News Media is the SleazeBag saying that 'President Trump wants to give Iran $30 Billion to build non-military Nuclear facilities.' Never heard of this ridiculous idea. It's just another HOAX put out by the Fake News in order to demean. These people are SICK!!!' Trump did not name a specific media outlet or reporter in the post, but he categorically denied any involvement in such a plan, distancing himself from suggestions that he would support financial incentives for Iran's nuclear program, even if restricted to peaceful purposes.
CNBC
8 hours ago
- Business
- CNBC
Trump administration exploring $30 billion civilian nuclear deal for Iran
The Trump administration in recent days has explored possible economic incentives for Iran in return for the regime halting uranium enrichment, including releasing billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets, according to three sources familiar with the discussions. The tentative proposal would also allow Iran to receive assistance from regional countries to enable Tehran to build a civilian nuclear program, granting Tehran access to as much as $30 billion. The proposal is one of many ideas under consideration by the administration, the sources said. The details of the administration's discussions were first reported by CNN. The potential deal would mark a major reversal in policy for President Trump, who pulled the U.S. out of the Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran in 2018 arguing in part that the sanctions relief and unfreezing of Iranian assets had provided a "lifeline of cash" to the Iranian regime to continue its malign activities. Still, it is not immediately clear if the financial proposal or any negotiations between the U.S. and Iran will move forward. In a Truth Social post Friday night, Trump said he "never heard of this ridiculous idea," adding that it was "just another HOAX put out by the Fake News." Earlier Friday, Trump threatened to drop any possible sanctions relief for Iran after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared victory in the war against Israel and downplayed the significance of U.S. attacks on their nuclear sites. "Why would the so-called 'Supreme Leader,' Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, of the war torn Country of Iran, say so blatantly and foolishly that he won the War with Israel, when he knows his statement is a lie?" Trump wrote in a lengthy post on Truth Social, adding. "During the last few days, I was working on the possible removal of sanctions, and other things, which would have given a much better chance to Iran at a full, fast, and complete recovery — The sanctions are BITING! But no, instead I get hit with a statement of anger, hatred, and disgust." In a pre-recorded speech on Iranian state TV on Thursday, Khamenei said: "The Islamic Republic was victorious and, in retaliation, delivered a hand slap to America's face." He added: "This action can be repeated in the future." But later on Friday, Trump insisted the Iranians still wanted to meet with him to discuss possible sanctions relief. "They do want to meet me, and we'll do that quickly. We're going to do it quickly," Trump told reporters during a White House meeting with the foreign ministers of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of Rwanda. "Don't you think we have sanctions on there that they can't do anything? Wouldn't you think that they want to meet me? I mean, they're not stupid people."
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump calls for firing of CNN reporter over Iran nuclear damage report
President Trump on Wednesday called for the firing of CNN correspondent Natasha Bertrand, who reported on air that an internal U.S. intelligence assessment found Saturday's strikes on Iranian nuclear sites set back Tehran's nuclear program by only a few months. 'Natasha Bertrand should be FIRED from CNN! I watched her for three days doing Fake News. She should be IMMEDIATELY reprimanded, and then thrown out 'like a dog,' Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. Bertrand, the president argued, was 'attempting to destroy our Patriot Pilots by making them look bad.' Trump said earlier Wednesday that the preliminary classified U.S. report wasn't complete, while members of his administration vowed to investigate the leaked assessment, which was also reported on by The New York Times, The Washington Post and others. But the president took particular issue with Bertrand's reporting, writing in his social media post that 'she should not be allowed to work at Fake News CNN.' 'It's people like her who destroyed the reputation of a once great Network,' he continued. 'Her slant was so obviously negative, besides, she doesn't have what it takes to be an on camera correspondent, not even close. FIRE NATASHA!' Despite the internal report, Trump and his administration have doubled down on earlier rhetoric suggesting the nuclear enrichment sites were 'totally destroyed' in the strikes, while pushing Israel's assessment that the attacks would delay the nuclear program by at least a few years. In a statement to The Hill on Wednesday, CNN said it 'stands 100% behind Natasha Bertrand's journalism and specifically her and her colleagues' reporting of the early intelligence assessment of the U.S. attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.' 'CNN's reporting made clear that this was an initial finding that could change with additional intelligence,' a network spokesperson said. 'We have extensively covered President Trump's own deep skepticism about it.' 'However, we do not believe it is reasonable to criticize CNN reporters for accurately reporting the existence of the assessment and accurately characterizing its findings, which are in the public interest,' they added. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Politico
2 days ago
- Politics
- Politico
A nuclear expert's assessment of the Iran strikes
'CONFLICTING REPORTS' — In the four days since the U.S. dropped bunker-buster bombs on two nuclear facilities in Iran, one thorny question has occupied Washington's attention: Did the strikes work? The Trump administration insists the answer is an unqualified yes — the nuclear sites were 'completely and totally obliterated,' according to President Donald Trump. Yet questions remain about the efficacy of the attacks after an early intelligence assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency reportedly concluded that the strikes may have only set back Iran's nuclear program for months. In response, the administration has furiously pushed back to counter media reports of the assessment. The Pentagon has launched an investigation into how the classified assessment reached the press. On Wednesday, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard issued separate statements that Iran's nuclear facilities were 'destroyed.' President Donald Trump — who threatened to sue The New York Times and CNN for publishing articles about the preliminary report — personally excoriated a journalist who had reported on the government report, writing on Truth Social that 'Natasha Bertrand should be FIRED from CNN! I watched her for three days doing Fake News. She should be IMMEDIATELY reprimanded, and then thrown out 'like a dog.' At a press conference this morning, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth described the strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities as 'historically successful' while also attacking reporters for distorting the findings. 'Because you cheer against Trump so hard — in your DNA and in your blood, cheer against Trump — because you want him not to be successful so bad, you have to cheer against the efficacy of these strikes,' he said. The furor reflects not only the high stakes of the situation but also the fact that the outcome of the strikes remains unclear. With some of Iran's nuclear facilities located underground, and the Iranian government playing its own cards close to the vest, it's difficult to get a clear sense of what exactly was destroyed and what, if anything, remains of Iran's nuclear program. To get a better understanding of the state of play, and how much we actually know at this moment, Nightly spoke with Joseph Rodgers, deputy director and fellow with the Project on Nuclear Issues in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. This interview has been edited for clarity and length. Israel targeted the Isfahan Nuclear Training Center and Natanz Nuclear Facility before the U.S. strikes on Saturday. What was the extent of the damage before the U.S. bombing? Israel had targeted some of the surface level nuclear infrastructure within Iran. In Isfahan, there are a number of uranium conversion facilities. Israel was trying to target some of the conversion facilities to shut down the production of uranium hexafluoride from yellow cake in Iran. Not all of the conversion buildings had been destroyed, so when the U.S. got involved after the [Israeli] strikes on June 12, the U.S. took out one of the big uranium conversion hauls. But, there were other elements of uranium conversion in Isfahan that Israel had already blown up on the north and the eastern side of Isfahan. The strikes that had occurred at Natanz were also on the surface, but there's an underground facility at Natanz. At Fordo, almost everything that is important at Fordo happens underground. So Israel doesn't really have the really large conventional bombs that enable them to create massive shock waves to destroy infrastructure buried deeply underground and underground facilities. That was a pretty exquisite capability that required the U.S. Massive Ordnance Penetrator, the really big bombs that we dropped on Saturday. How does one assess damage after a strike, and what do you look for? With satellite images — that's kind of the easiest thing to be able to assess damage early after a strike in the open source — we're looking to see how extensive the structural damage of the surface buildings is. We're looking to see, if a uranium conversion facility is destroyed, are there other facilities that could rapidly sort of take its place and be constructed or exist elsewhere within Iran's nuclear infrastructure? With underground facilities, it's quite difficult. I think we see right now conflicting reports about the efficacy of the recent strikes, because with satellite images — which is the first type of intelligence that we're really able to gather in the aftermath of some of these strikes — it's really difficult to be able to assess the structural damage, very deeply underground, when all you see is optical images. I'm sure you've seen the news, there was a leaked Defense Intelligence Agency report. I'd note that that report, at least from the reporting on CNN and the New York Times that I've seen, says that the Defense Intelligence Agency assessed with low confidence that the facility had not been completely destroyed. In 'intel speak,' low confidence — especially this rapidly after a significant event for a battle damage assessment — indicates that they only have one or a very limited number of intelligence sources. At this stage, likely that is satellite imagery, not just optical but probably also radar images, so they can assess ground subsidence, how much sort of ground moved after the attacks. You mentioned the conflicting accounts in the media. What do we actually know so far about what was damaged during the strikes? At Isfahan, it's pretty apparent that the uranium conversion facilities were pretty wiped out. The Iranians had only reported Isfahan as a uranium conversion facility. In Iran, they would have had to report all activity to the [International Atomic Energy Agency] IAEA under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the previous Iran deal. So the IAEA was monitoring, and per that deal, it is the only conversion facility. The damage to the centrifuges is a little bit more complicated to assess at this stage. It is clear that both the underground facility at Natanz and Fordo suffered some damage. At least the entrance tunnels have collapsed, because you can tell with satellite images that the entrance tunnels have debris blocking them, and it has scattered rocks and dirt and sand out of the entrances, so clearly, they suffered some damage. It's tough to say how much the centrifuges inside of the facilities themselves have been destroyed. Either way, it's going to take a significant effort for Iran to be able to access those centrifuges and be able to get into the facility. It could take days. It's going to be a pretty big operation to bring in excavators and heavy equipment to try and dig out the tunnels. Do you have a sense of what it would take for Iran to build back its nuclear program given this damage? That's a bigger question than just the damage to the uranium enrichment and the uranium hexafluoride conversion facilities. Because a nuclear program, especially if you intend to develop a nuclear weapon, is a lot more than just those two very important, but two small pieces of a larger program. Rafael Grossi, the Director General [of IAEA], had said that Iran has said that that third facility was somewhere outside of Isfahan or in Isfahan. We don't really know where that facility is exactly. There's some speculation that somewhere in Isfahan, there's an underground facility that may become an enrichment facility at some point in the near future. That probably implies that Iran had stockpiled some centrifuges somewhere. And we know, from all of the reporting of the last few days, as well as from statements by JD Vance, that Iran still has 400 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium. In order to build a nuclear bomb, you really want 90% enriched uranium. You can make do with less. You can build a bomb with a little bit lower enrichment levels. They need centrifuges to be able to spin it, to get it to a higher enrichment level, so that they can build a bomb, if they decide to. That 400 kilograms could build about 10 nuclear weapons if enriched to 90% uranium-235. One other really core component here is the weaponization side of things. The attacks by Israel destroyed a significant scientific infrastructure within Iran. Many scientists were targeted through these last two weeks. It's really difficult to assess how much technical knowledge for actually pursuing weaponization currently exists in Iran. Also their missile stockpiles have been drastically depleted. So if Iran did build a bomb, it would be pretty hard for them to be able to deliver it. Their missile stockpiles have been pretty targeted by Israel's attacks. Also, many of their missiles have been launched. A lot of their launchers were destroyed. Israel Defense Forces destroyed about 30% of their launchers. So, I think their wider infrastructure is pretty destroyed after this. What has Iran signaled thus far about its interest in rebuilding and how it plans to rebuild? There have been conflicting reports on Iran's signals. I find it very difficult to believe that there is not greater political will that has been garnered through the last two weeks for Iran to march forward towards building a nuclear deterrent. Just because there's political will does not mean that the technical capacity is there. As far as direct signals from Iran, I think they're keeping main diplomatic channels, track one channels, [and] public leadership messaging, a little bit quiet on this issue. I don't think that if they decide to pursue a nuclear weapon, they're probably not going to scream about it. [They will] try and keep it under wraps as much as possible, so that they don't draw as much attention to this issue, because obviously, Israel and the US would lose a lot of political capital at this point if Iran built a nuclear weapon rapidly. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@ Or contact tonight's author at jmunis@ or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @munisjacqueline. What'd I Miss? — Supreme Court clears way for states to kick Planned Parenthood out of Medicaid: The Supreme Court today cleared the way for states to exclude Planned Parenthood from their Medicaid programs. In a 6-3 decision divided along ideological lines, the court's majority concluded that federal law doesn't allow health care providers or patients to sue if a state violates a provision of federal law guaranteeing that Medicaid patients can visit their preferred provider. The decision rejected a challenge to South Carolina's 2018 expulsion of Planned Parenthood from its Medicaid program. It will likely allow other conservative states to similarly expel reproductive and sexual health clinics — shrinking the already narrow network of providers available in the health insurance program for low-income Americans. — Megabill threatens to languish as challenges pile up: Republicans aren't panicking about their fraying domestic policy bill. But they aren't exactly sure about how it's all going to come together, either. Senate Republicans emerged from a closed-door lunch meeting today putting on a brave face about the megabill's progress. Yet this time last week, members were expecting revised text of the sprawling bill Monday with votes starting a couple of days later. In other words, they thought they'd be close to done by now. Instead, Majority Leader John Thune refrained from giving his members a specific timeline during a closed-door lunch today, according to three attendees granted anonymity to describe the private meeting. Senators are preparing to stay in town and vote through the weekend, but internal policy disputes and procedural roadblocks thrown up by the chamber's parliamentarian are keeping firmer plans in flux. A July 4 deadline being pushed by the White House hangs over Capitol Hill as the only real forcing mechanism, and some Republicans said they were glad to have it even if many others harbor doubts about whether that target can be met. — White House: Megabill's July 4 deadline stands: The White House is forging ahead with its demand that Congress pass its sweeping megabill by July 4, insisting that the legislative effort remain on track despite mounting doubts about its viability on Capitol Hill. Trump administration officials today downplayed a fresh set of rulings by the Senate parliamentarian that appeared to jeopardize core elements of the bill, casting it as a minor setback that lawmakers were already working to remedy. The White House pressure campaign comes as the administration enters a key stretch that could determine the fate of its legislative ambitions — and shape the critical first year of Trump's term. AROUND THE WORLD LE TAXPAYER DOLLARS FOR LE PEN — A firebrand State Department political appointee proposed using American taxpayer money to support French far-right leader Marine Le Pen as she appeals her embezzlement conviction, according to two State Department officials. President Donald Trump and his allies have joined far-right politicians in Europe in condemning Le Pen's conviction in March as politically motivated. Le Pen, one of Europe's most recognizable anti-immigrant euroskeptics, has turned her party into a mainstream political force over the past decade and was polling as the frontrunner for France's 2027 presidential election before her guilty verdict. The two officials, who were granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about internal State Department discussions and fear reprisals from department leadership, said a senior adviser within the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor named Samuel Samson made the initial funding recommendation this week after meeting with the leadership from Le Pen's party, the National Rally, late last month. EU VS. ISRAEL — EU leaders asked the bloc's top diplomat to develop a series of proposals for cutting back cooperation with Israel to encourage it to live up to its humanitarian obligations, according to Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda. Speaking in an interview with POLITICO on the sidelines of the European Council in Brussels today, Nausėda said that High Representative Kaja Kallas would present measures that could target trade and other ties with Israel within a month. The closed-door talks ran for more than an hour over their allocated time as member countries clashed over the best course of action. 'It was difficult, the discussion,' Nausėda said. 'There are two groups of countries and some of them are more pro-Israel, and some of them are strictly opposing. But we see the truth in the middle where we are talking about a tragic humanitarian situation and children suffering. DELAYED AMBITIONS — The French government is demanding delays to the European Union's next green milestone, a move that risks weakening the bloc's international climate ambitions on the 10th anniversary of the Paris Agreement. France — which often casts itself as the custodian of the landmark 2015 climate accord signed in the French capital — is teaming up with the EU's climate laggards to decouple discussions on the bloc's upcoming 2035 and 2040 climate targets, five officials working for four EU governments told POLITICO. Two of the officials said French President Emmanuel Macron plans to raise the issue at today's EU leaders' summit in Brussels. Decoupling the two targets is no mere technical issue. Doing so would likely result in the EU's presenting a lower-than-expected 2035 target for this year's global climate conference — just as international emissions-slashing efforts lose momentum with the Trump administration's withdrawal from the Paris accord. Nightly Number RADAR SWEEP HIGH PLAINS MYSTERY — For decades, one Texas woman's image defined the Great Depression. But her name was unknown — she was known only by the title of the famed Dorothea Lange photo, 'Woman of the High Plains, Texas Panhandle.' A local newspaper investigation finally revealed her identity in 1979. For Texas Monthly, Michelle Kraft tells the story of how Nettie Featherston was found — and how, despite her notoriety, she died at the age 86 and was buried in an unmarked grave. Parting Image Did someone forward this email to you? 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