Trump Signals Possible Iran Talks Next Week, Defends Success Of Strikes Amid FBI Leak Probe
Synopsis
President Donald Trump is attending the NATO summit, where allies have agreed to increase defense spending to 2% of GDP.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday revealed that the U.S. and Iran are likely to meet next week to discuss a possible agreement.
Speaking at the NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands, Trump added that while the two countries could even sign an agreement, it is not “necessary,” according to a report by CNBC.
“The only thing we’d be asking for is what we were asking for before, about [how] we want no nuclear,” President Trump said.
Trump is at the NATO summit, where allies just agreed to increase defense spending to 5% of the gross domestic product (GDP).
He also spoke about the leaked intelligence report, which allegedly pointed to limited success of the U.S.’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites.
“The intelligence says, ‘We don’t know, it could have been very severe.’ That’s what the intelligence says. So, I guess, that’s correct. But I think that we can take the ‘We don’t know,’ it was very severe. It was obliteration,” Trump told reporters, doubling down on his previous claims about the success of the operation.
He said Iran’s nuclear program was set back “basically decades” because of the bombings.
Earlier, a report by CNN stated that the U.S. strikes did not destroy Iran’s nuclear sites, and likely set the program back by only months, not decades, as claimed by President Trump.
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Wednesday revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is probing the leak of the intelligence report.
“We’re doing a leak investigation with the FBI right now, because this information is for internal purposes,” he said.
He added that the conclusions being drawn from the initial intelligence assessment are “preliminary” and “low confidence.”
U.S. equities edged up on Wednesday after positive developments at the NATO summit.
At the time of writing, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), which tracks the S&P 500 index, was up 0.17%, while the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) gained 0.38%. Stocktwits data shows retail sentiment around the S&P 500 ETF has been in the ‘extremely bearish’ territory over the past week.
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