President Donald Trump on Friday praised the U.S. military mission Operation Midnight Hammer in which B-2 stealth bombers targeted and destroyed three Iranian nuclear facilities last month.
Before Trump hailed the operation as a “flawless mission,” one B-2 bomber and two fighter jets flew above the White House and National Mall.
“Those beautiful planes that you saw were totally stealth,” he told the crowd. “They flew right over the center of a very hostile country, and [Iran] never even saw it coming. And then they said, ‘Skedaddle.’ They dropped the bombs. They said, ‘Skedaddle.’”
“And that big sucker turned over like this on its side, and it got out of there,” he added, referring to the large stealth bomber.
The Trump administration has repeatedly described the operation as a success, despite CNN and the New York Times claiming it wasn’t a complete success based on a preliminary intelligence assessment that concluded Iran’s nuclear program was not destroyed. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ripped into the media days after the operation, claiming the reporting was inaccurate.
Trump similarly called out the “fake news” media, albeit not as harshly as his Cabinet secretary.
“Every single bomb hit, and it was total obliteration,” the president said. “Now even the fake news is admitting that. They hated to admit it, but they had no choice.”
Trump previously called for CNN to fire its reporter, Natasha Bertrand, who covered the intelligence report in the aftermath of the strikes. She remains employed at CNN.
The White House invited the B-2 bomber crew that carried out the air operation to celebrate Independence Day.
“These heroic pilots showed our enemies what it means to fly, fight, and win,” Trump said.
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“To every service member who supported that mission, and we have many of them here, we’ve made you proud by supporting, but you’ve made us even prouder by having the courage to get into those gorgeous machines and fly through the roughest airspace anywhere in the world. We salute you, and we honor you.”
The Pentagon recently concluded that the mission resulted in “extremely severe damage” to three Iranian nuclear sites and that Iran’s nuclear program was set back by one to two years.
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