Democrats left a closed-door intelligence briefing Friday with lingering doubts about President Trump’s recent strikes on Iran, saying key questions went unanswered. Chief among their concerns: whether Iran posed an imminent threat to Americans, justifying Trump’s decision to bypass Congress, and whether the strikes truly “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities, as the president has claimed.
Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), the House Democratic whip, said the briefing raised more questions than it resolved. “I would say that that particular briefing left me with more concerns and a true lack of clarity on how we are defining the mission and the success of it,” she said afterward.
Rep. Bill Foster (D-Ill.), a former nuclear physicist, acknowledged that the strikes may have damaged Iran’s ability to enrich uranium in the future by hitting centrifuge infrastructure. However, he noted there’s no indication that Iran’s existing stockpile of enriched uranium was destroyed. Without eliminating that material, he warned, Iran could still produce a nuclear weapon in a short timeframe. “That’s where they’re hiding the ball,” Foster said. “And that’s what we have to keep our eyes on.”
The classified briefing came six days after President Trump ordered strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities. Top administration officials including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio led the presentation. The same officials had briefed the Senate one day earlier.
Trump has insisted the mission was a complete success, claiming it crippled Iran’s nuclear program and pushed it back by years. His Republican allies echoed that view. “It is clear, everyone can see by the videos, that these massive ordinance penetrating bombs did the job,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). “I think their key facilities have been disabled, and I think Iran is now a long time away from doing what they might have done before this very successful operation.”
But a preliminary assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency offers a more cautious view, concluding the strikes likely set Iran’s program back by months, not years. Statements from the CIA and Director of National Intelligence have contradicted that report, fueling confusion over the true impact of the operation.
