Iran had a new site for nuclear creation, Trump says

President Trump said Iran was building a new site to develop nuclear weapons and “never negotiated in good faith,” which led to the strikes.

He told reporters Monday after speaking with House Republicans that the new site was meant to replace the sites bombed by the U.S. last year.

“Even after we obliterated their key nuclear sites in Operation Midnight Hammer, they never negotiated in good faith. They still continued to say, ‘We want to build nuclear,’” Mr. Trump said.

“The regime was trying to reconstitute its weapons program at a different site. They couldn’t go back to where they were — the three sites that we obliterated — but they were starting work at another site, a different site, different kind of a site, and that was protected by granite,” he said. “They wanted it protected. Granite is pretty good, but they wanted it protected by a lot deeper, they wanted to go a lot deeper.”

When asked whether the war with Iran would be over this week, Mr. Trump said, “No” and “Very soon.”

“Look, everything they have is gone, including their leadership,” he said.

The president said the U.S. undertook the Iran operation “for the other parts of the world.”

He named China as an example because they get their oil shipped through the Strait of Hormuz.

“We’re also focused on keeping energy and oil flowing to the world, and I will not allow a terrorist regime to hold the world hostage and attempt to stop the globe’s oil supply,” he said.

He threatened to hit Iran “at a much harder level” if the country tries to cut off oil supply.

“I will take out those targets that were easy and that I mentioned just before, we’ll take them out so quickly they’ll never be able to recover, ever,” he said. “If they want to play that game, they better not play that game.”

Mr. Trump also said he was “disappointed” in the choice of Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the initial strikes.