Verifying the veracity of statements made by Trump to justify US strikes on Iran

This article originally appeared on PolitiFact.

The US and Israel bombed Iran on February 28, with President Donald Trump accusing Iran of building nuclear weapons that threaten US allies and could “soon” reach the US.

He watches: War with Iran | A special report for PBS News

Iran responded by attacking Israel and Middle Eastern countries that host US military bases.

Trump’s eight-minute video on Truth Social ended with a warning about the potential danger to US military personnel and a plea to the Iranians to overthrow their authoritarian government.

Trump said that the United States sought to conclude an agreement with Iran after bombing three of its nuclear sites in June 2025, but Iran “rejected every opportunity to give up its nuclear ambitions, and we cannot take advantage of them anymore.”

“Instead, they tried to rebuild their nuclear program and continue developing long-range missiles that could now threaten our good friends and allies in Europe, our forces stationed abroad and could soon reach the American homeland,” Trump said.

Read more: The Secretary-General of the United Nations condemns the US-Israeli attacks on Iran during an emergency Security Council meeting

Trump’s statement contradicts the federal government’s 2025 assessment that said Iran is years away from being able to produce long-range missiles; Nuclear policy experts have also questioned this idea.

After Trump used similar language in his State of the Union address a few days ago, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that he would not speculate on how far Iran was from possessing missiles that could reach the United States.

“I’ve seen them increase the range of the missiles they have now, and they’re clearly on the path toward one day being able to develop weapons that can reach the continental United States,” Rubio said.

Trump did not ask for congressional approval for military action. It also acted unilaterally in launching strikes in June 2025 on Iranian nuclear facilities, and in overthrowing Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in January. Democrats and a handful of Republicans in the House and Senate are pushing to consider war powers resolutions related to Iran next week.

Missiles that could reach the United States are still years away, a federal agency said

The Defense Intelligence Agency issued a missile threat assessment in May 2025 that said Iran could develop a long-range missile by 2035 if it chose to pursue it.

“The U.S. intelligence community has made a similar assessment (that Iran could have an ‘intercontinental ballistic missile’ within a decade) since the mid-1990s,” Darryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, told PolitiFact.

The White House did not immediately respond to PolitiFact’s request for comment on Trump’s statement that Iran could “soon” have missiles capable of reaching the United States.

Richard Nephew, who worked for the US government on Iranian issues during the Biden administration, said Iran already has missiles that can reach parts of Eastern Europe.

Nephew said ICBMs “are now difficult for Iran to achieve and I have no reason to doubt the Defense Intelligence Agency’s assessment.” He added: “Iran has the ability to strike Europe and is working to develop capabilities that can target the United States, but those capabilities are still many years away.”

Michael Singh, managing director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said these timelines do not take into account the possibility of other countries helping Iran develop or obtain this technology. Singh worked in the US government, including the White House, from 2005 to 2008.

Russia, China, and North Korea, some of Iran’s closest allies, possess intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Such a rocket must be launched into space and survive its return to Earth’s atmosphere. Iran has a nascent space program and has recently cooperated with Russia on space launches.

Building an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting the United States will require overcoming significant technical hurdles, such as successfully producing and miniaturizing a nuclear warhead, said Eliana Jones, a research associate at the Federation of American Scientists.

Iran appears to be focusing on short- and medium-range missiles, with a maximum range of up to 2,000 kilometers, says Gary Samore, a professor at Brandeis University who worked on nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the Obama and Clinton administrations.

The distance from Tehran to Washington, D.C., is about 10,000 kilometers.

In assessing Trump’s justifications for the Iranian strikes, The New York Times cited three unnamed US officials with access to intelligence about Iran’s missile programs, who said Trump exaggerated the seriousness of the threat facing the United States. Other media outlets, including CNN and Reuters, had similar reports.

Trump’s assessment of the “destroyed” facilities is exaggerated

When he announced the February 28 operation, Trump repeated his assessment that the US military had “destroyed” Iran’s nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan.

His language contradicts a November 2025 White House document that said the strikes “resulted in a significant deterioration in Iran’s nuclear program.”

Senior Trump administration officials had been talking about Iran’s capabilities in the run-up to the strikes. Trump envoy Steve Witkoff said on February 21 on Fox News that Iran “may be a week away from obtaining materials to make industrial bombs.”

When PolitiFact reviewed Witkoff’s comments with nuclear policy experts, they expressed doubts about the extent of the program’s destructiveness, its uranium supply, and Iran’s desire to continue enrichment.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, which tracks Iran’s nuclear program, was unable to access the sites bombed by the United States. In 2018, Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, which allowed monitoring of the country’s nuclear program. This means that experts lack confirmed and independent information about the status of Iranian efforts.

Senior correspondent Louis Jacobson contributed to this article.