Democratic political strategist David Axelrod said the drama over the U.S.’s recent strikes in Iran’s nuclear facilities and the intel surrounding the outcome has been driven by President Trump’s “unquenchable thirst for credit.”
“The controversy over the facts around the Iran attack stems from the @POTUS ‘s unquenchable thirst for credit and praise that leads him to overclaim,” Axelrod said in a thread on the social platform X on Thursday.
“To say that the military performed splendidly and inflicted enormous damage would have been enough. But he needed to say it’s over, one-and-done, problem solved,” he added.
Trump and his top national security brass have intensely pushed back on reporting that strikes on Iran, which occurred over the weekend, set the country’s nuclear program back by only months. That conclusion that came from a preliminary intelligence report from the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that an investigation had begun into leaks of that classified preliminary report.
“Of course we’re doing a leak investigation with the FBI right now, because this information is for internal purposes, battle damage assessments,” Hegseth previously told reporters.
Trump and his Cabinet officials have been adamant that the Saturday strikes did more damage. On Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said as much in a post on X: “Iran’s nuclear facilities have been destroyed. If the Iranians chose to rebuild, they would have to rebuild all three facilities (Natanz, Fordow, Esfahan) entirely, which would likely take years to do.”
Axelrod said in his Thursday X thread that there was “an urgent question as to what, if anything, is left–including the nearly 900 pounds of highly-enriched uranium that he [Trump] and the @VP claimed was buried in Fordo but the whereabouts of which Hegseth acknowledged today was still under review,” noting one of the sites the U.S. struck.
The Hill has reached out to the White House and the Pentagon.
