Gabbard Says Iran Did Not Rebuild Nuclear Program After 2025 Strikes, Contradicting Trump

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by Richard Hall and Rebecca Schneid

Mar 18, 2026 7:34 PM CUT

by Richard Hall and Rebecca Schneid

Mar 18, 2026 7:34 PM CUT

Iran did not rebuild its uranium enrichment capability following joint U.S.-Israeli strikes against its nuclear program last year, U.S. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard told a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Wednesday.

"As a result of Operation Midnight Hammer, Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was obliterated. There has been no efforts since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability. The entrances to the underground facilities that were bombed have been buried and shuttered with cement," Gabard wrote in an opening statement ahead of the hearing. 

Gabbard's testimony, which is a representation of the intelligence community’s assessment of the threats facing U.S. citizens, appeared to directly contradict one of President Donald Trump's central justifications for launching a new war against Iran on Feb 28—namely that Iran was two weeks away from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Read more: Trump's War With Iran

“If we didn’t hit within two weeks, they would’ve had a nuclear weapon,” Trump told a meeting with congressional leaders on March 4, 2026. “When crazy people have nuclear weapons, bad things happen,” he said.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, said on March 3 that the nuclear watchdog had "no evidence of Iran building a nuclear bomb.”

Gabbard did not include the part of her statement about Iran not having rebuilt its enrichment capability when she read it during the hearing's opening.

Later in the hearing, Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia asked Gabbard why she had read it aloud.

“Was that because the President said there was an imminent threat?” Warner asked.

She responded: “I recognized that time was running long and I skipped through some of the portions.”

“So you chose to omit the parts that contradict the president,” Senator Warner suggested.

Gabbard's testimony comes a day after one of her top deputies resigned in protest over the Iran war. Joe Kent, the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said in his resignation letter to Trump that Iran posed “no imminent threat.”

When pressed by Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff about whether the intelligence community had determined that Iran posed an imminent nuclear threat, Gabbard said that “the only person who can determine what is and is not an imminent threat is the president.”

“It is not the intelligence community's responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat,” she told the annual Senate committee hearing on Worldwide Threats to the United States.  

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Gabbard’s testimony also diverged from some of Trump’s other assertions about the war and the threat posed by the Iranian regime.

Regime is still ‘intact’

Gabbard’s testimony appeared to contradict a key Trump claim about the health of the Iranian regime after nearly three weeks of bombing. 

Despite the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei of the first day of the war, and a slew of top national security officials, including Ali Larijani this week, the DNI’s assessment is that Iran’s regime has not collapsed. 

"The regime in Iran appears to be intact but largely degraded by Operation Epic Fury," Gabbard said Wednesday. “Even so, Iran and its proxies remain capable of and continue to attack U.S. and allied interests in the Middle East. If a hostile regime survives, it will seek to begin a years-long effort to rebuild its missiles and UAV (drone) forces.”

Gabbard’s claims come two days after Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that the Iranian regime had “been literally obliterated.”

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“The Air Force is gone, the Navy is gone, many, many ships have been sunk. ... Anti-aircraft is decimated. Their radar is gone, and their leaders are gone,” he said.

Will Iran close the Strait of Hormuz?

Gabbard was pressed by Democrats on the possible effects of striking Iran, including the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has caused a major disruption to the global trade of oil and liquified natural gas.

Since the conflict began on Feb. 28, the price of crude oil has jumped to above $100 per barrel on several occasions, up from around $67 before the first U.S.-Israeli strikes.

Critics have accused Trump of failing to plan for the closure of the Strait. 

“They had no plan to address the crisis in the strait,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat, who received a classified briefing with administration officials about the operation last week. “The fact that these guys didn’t have a plan ahead of time, and a week into the war still didn’t have a plan, was pretty shocking.” 

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Democrats, however, argued that this retaliation was expected and pressed Gabbard to say whether she had briefed Trump on the consequences of striking Iran.

"I have not and won't divulge internal conversations. I will say that those of us within the intelligence community continue to provide the president with all of the best objective intelligence available to inform his decisions," Gabbard responded.

Gabbard sidestepped most of the questions on whether the White House asked the intelligence community to brief them on the Strait of Hormuz.

"The intelligence community has continued to provide the president and his team with the intelligence related to this operation in Iran. Before, and on an ongoing basis," Gabbard said.