Trump Claims Iran Was Two Weeks From Nuclear Weapon, Forcing US to Strike

President Trump revealed Wednesday that Iran was two weeks away from possessing nuclear weapons — a timeline that he said left the United States no choice but to launch Operation Epic Fury. 'If we didn't hit within two weeks, they would have had a nuclear weapon,' Trump told reporters at the White House while signing the Ratepayer Protection Pledge. The claim provides the most specific justification the administration has offered for the timing of the strikes and, if accurate, suggests the intelligence community concluded that Iran's nuclear breakout was imminent despite years of diplomatic efforts to prevent it. The two-week timeline also explains the administration's insistence that the operation could not wait for congressional authorization — a legal argument that remains fiercely contested on Capitol Hill even after the Senate's failure to pass a war powers resolution hours earlier.