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President Donald Trump ripped “Fake News CNN” in a post to Truth Social on Monday about retrieving nuclear material from Iran.
Trump also slammed “other corrupt Media Networks and Platforms” in the post.
The president wrote, “Operation Midnight Hammer was a complete and total obliteration of the Nuclear Dust sites in Iran. Therefore, digging it out will be a long and difficult process. Fake News CNN, and other corrupt Media Networks and Platforms, fail to give our great aviators the credit they deserve — always trying to demean and belittle — LOSERS!!!”
CNN’s Anderson Cooper spoke to Alex Plitsas, a national security analyst, as well as Andrew Weber, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs, during his show on Monday about the possibility of the U.S. removing Iran’s highly enriched uranium.
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President Donald Trump speaks to the media on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., on April 16, 2026. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
CBS News’ “60 Minutes” also did a segment with Weber on Sunday, where he discussed a mission he was involved in the 1990s to retrieve highly enriched uranium left behind in Kazakhstan after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Cooper asked both guests about the viability of a similar mission in Iran to retrieve the remaining highly enriched uranium. Both Weber and Plitsas indicated it would be a much bigger lift and effort.
“So, you’d have to have some sort of large blocking force to protect the facility,” Plitas said. “The specialist that he was just talking about would have to then go inside. Condition unknown. Tunnels have obviously been hit. It could be a lengthy operation. Some of this is leaked out to the press, which is why some of these details are available. You could be looking at a sizable operation, which is why at this point, the President was talking originally about maybe leaving it at persistent stare for right now, and is trying to work this out through a negotiated settlement.”
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President Donald Trump gestures at a roundtable event about no tax on tips, Thursday, April 16, 2026, in Las Vegas (Lucas Peltier/AP Photo)
Weber told “60 Minutes” that it could take thousands of U.S. troops to carry out a mission to retrieve Iran’s uranium.
“In Iran, we couldn’t send a team in to do this unilaterally without great risk,” he said. “You would need to set up in the middle of the country a secure perimeter. It would probably take thousands of U.S. troops to secure the facility while our experts excavated the HEU that’s located inside deep tunnels at a place called Isfahan.”
Appearing on “Jesse Watters Primetime” Monday night, Ret. U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, a former CENTCOM commander, also warned about such an operation, saying, “This would be a very, very tall order, it would be exceedingly risky. And the casualties could potentially be quite substantial.”
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CNN did not immediately return Digital’s request for comment.
