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Trump Participates in an Official Greeting and Pull-Aside with the NATO Secretary General, June 25, 2025

June 25, 2025 · The White House · 0:53:55

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

President Donald Trump participated in an official greeting and pull-aside with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in The Hague on June 25, 2025, carried on the White House channel. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, citing IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi’s statement, said of Iran’s nuclear program: “There was Iran the way it looked the day before the attack and what their nuclear program looks like now — two very different things. They are way behind where they were just seven days ago,” adding that “there’s no way Iran comes to the table if somehow nothing had happened. This was complete and total obliteration. They’re in bad shape,” as he stated the assessment.

Secretary General Rutte told the President the strike’s signal reached beyond Iran: “You took out the nuclear capability of Iran — this was crucial. You did it in a way which is extremely impressive, but the signal sends to the rest of the world that this president, when it comes to it — yes, he’s a man of peace, but if necessary he’s willing to use strength, the enormous strength of the American military,” as Rutte stated it. The President repeated his own word for the result: “It wasn’t hit hard, it was hit brutally and it knocked it out. The original word that I used — I guess it got us in trouble because it’s a strong word — it was obliteration,” saying he wanted the credit for the pilots and the military.

Why it matters

The pull-aside is the alliance’s public framing of the Iran strike on summit day: the Secretary of State’s IAEA-cited assessment, the Secretary General’s deterrence-signal argument, and the President’s insistence on the ‘obliteration’ characterization, all stated on the record by the participants.

Scoreboard watch

This event is a scoreboard reference point: Secretary Rubio’s June 25, 2025 statement, citing the IAEA, that Iran’s program was set back from where it stood seven days earlier, as stated by the Secretary, to be checked against the published IAEA assessments.

Sources: The White House, “President Trump Participates in an Official Greeting and Pull-Aside with the NATO Secretary General” (official upload, embedded above; the upload’s description places the event in The Hague, Netherlands). All characterizations as stated by the President, by Secretary Rubio, and by Secretary General Rutte.