WASHINGTON — CIA Director John Ratcliffe ripped Democrats during a closed-door briefing of senators on Thursday by comparing President Donald Trump’s successful airstrikes eliminating Iran’s nuclear program to former President Barack Obama’s failures with his Iran nuclear deal, Breitbart News has learned.
A source in the room present for Ratcliffe’s, Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s all-senators closed-door briefing on Thursday told Breitbart News that Democrat senators repeatedly pressed them about the effectiveness of the strikes, pushing for more proof than they have offered on the matter. In response, Ratcliffe told them, per the source present in the room, the way he knew how effective they were was how quickly they folded to Trump versus how long they dragged out negotiations with Obama.
“You know how you know the strikes were devastatingly effective?” Ratcliffe told the Senate Democrats in the briefing per the source who spoke with Breitbart News. “Iran has been fighting Israel for decades. They strung along the Obama administration for 20 months while negotiating the JCPOA. But Trump made them accept a ceasefire with their mortal enemy in 20 minutes.”
Ratcliffe also, during the briefing, reiterated the contents of a statement he previously released publicly in which he said the CIA can confirm that Iran’s nuclear program had been “severely damaged” by the strikes Trump ordered last weekend.
“This includes new intelligence from an historically reliable and accurate source/method that several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years,” Ratcliffe said in part in that public statement, which he reaffirmed to senators behind closed doors.
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