Analysis by CNN's Daniel Dale
(CNN) - President Donald Trump has made several statements about the three Iranian nuclear facilities that the United States attacked last year. Until Thursday night, he had never publicly claimed that these facilities also served as "drug factories."
Trump's comments, which he made during a public rally in Oklahoma, baffled not only ordinary Americans, but also experts on the Iranian nuclear program.
“Wow...this is new to me,” James Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said in an email on Friday, after CNN sent him a video of Trump's remarks.
He added: “To my knowledge, the Fordow facility - which Trump described as being destroyed - was not being used to produce drugs, and I have never heard any claim (credible or otherwise) that it was.”
The White House declined to provide any explanation for Trump's comments when CNN inquired about the comments on Friday. But when you watch the full video of Trump's speech, a clear hypothesis quickly emerges.
It seems likely that he made a simple mistake and then — as he has done for years — stood his ground rather than correcting himself. For a president who has declared himself "right about everything," even acknowledging a simple verbal error is usually considered far-fetched.
Trump's claim came after comments about drugs in the Caribbean.
Trump made the claim about "drug factories" towards the end of a long day. He traveled from the White House to an event in Texas, then arrived nearly two hours late to a campaign rally in Oklahoma, after bad weather forced him to travel by road instead of by plane.
While discussing his efforts to fight Iran, Trump spoke of the stealth bombers that attacked Iranian nuclear facilities in the June 2025 operation codenamed “Operation Midnight Hammer,” and some of those planes dropped bombs targeting ventilation shafts at the Fordow facility.
"And then at one o'clock in the morning, with the moon gone and darkness falling, these amazing fighter jets - flown by the most skilled pilots in the world - unloaded their cargo, and each bomb shot straight through the air vents and landed inside... well, inside those drug factories, actually," Trump said. "That's what they were doing; they were nuclear facilities and they were drug plants. They were working with drugs, but they were working in nuclear, too. But these drug factories - which were also working as nuclear factories - were hit." "Very strong."
Why did Trump say that?
We may never know for sure why. But before he started talking about Iran, he was talking about his attempts to thwart illegal drug trafficking in the Caribbean, and the US military operation that resulted in the arrest of then Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Trump's initial comment about bombing Iranian "drug factories" — or "drug factories, actually" — appeared to be a slip of the tongue stemming from previous statements about illegal drugs and Venezuela.
Trump has long refused to acknowledge even minor missteps, preferring instead to act as if he really meant what he accidentally said; Even on unimportant matters, like whether a federal agent's short title — which he praised in a 2018 speech — is "CJ" or "DJ." In this case, instead of simply correcting the phrase “drug factories,” he extemporaneously added three more sentences confirming that claim.
The White House did not try to explain
The White House, which tends to assert that “President Trump is right” even when responding to questions about his most inaccurate statements, offered no defense of this particular statement. “Refer to the president’s comments,” an aide said in an unsigned email on Friday.
Trying to come up with a "possible explanation," Acton said it was possible that Trump recalled how Iran has sometimes pointed out that legal drugs known as "radiopharmaceuticals," which are used to diagnose and treat certain medical conditions, are "produced in nuclear reactors."
But Acton then pointed out that the Fordow facility - which Trump clearly seemed to be talking about a lot on Thursday - is an enrichment center that does not include a nuclear reactor, “and therefore, even under this (lenient) interpretation, Trump’s statements remain inaccurate.” He believed that the most likely possibility was that Trump had simply committed a spontaneous error.
Of course, it would be extremely misleading for Trump to move from talking about illicit drug trafficking in the Caribbean to talking about Iran operating “drug factories” at its nuclear facilities without making it clear that he is referring to the production of legitimate drugs.
So, to say that Trump made a mere slip of the tongue is actually the best possible defense for his statements about “drug factories.” This does not mean that Trump or his team are ready to use this justification.
