President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff revealed in an interview this week that Iranian negotiators told him in the lead-up to the U.S.-Israeli military operation in Iran that they had enough enriched uranium to “make 11 nuclear bombs.”
But since the major combat operations were launched on Saturday with the intent of crushing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the administration has yet to publicly produce any concrete evidence on the whereabouts of the nuclear material or who is in control of it. The Israel Defense Forces claimed that at least 40 top military commanders were killed in the opening strikes of the conflict.
In an interview on Fox News, Witkoff told host Sean Hannity that as soon as he and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, sat down with the Iranian negotiators for denuclearization talks last month, their counterparts spoke of their stockpile of enriched uranium.
“Jared and I opened up with the Iranian negotiators telling us they had the inalienable right to enrich all the nuclear fuel they possessed,” Witkoff said. “We, of course, responded that the president feels we have the inalienable right to stop you in your tracks.”
Witkoff claimed the Iranian negotiators openly shared details about their supply of nuclear material.
“In that first meeting, both the Iranian negotiators said to us directly with, you know, no shame, that they controlled 460 kilograms of 60% [enriched uranium] and they’re aware that that could make 11 nuclear bombs,” Witkoff said.
Witkoff said the 60% enriched uranium can be brought to weapons-grade in about a week and that the 20% enriched uranium can be brought to weapons-grade in three to four weeks.
“They manufacture their own centrifuges to enrich this material,” Witkoff said. “So, there’s almost no stopping them. They have an endless supply of it.”
The statement appears to contradict what the Pentagon said last summer about Iran’s ability to develop weapons-grade uranium following U.S. strikes on its nuclear facilities.
In July 2025, Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, said at a news conference that that the strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities in June set back Iran’s capability to develop a nuclear weapon by “closer to two years.”
“It’s not just … enriched uranium or centrifuges or things like that. We destroyed the components that they would need to build a bomb,” Parnell said at the time.
But on Tuesday, that assessment fell to the wayside as the administration defended the U.S. military operation by insisting Iran posed an imminent threat to Americans. A senior administration official told reporters in a briefing that among the factors in the operation was that Iran had the ability to rebuild those components destroyed in the bombing, including its own centrifuges.
The official said a lot of the enriched uranium remained mostly in Isfahan with some still at Natanz and Fordo.
“It can be a long and cumbersome process in extracting it and covering it up,” the official said. “I think the first question is, where is it? The second question is, how do we get to it, and how do we get physical control? And then after that, it would be a decision of the president and department, the Department of War, CIA, as to whether we wanted to physically transport it or dilute it on premises.”
Iran has stated numerous times that it doesn’t want nuclear weapons, but believes it has the right to use nuclear power for civilian purpose. It had also been part of a nuclear deal with the U.S., which Trump withdrew from during his first term.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told ABC’s “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos on Sunday that the attack on his country was “unprovoked and unwarranted.” He said Iran was negotiating with the United States in good faith prior to the attacks.
“A deal was at our reach, and we left Geneva happily with the understanding that we can reach a deal next time we meet,” Araghchi said.
In their two public briefings on “Operation Epic Fury” in Iran, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did not address what has become of Iran’s nuclear material since the widespread military strikes began on Saturday.
In several speeches since the attacks commenced, Trump has also not been specific about the status of Iran’s nuclear material.
Hegseth, Caine, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Secretary of State Marco Rubio conducted a closed-door briefing with members of the U.S. Senate and House on the Iran operation on Tuesday afternoon.
In a letter sent on Monday to the administration’s briefers, five top House Democrats — including Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Adam Smith, ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee — asked for information on nuclear security in Iran.
“Who currently controls Iran’s nuclear facilities and materials, and what safeguards are in place to prevent diversion or proliferation, or complete loss of control?” the Democratic lawmakers asked in their letter.
But following the briefing, Meeks said the briefers offered few answers.
“Here we are again without answers. Here we are again without complete transparency,” Meeks said. “Here we are again trying to go around Congress.”
Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., said the briefers provided “no additional” information on the imminent threat that prompted the military operation, adding, “There’s nothing that we got that you don’t have.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., challenged any suggestion that the Trump administration was unclear during their briefing with House members about their objectives in Iran.
“This is really a very simple matter. It’s about the building of ballistic missiles. That’s what Iran was engaged in, and they were doing it at a speed and in a scale that was exceeding the ability of our regional allies to respond appropriately,” Johnson said. “This created an imminent and serious threat. It also gave them cover to continue with their nuclear ambitions.”
Johnson added, “As you know, we tried very hard to negotiate with them about that nuclear enrichment of uranium … and the buildup of their missiles was so important and so serious that the President of the United States, this president, thought that it was a great enough threat that we needed to act.”
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, said in a social media post on Tuesday that, based on the latest available satellite imagery, it “can now confirm some recent damage to entrance buildings of Iran’s underground Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant [FEP].”
“No radiological consequence expected and no additional impact detected at FEP itself, which was severely damaged in the June conflict,” the IAEA said in the post.
In June 2025, the U.S. and Israeli militaries launched “Operation Midnight Hammer,” targeting three of Iran’s nuclear facilities — Natanz, Fordo and Isfahan — with “bunker-buster” bombs, according to the White House.
At the time, Trump said the operation “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s key uranium enrichment sites.
In a speech on Monday at the White House, Trump said that after “Operation Midnight Hammer,” Iran attempted to rebuild its nuclear facilities in another location, “because they were unable to use the ones we so powerfully blew up.”
“In addition, the regime’s conventional ballistic missile program was growing rapidly and dramatically, and this posed a very clear, colossal threat to America and our forces stationed overseas,” Trump said. “The purpose of this fast-growing missile program was to shield their nuclear weapon development and make it extraordinarily difficult for anyone to stop them from making these highly forbidden, by us, nuclear weapons.”
The Institute for Science and International Security said in a statement on Tuesday that its analysis of satellite imagery indicates the Natanz nuclear complex, Iran’s main uranium enrichment site, was struck twice during Saturday’s joint U.S.-Israeli attack.
Neither the Trump administration nor the Israeli government have confirmed the alleged strikes on the Natanz complex.
Meanwhile, Israel targeted a compound near Tehran linked to the regime’s nuclear weapons “capabilities,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in statement Tuesday.
After the U.S. targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities last year, Israel, which participated in the operation under the code-name “Rising Lion,” continued to track scientists connected to the Iran’s nuclear weapons program “and located their new location at this site in a manner that enabled a precise strike on the covert underground compound,” the statement said.
“The strike removes a key component in the Iranian regime’s capability to develop nuclear weapons and joins a series of strikes conducted during Operation ‘Rising Lion’ that were essential to eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat,” the IDF said.
-ABC News’ Mary Kekatos and Jordana Miller contributed to this report.
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