Analysis.. Trump's New Claim About "Drug Factories" Inside Iran's Nuclear Facilities

An analysis written by Daniel Dale from the Afaq News Network - President Donald Trump has made numerous 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 were also "drug factories."

Trump's comments, made during a rally in Oklahoma, puzzled not only ordinary Americans but also experts on the Iranian nuclear program. James Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said in an email on Friday after Afaq News sent him a video of Trump's remarks: "How surprising...

He added: "To my knowledge, the Fordow facility - which Trump claimed was destroyed - was not used for drug production, and I have never heard any claim (whether credible or otherwise) that it was." The White House declined to provide any explanation for Trump's comments when Afaq News inquired about the statements on Friday.

However, when watching 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 - insisted on his position instead of correcting his statement.

For a president who has declared himself "right about everything," merely admitting to a minor verbal error is usually considered a tall order. Trump's claim came after remarks about drugs in the Caribbean region.

Trump made this claim about "drug factories" towards the end of a long day, having traveled from the White House to attend an event in Texas, and then arriving about two hours late to the campaign rally in Oklahoma after being forced to travel by land instead of by plane due to bad weather. During a discussion of his efforts to combat Iran, Trump spoke about the stealth bombers that attacked Iranian nuclear facilities in the June 2025 operation codenamed "Midnight Hammer," with some of those planes dropping bombs targeting ventilation shafts at the Fordow facility.

Trump said, "Then at one o'clock in the morning, with the moon absent and darkness prevailing, those amazing fighters - piloted by the best pilots in the world - unloaded their payloads, each bomb flew directly through the ventilation shafts to settle inside... well, inside those drug factories, actually.

So that’s what they were doing; they were nuclear facilities and also drug factories. They were dealing in drugs, but they were also working in the nuclear field.

But these drug factories - which were also functioning as nuclear plants - were hit very hard." However, before he began talking about Iran, he was discussing his attempts to thwart illegal drug trafficking in the Caribbean, and the U.S. military operation that led to the arrest of then-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Trump's initial comment about bombing the Iranian "drug factories" - or "drug factories, actually" - seemed to be just a slip of the tongue stemming from previous remarks about illegal drugs and Venezuela. Trump has always refused to acknowledge even minor slips, preferring instead to act as if he really meant what he accidentally said; even on trivial matters, such as whether the shorthand for a federal agent - whom he praised in a 2018 speech - is "CJ" or "DJ."

In this case, instead of simply correcting the phrase "drug factories," he added 3 other sentences spontaneously that affirm that claim. The White House did not attempt to clarify; the White House - which tends to assert that "President Trump is right" even when responding to questions about his most inaccurate statements - did not provide any defense for this specific statement.

One aide said in an unsigned email on Friday: "Refer back to the president's comments." In an attempt to reach a "possible explanation," Acton said it is likely that Trump recalled how Iran has sometimes referred to legal drugs known as "radioactive pharmaceuticals," which are used to diagnose and treat certain medical conditions and "are produced in nuclear reactors."

However, Acton then pointed out that the "Fordow" facility - which Trump was clearly talking about a lot on Thursday - is an enrichment center that does not contain a nuclear reactor, "and thus, even under this (lenient) interpretation, Trump's statements remain inaccurate." He believed the more likely possibility is that Trump simply made an inadvertent mistake.

Of course, it would be extremely misleading for Trump to shift from talking about illegal drug trafficking in the Caribbean to discussing Iran operating "drug factories" in its nuclear facilities without clarifying that he is referring to the production of legal medications. Therefore, saying that Trump merely made a slip of the tongue is, in fact, the best possible defense for his statements about "drug factories."

That does not mean that Trump or his team are ready to use this justification.