On Wednesday, as he was about to depart from a NATO summit, President Donald Trump seemed to make a stunning admission: He gave Iran the green light to attack a U.S. military base in retaliation for his own strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites.

The Iranians "were very nice. They gave us warning," Trump told reporters. "They said, 'We're going to shoot 'em. Is one o'clock OK?' I said, 'It's fine,'" he added.

The casual, nonchalant tone of Trump's acceptance that Iran would attack U.S. forces at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar -- an assault that involved more than a dozen Iranian missiles -- was a sharp contrast to the message of steely-eyed professionalism and heroism that his top military adviser, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, offered to reporters the next day for what he said was likely the largest single use of the Patriot air defense system in U.S. history.

"There was a lot of metal flying around, and yet our U.S. air defenders had only seconds to make complex decisions with strategic impact," Caine told reporters.

"These awesome humans, along with their Qatari brothers and sisters in arms, stood between a salvo of Iranian missiles and the safety of Al Udeid," he added, before calling them the  "unsung heroes of the 21st-century United States Army."

Those platitudes also came at the same briefing where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, irate over media reports that cited a leaked intelligence report suggesting U.S. strikes on Iran may not have had the effect he claimed, accused reporters of willfully undermining the accomplishments of service members.

When asked about this stark contrast -- a president whose words seemed to suggest he welcomed an attack that then required heroic actions from air defenders -- Hegseth's office offered more praise of the troops at Al Udeid.

"The safety of our service members is of the utmost importance to Secretary Hegseth, and he couldn't be prouder of the troops who put their lives on the line every day to keep Americans safe," Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson told Military.com in an emailed statement.

In a later statement, Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said “thanks to President Trump and Secretary Hegseth’s leadership, our troops know that their commander-in-chief and secretary of defense have their back. Any insinuation to the contrary is absurd.”

Meanwhile, the White House declined to comment on Friday.

Trump himself seemed to be aware of the danger that the Iranian attack posed because right after saying he gave Iran permission to strike, he said that "everyone was emptied off the base so they couldn't get hurt except for the gunners."

Caine, on Thursday, said that only two Patriot surface-to-air missile batteries remained on base, leaving "roughly 44 American soldiers responsible for defending the entire base," which includes the forward headquarters for U.S. Central Command.

"The oldest soldier was a 28-year-old captain. The youngest was a 21-year-old private who'd been in the military for less than two years," Caine said.

Privately, many officials within the Pentagon struggled to explain the president's remarks, though some pointed to his history of bluster and exaggeration.

One defense official said that military leaders in the Pentagon didn't believe that the president provoked or allowed the attack to occur and that the Iranians were always going to look for a way to conduct a proportionate response to the U.S. strikes on their nuclear sites.

Meanwhile, a closed-door classified briefing Thursday for senators on Capitol Hill on the strikes ended with lawmakers telling reporters it was still too early to know just how much damage Iran's nuclear program sustained.

Also on Thursday, Hegseth was quick to point to intelligence assessments from both the CIA and the Director of National Intelligence that cited "new intelligence" that the three facilities were destroyed.

Neither statement, however, offered any details about the new intelligence, and when a reporter asked Hegseth whether he felt the public needed to see the intelligence being cited, he countered: "Do you have a top secret clearance, sir?"

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Iran Threatens to Attack More U.S. Military Bases

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has warned that Iran would respond to any further U.S. attacks by targeting American military bases in the Middle East, while declaring what he described as a "total victory" over Israel.

“The Islamic Republic slapped America in the face. It attacked one of the important American bases in the region,” Khamenei said during his first televised remarks since a ceasefire was reached to end the 12-day conflict between Iran and Israel.

On Monday, Tehran launched 19 ballistic missiles at Al Udeid Air Base, a U.S. airbase in Qatar, in response to an American attack on three nuclear program sites inside Iran. All but one of the missiles were intercepted by air defenses, and no American or Qatari personnel were reported injured in the attack.

“Such an action can be repeated in the future too. Should any aggression occur, the enemy will definitely pay a heavy price,” the Ayatollah warned, adding that Iran has “access to key U.S. centers in the region.”

The Iranian strike followed a major U.S. military operation on June 21, in which American forces targeted three Iranian nuclear facilities. President Donald Trump later claimed the attacks “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capability.

However, leaked U.S. intelligence suggests that the damage to Iran’s nuclear program may not be as severe as Trump has alluded. CIA director John Ratcliffe said on Wednesday that the sites had been “severely damaged” by the strikes, short of the damage described by the President.

Khamenei also criticized President Trump’s call for the Islamic Republic’s “unconditional surrender”, posted on TruthSocial on June 17, calling it "unacceptable and illogical."

Earlier in the conflict, Trump had suggested the possibility of regime change in Iran. “If the current Iranian Regime is unable to make Iran great again, why wouldn’t there be a regime change???” he said.

But on Tuesday, en route to the NATO Summit, Trump appeared to backtrack. “I’d like to see everything calm down as quickly as possible,” he told reporters onboard Air Force One.

The conflict began after Israel attacked military and nuclear facilities across Iran on June 13, killing key military and scientific personnel. After the strikes, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described Operation Rising Lion as an attack to “roll back the Iranian threat to Israel’s very survival” and that “the goal of Israel's operation is to prevent the nuclear and ballistic missile threat of the Islamic regime.”

Khamenei told viewers on Thursday that the U.S. had only intervened because “if it didn’t, the Zionist regime would be completely destroyed,” claiming that Israel “was practically knocked out and crushed under the blows of the Islamic Republic.”

During the almost two week-long conflict, 974 Iranians were killed in Israeli missile strikes, including 387 civilians and 268 military personnel, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency.

In Israel, the Prime Minister’s Office confirmed a total of 28 people killed as a result of Iranian missile strikes.

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Trump says he’d consider bombing Iran again if concerns grow

President Trump said Friday he’d consider bombing Iran again if the U.S. gathers intelligence that raises concerns about the country’s uranium enrichment capabilities.

“Sure, without question, absolutely,” Trump said, when asked during a press briefing if a second wave of bombings was possible.

Trump said later he was “not really” worried about secret nuclear sites in Iran.

“They’re exhausted,” he said of Iran’s leaders. “The last thing they’re thinking about is nuclear weapons right now.”

The Trump administration has insisted this week that Iran’s nuclear program was completely destroyed by U.S. bombings and missile strikes on Saturday. Democrats have been unconvinced by House and Senate intelligence briefings this week.

There’s little dispute that the strikes did major damage to Iran’s nuclear facilities, but there are conflicting assessments over just how far the country’s broader nuclear program was set back.

An initial Pentagon assessment said the attacks set Iran’s nuclear program back by months, not years; however, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has pushed back hard on those findings.

It’s also unclear whether Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium remained in the targeted facilities, with some reports suggesting it was moved elsewhere before the U.S. attacks.

Lawmakers have raised concerns that if the strikes did not drastically push back Iran’s nuclear timeline, there may be a case for striking again.

“We’ve got the president saying one thing … and based on the [Pentagon’s] DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency] analysis, it’s different,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (Miss.), the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, said Wednesday.

“His approach, potentially, could get us in trouble. If we don’t up our diplomacy game, then all bets are off,” he added. “The worst thing we need is a broader conflict.”

Trump brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Iran that took effect within days of the U.S. bombing. It got off to a shaky start but has held through the week.

Democrats remained skeptical of Trump’s claims the U.S. “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program following briefings with Trump officials Thursday and Friday.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said there are “just too many unknowns” to determine whether Iran would “make a dash for the bomb” in the near future.

“Do they now want to be more like North Korea and be a nuclear state than a nuclear threshold state? We don’t know and it will take time before we do know,” he told ABC News.

Trump said earlier this week that a nuclear deal with Iran was not “necessary” after the strikes, but he has not closed the door to diplomacy.

The president said U.S. and Iranian officials would meet next week. The White House said Thursday that no meeting has been scheduled.

Trump released a statement on Truth Social shortly after the press conference, criticizing Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, for claiming Iran won the war with Israel. Trump said Khamenei should be thankful Israel halted its attacks.

“Iran has to get back into the World Order flow, or things will only get worse for them,” Trump wrote.