President Barack Obama in 2012 promised that any nuclear deal with Iran would completely shut down all centrifuges.
On Monday, CNN's Jake Tapper confronted White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes over the fact that last week's framework agreement allows Iran to continue to operate some of its plants.
On CNN's
"The Lead with Jake Tapper," the host played a clip of Obama saying in 2012: "The deal we'll accept is: they end their nuclear program. It's very straightforward."
In another clip from 2013, Obama says that at the underground facility in Fordow, "they don't need some of the advanced centrifuges that they currently possess."
"This deal doesn't meet any of that," Tapper said.
Rhodes disagreed, saying the Obama administration has said all along that some enrichment would be allowed "if Iran can demonstrate that its program is peaceful."
At Fordow, Rhodes added, the facility is being converted from weapons-grade production to nuclear power production.
"Their advanced centrifuges will be taken out, so the only centrifuges that they will be using to enrich uranium for the duration of this agreement are their IR-1 first-generation centrifuges. They will be removing their IR-2 advanced centrifuges and they will not be installing and enrich uranium."
Tapper wasn't convinced.
"But Fordow still exists, and the advanced centrifuges, there's an end date to that, 15 years," he said.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.