On June 23, 2025, Iran launched a missile attack on a U.S. military base in Qatar in retaliation for U.S. strikes on several nuclear sites across Iran.
In the days that followed, users took to several social media platforms (archived, archived, archived, archived) to claim that U.S. President Donald Trump later admitted that he gave Iran permission to conduct the strikes on the U.S. base in Qatar after Tehran confirmed to Washington the time it planned to carry them out.
At least two outlets also published stories that featured the rumor and some social media posts linked to those articles.
Snopes contacted the White House seeking comment on the claim. We will update this story if we receive a response.
While Trump did say that Iran warned the U.S. ahead of time and that the U.S. government responded to the precise time the Iranian government provided by saying, "It's fine," the claim that he "gave Iran permission" is an oversimplification of events. Below, we break down what actually happened.
Soon after Iran's strikes on the U.S. base in Qatar, Trump responded publicly (archived) on his social media platform, Truth Social, by saying: "I want to thank Iran for giving us early notice, which made it possible for no lives to be lost, and nobody to be injured."
(Truth Social user @realDonaldTrump)
However, the social media posts claiming Trump gave Iran permission focused on a different statement the president made in which he reportedly claimed that he told Iran it was "fine" (whether this referenced the time of the strike or the strike itself is unclear). One X post (archived) included a video clip in which Trump said:
[14] missiles were shot at us the other day. And they were very nice, they gave us warning. They said, "We're going to shoot them. Is one o'clock OK?" We said, "It's fine." And everybody was emptied off the base. So they couldn't get hurt, except for the gunners.
The footage and quote are authentic; the full version of his speech — which he gave during a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in the Netherlands on June 25, 2025 — is available on the official White House YouTube channel (at minute 18:37).
Following the quote above, he added: "And out of 14 high-end missiles that were shot at the base in Qatar, all 14, as you know, were shot down by our equipment."
However, there is no evidence aside from Trump's own account as to what the Iran and U.S. governments' official communication was ahead of the strikes.
Moreover, the fact Trump stated that Iran warned the U.S. government ahead of the strike, provided a precise time, and that the U.S. reportedly responded affirmatively doesn't mean the U.S. government "gave Iran permission." The exact words the U.S. government used when responding to the reported warning are also unconfirmed; Trump recounted that the communication from the U.S. was "It's fine," but there is no public record of the exact wording.
In reality, it is not unusual for an attacking force to give warning before a missile strike, nor does acknowledging communication ahead of a strike inherently equate to "giving permission."
The official response of the U.S. and Qatari governments came in the form of defensive counterstrikes against the Iranian missiles.