White House releases Situation Room photos from when U.S. struck Iran sites

After President Donald Trump launched the first significant U.S. military strike on Iranian soil since the 1979 overthrow of the U.S.-backed shah of Iran, the White House late Saturday released its photos of the president and his top advisers conferring in the Situation Room.

The scenes were captured in the windowless room where top-secret operations are discussed and monitored. The White House photos showed Trump, wearing a MAGA hat, at the head of the table, surrounded by advisers including White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The photos, which have already been viewed nearly 10 million times on X, were digitally altered, potentially to obscure sensitive or classified material. According to the Associated Press, “some papers on the table have been blurred by the source.” As is typical with Situation Room gatherings, there are no independent journalist photos of the gathering.

In a photo produced and distributed by the White House, President Donald Trump is seen with Vice President JD Vance in the Situation Room of the White House on June 21.

Similar Situation Room handout photographs taken in 2011 when President Barack Obama and top aides monitored the raid that killed Osama bin Laden became an iconic symbol of his presidency. Those photos also obscured documents that were on the table.

In a photo produced and distributed by the White House, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Gen. Dan Caine in the Situation Room of the White House on June 21. The photo has been digitally altered. According to the Associated Press, some papers on the table have been blurred by the source.

Notably absent from the photos released Saturday night was Trump’s intelligence czar, Tulsi Gabbard, who has been on the outs with her boss lately. But on Sunday evening, a White House account posted an image on X of Gabbard that was dated June 21, 2025, and captioned “President Trump’s intelligence team in the White House Situation Room.”

Trump appears to have soured on Gabbard since nominating her to coordinate U.S. intelligence agencies and has twice in the past week criticized her judgment publicly on the state of Iran’s nuclear program. Gabbard told Congress in March, accurately reflecting U.S. spy agencies’ assessments, that while Iran was pursuing nuclear activities, it had not made a decision to construct a bomb.

In comments to reporters on Friday, Trump unequivocally asserted that assessment “is wrong,” and that Gabbard is “wrong.”