Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Trump at NATO Summit; Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) is Interviewed about the Iran Strikes; Israel Assessment of Iran Strike; Mark Kimmitt is Interviewed about the Iran Strikes. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired June 25, 2025 - 09:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[09:00:00]

ELIZABETH WAGMEISTER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: So, yesterday, the judge asked if he understood his right to testify or not to testify. By the way, I had that scoop the day before. We had reporting from a source that he had decided not to testify.

But the judge then asked, how are you feeling to Mr. Combs. And this is what he said. I want to read you a direct quote, Omar.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Please do.

WAGMEISTER: He said, quote, "I'm doing great, your honor. I've been wanting to tell you, thank you. You're doing an excellent job."

It actually made the judge laugh. He chuckled a bit and he said, thank you. I appreciate that.

JIMENEZ: All right, well, hey, if you're not going to testify, I guess, you know, you get that out when you get the opportunity.

WAGMEISTER: You got to say something.

JIMENEZ: Say something.

Elizabeth Wagmeister, really appreciate the reporting. Thanks for being here.

WAGMEISTER: Thank you.

JIMENEZ: All right, another new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: The breaking news this morning, we're standing by to hear from President Trump at the NATO summit. Once again, he's about to meet with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy. While that is an important meeting on the table, President Trump is also mounting a forceful pushback against an early intelligence assessment from his own Pentagon that the U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear sites left core components of that program intact. Israels atomic energy committee is now weighing in.

And, anger on Capitol Hill after the White House abruptly postponed classified congressional briefings on those U.S. strikes. What the lawmakers are learning now.

I'm Kate Bolduan, with Omar Jimenez. Sara and John are out today. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

All right, there is more breaking news this morning. We are, yes, standing by for President Trump. Any moment now he is expected to hold a news conference at the NATO summit being held in The Netherlands. The president's trip so far largely dominated by the Israel-Iran conflict and questions swirling about what -- how effective the U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities were.

Breaking moments ago, the White House distributed a statement from the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission saying that the U.S. strike on the Fordow facility, that underground nuclear facility, quote, "destroyed the site's critical infrastructure." And now an Iranian spokesperson has just put out a statement saying that the nuclear installations were, quote, "badly damaged" in the strikes.

Earlier, President Trump had said the strikes set Iran's nuclear program back decades.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't know, but they're not going to have a bomb and they're not going to enrich. And we believe all of the stuff is down there. We don't think they had nearly the time. Because to get that out is a very difficult thing. It's not like -- it's not like moving a package or taking this carpet up and moving it. It's very difficult. It's very dangerous to do. We believe it's all down there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Let's get back over to CNN's Erin Burnett, anchor of CNN's -- of "OUTFRONT," Who's in the region.

And, Erin, I was just listing out a couple of new and significant statements coming in about all sorts -- all swirling about how impactful and what -- how -- how effective the strikes on the nuclear facilities really were.

BURNETT: Yes. Yes. And obviously the -- you know, the initial assessment that we had from the DIA, from the president's Pentagon, right, was that the U.S. strikes alone, right, so just their specific impact was several months of -- of hit. It was initial. There's going to be many others from U.S. intelligence agencies as well.

The Israelis have said that their strikes prior to that had set the program back by a few years. And now you see the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission, something that the president is keen to push out, saying that the combined efforts have set the -- the program back by many years. And the Iranian foreign minister, you talk about that statement, but

just moments ago on al Jazeera speaking out. The foreign minister, who I want to emphasize has become the face of -- of Iran. We know the president has had important phone calls, but we haven't heard from the supreme leader. He just said that the nuclear facility at Fordow has been badly damaged.

You know, all of these things sort of in the fog of knowing what happened certainly fit within the broader context, which is, there is damage. It's a question of how much. But on both sides, Iran saying that it still has the right to do what it wants to do, and Israel saying they're not going to take their foot off the pedal as Prime Minister Netanyahu said to the Israeli people last night in an address, all of those things are true at the same time.

Let's go to Kristen Holmes. She's at the NATO summit in The Netherlands. Zach Cohen is in Washington monitoring the Pentagon and the developments coming out of there.

But, Kristen, let's go to you first. In the fog of these assessments, now fast and furious, getting new information out, the Israeli atomic energy assessment, one that the president is keen to get out there.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Erin, I mean, the White House sent out that statement. They want reporters to see that statement. And there is a couple of things going on here.

[09:05:02]

One of them being, you know, President Trump believes that at least part of the end game in the Middle East is getting Iran to the table in terms of a nuclear deal. And there are questions as to whether or not a different level of destruction would mean that Iran would come to the table with different expectations for those negotiations. But President Trump, he is doubling down on this idea that it was completely obliterated, these nuclear sites, or at some points he's saying a, quote, "virtually obliterated."

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think basically decades, because I don't think they'll ever do it again. I just don't think they're going to do it. I think they're going to take their oil. They're going to have some missiles, and they'll have some defense. I think they've had it.

I mean, they just went through hell. I think they've had it.

It was -- I believe it was total obliteration. I believe they didn't have a chance to get anything out because we acted fast. If it would have taken two weeks, maybe. But it's very hard to remove that kind of material. Very hard and very dangerous for them to remove it. Plus, they knew we were coming. And if they know we're coming, they're not going to be down there. (END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: So, what he's talking about there is that he's saying that he doesn't believe that Iran was able to move the uranium from that underground area, meaning that the U.S. would have struck that as well. There, of course, been questions as to where this enriched uranium is.

One thing again to point out here is, President Trump is acknowledging that this intel exists. He continues to half say it's a fake report, but also says that the intelligence was there, they just don't believe that it's conclusive. He believes that what he saw was inconclusive and that they're waiting for the larger picture.

And just one other note here. He compared the strikes from last weekend on the United States dropping the nuclear bomb on Japan in World War II, saying they both were used to end wars.

BURNETT: Yes.

HOLMES: So, you can see his rhetoric is clearly doubling down on the strength of what we did over the weekend.

BURNETT: Yes. Right. Right, likening it to Hiroshima. Of course, you know, the context here, when -- when you come out and talk about total obliteration in the hours after an attack, that invites people to look into what it really was. But, of course, if you take all the rhetoric and all the politics out, what really was accomplished there is -- is of utmost importance to peace in this region and the world.

And, Zach, you have new reporting on what the leaked intelligence report from the DIA, from President Trump's Pentagon, from the intelligence unit there says.

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, Erin, what you just mentioned, though, is critical, and it's that this intelligence assessment produced after the strikes on those Iranian nuclear facilities and after Donald Trump came out and announced a total obliteration, this assessment does cast more doubt, or at least injects some uncertainty into what the actual damage inflicted on those sites was and on Iran's nuclear program was. And that's sort of where we are in this current moment.

This intelligence assessment is the first known intelligence -- assessment produced by a U.S. intelligence agency. That was the Defense Intelligence Agency, which is overseen by the Pentagon. And it's based on a battle damage assessment produced by U.S. Central Command. So, DIA has been analyzing that battle -- that battle damage assessment, and produced its initial preliminary assessment on its own, stating that it's -- or it's unclear what the actual impact of those strikes were, but it's possible that they only set Iran's nuclear program back by a matter of months. That obviously runs counter and is at odds with the timeline that President Donald Trump and even, to a certain extent, what we've heard from Israel on really the impact of both -- of strikes by both those countries. And the other issue, too, here is the assessment does lay out some

uncertainty around what is the status of those core key nuclear components of Iran's nuclear program that are located at those facilities, Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. Again, Donald Trump has said very authoritatively that he believes that those -- that that equipment and that those components have been destroyed. This DIA assessment casting doubt on both that and that stockpile of already enriched uranium. That's another key part of this that really does not have a clear answer and is one in this assessment that intelligence officials acknowledge was likely not destroyed in the U.S. strikes.

So, again, this all kind of goes back to what we heard from chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine earlier this week when he said it's far too early to know what is still there and what is not.

BURNETT: Yes. Yes, absolutely. And all of this, of course, takes time. The most important thing to get it right. But I -- Zach, just to emphasize, from your reporting, Natasha Bertrand's incredible reporting on breaking this first, that this is the assessment that comes from the Pentagon. And it comes not from political leadership, it comes from military leadership. It comes from Central Command. That is their job to look at the information they have, to give an initial assessment and to adjust and change as more information comes in. But that is exactly what Central Command is focused on is, is what are the facts here?

[09:10:04]

Zach Cohen, Kristen Holmes, thank you so very much.

Kate, back to you.

BOLDUAN: Erin, thank you so much.

Joining us right now to talk more about this is Republican Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna. She sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. She's also a U.S. Air Force veteran.

Congresswoman, thank you so much for coming in.

REP. ANNA PAULINA LUNA (R-FL): Thanks for having me, Kate.

BOLDUAN: I had Democratic Congressman Jason Crow on a little bit earlier on -- in the show. He says that he has seen that preliminary intel assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency. Have you seen it as well?

LUNA: No, I have not witnessed -- actually looked at it yet. And what I would like to say is, just so that we're clear and just kind of hearing on the previous reporting, you know, President Trump and what happened with the precision strike on Iran so badly damaged their facilities that they came to the table to negotiate, and he brokered a ceasefire. So, I think people need to remember, we don't want war, but because and as a result of that, I don't care what anyone says, peace is always success. BOLDUAN: I want to play for you what Congressman Crow said with, and

I'll say it again, with the caveat, of course, he says he cannot talk about classified information, as we wouldn't ask you to for sure.

LUNA: Of course.

BOLDUAN: He also did say this after seeing this intel assessment. Let me play this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JASON CROW (D-CO): I have. And I'm not going to speak to the specific intelligence. So, all I'm going to say is that Donald Trump has a long history of distorting and, you know, putting his own take on U.S. intelligence assessments, regardless of what it actually says. And, you know, we are going to see in the days and weeks to come the -- the truth and the reality of these reports and these assessments. But Donald Trump's, you know, continued distortions about what happened and what didn't happen, you know, that that's -- that's what he does.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Congresswoman, do you share those concerns expressed by -- by Jason Crow?

LUNA: Not at all. And if I can just go into my background, you had mentioned I was an Air Force veteran. I actually worked at the military installation, Whiteman Air Force Base, and I worked directly with the stealth bombers as an airfield manager. So, if we can just discuss the payloads that were delivered, you know, just one 30,000- pound bomb detonating, you can probably understand the magnitude and the impact of the destruction that would bring.

What I'm very uncomfortable with is, when you have the Pentagon, specifically from an intelligence agency, as you had stated, knowing that they should not be leaking classified information and then giving that report without even showing all members of Congress first, it does seem that it's partisan.

And what I will also tell you is that you not only have the Israelis, but also you have the Iranians that are saying, look, we want to negotiate peace now. President Trump is heading that up. Obviously, we impacted their facilities because, as you saw, they did, unfortunately, retaliate on the United States. But they called us and gave us a head's up first. So, I do believe that Iran does want to come to the negotiating table.

I will tell you that I've known President Trump personally for years, and I will tell you that his negotiating powers, there's stuff that's seen publicly in the media, and then there's the calls that happen from peer to peer, world leader to world leader. So, as Marco Rubio had stated, there's a lot that these people are saying in front of cameras. But when, you know, it goes behind closed doors, it's a different conversation. And the conversations and what we're seeing on actions is, it's producing peace. And so what I will tell you is, I encourage both of those countries to

hold to the ceasefire. And I, in no way, shape or form will support any funding to any country that goes against President Trump's negotiated peace deal.

BOLDUAN: On the U.S. role here going forward, Congresswoman, if -- again, waiting for much more intel to be gathered, much more information to come out.

If this strike does not, I guess I'll describe it as go as far as perhaps the president has stated in terms of total obliteration, if it is more in line with the -- this initial intel assessment, that core components of the nuclear program are intact, do you think this means there should be more U.S. military involvement in Iran in the -- in the near future?

LUNA: I don't like to talk in hypotheticals because of my position and because of the negotiations taking place right now. What I will tell you is, right now, what we are hearing and what we are seeing, based on the actions of both the Iranian and the Israeli government, is that this strike did impact their nuclear program. And in my opinion, it did shut it down. Granted, I haven't seen the official classified report, but what I will tell you is, not any other president, nor Democrat, nor Republican, could get Iran and Israel to come to the table and broker a peace deal. And in any way, shape or form. There's so many people, innocent civilians in both Israel and Iran, that are subject to potentially getting hurt if we cannot come in and negotiate peace.

So, in my opinion, regardless of the outcome, peace is 100 percent a win. And I think that it's important for people to realize that. Our decisions here have real world implications. I don't think any other president would have been able to do that. And as a result of that, I do applaud President Trump's efforts, so have many members of NATO, and, frankly, so have many Democrats.

[09:15:08]

BOLDUAN: What -- and what those -- and what the negotiations look like, if they pick back up going forward as -- and hopefully the ceasefire holds, is going to be, of course, a very important part of this conversation, as -- as you are getting to a negotiated peace.

Congresswoman, thank you very much for your time today. I appreciate it.

Omar.

JIMENEZ: Well, Kate, we're following breaking news this morning. Any moment now, President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy set to meet at NATO. We'll bring you that when it happens.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BURNETT: New this morning, an Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson saying in a television interview that Iran's nuclear installations were, his words, "badly damaged" by U.S. and Israeli attacks. Now, obviously, they're talking about the totality of the attacks over the past two weeks. That officials saying Iran is still working on a technical assessment of the facilities, which indicates they're hard to get to and this takes time.

[09:20:02]

The remarks coming as Israel's Atomic Energy Commission released a statement saying that the "U.S. strike on Fordow destroyed the site's critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable." No word yet on, though, of course, other centrifuges that the U.S. and Israel have talked about being in other locations, whether they were damaged, whether they're able to be put in place. We don't know any of that. This is specific to Fordow.

The U.S. -- the White House handing out this assessment because they believe backs the political view they've been putting out there on total obliteration of the facilities. That, of course, is something they are keen to do because CNN was first to report that a preliminary military, CENTCOM driven, classified report from the Pentagon's intelligence arm concluded something that would be different if it bears out. That report found that the U.S. strikes did not destroy core components of Iran's nuclear program overall, and likely only set the program back by a few months.

Nic Robertson is in Tel Aviv as we cover this story from the Middle East here together.

Nic, what are you hearing from the Israelis this morning? You know, they had the, hey, there strikes set the program back by two to three years from their military. Now we have something more specific to a couple facilities from their atomic energy commission.

NIC ROBERTSON, INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, I think there's pretty joined up sort of political agency speak here in Israel that the program, Iran's nuclear program, has been set back by several years.

You get a little bit of nuance depending on who you speak to. The army spokesman here being very clear, set back a couple of years. Finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, saying, yes, again, set back several years. But he said, we're still doing a full assessment. Another lawmaker in the Knesset here saying, look, we haven't had visibility on Fordow yet. Again, sort of referencing the idea that they haven't really seen it and been able to do a full assessment.

And I think, you know, let's take in what the Israel's Atomic Energy Commission has said here. You know, and I think it bears a little bit of scrutiny, understanding what had happened at Isfahan nuclear facility early on in Israel's strikes, that they had taken out the power, electricity generating component and the connections to the power grid in Iran, which -- which rendered that site inoperable and have probably done some damage under the ground as well. But when you get to Fordow and what the energy commission here is

saying, destroyed the sites critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable. I mean, look, that language doesn't say it's destroyed the equipment below ground. And again, if you take that comparison for Isfahan, is that critical infrastructure, the electricity generating equipment, that keeps that equipment below ground working, is that what they're describing here?

But again, the very clear line is that it's been put back years, not months, years. And you speak to people around here on the streets and they say they really hope that's the case.

BURNETT: Yes, absolutely. And, of course, you know, Nic, as you point out, the Israelis said that their strikes had set the program back two to three years. That was actually something that people who said President Trump should not do an additional U.S. strike had been pointing to. They said Israel's been so successful, they've already set it back by several years, why does the United States need to step in -- step in additionally?

Of course, President Trump has done that. That did even more damage. And the question is, how much?

Nic Robertson, thank you so much, from Tel Aviv.

And joining us now to continue the conversation on this crucial issue is the retired U.S. Army Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt.

And, General, I appreciate your time.

Obviously, we're in the middle of a political firestorm. Information is coming in on what happened. There's a political narrative that, that, that, that the president has put forth about obliteration, that he wants to back up. But if we try to take all of that out of it, which may be hard, obviously, from a political context, but from a what really happened is what matters, right? What really happened? We don't know yet. And all this information is coming in.

Could I just ask you, because you know this. The Pentagon assessment, which was just the first of many, and obviously based on preliminary information, General, was -- came out of the Pentagon intelligence unit. It came out of CENTCOM. Who would be working on that and what sort of information might they have had access to in such a preliminary report?

BRIG. GEN. MARK KIMMITT, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Yes, well, first of all, I -- I agree with you. Let's -- let's get away from the politicking, the point scoring. This is a matter of national security. And I think every time politicians start pointing fingers, it diminishes from the bravery of our airmen that went in and out, put their lives on the line to do this mission.

Now, having said that, we're in an area of intelligence that we don't often talk about. You talk about HUMINT, you talk about communications intelligence, digital intelligence, on the ground intelligence.

[09:25:02]

But this isn't the arcane field of MASINT, measurement and signal -- measurement and signature intelligence, where it's much like being an oil wildcatter. You know there's something under the ground, you want to find out if it's oil. How do you determine 300 feet below whether you've got rock or whether you have oil?

BURNETT: Yes.

KIMMITT: They use somewhat the same techniques. They -- they measure the radiation. They measure the pictures. They measure the -- the rubble of the ground. So, it's -- it' s -- it's an arcane science. It's almost an art, which in many ways, to my mind, explains why there's such varied intelligence estimates of what happened here. This is tough stuff. And I think the best thing we can do is wait for better answers, because the answers to that are going to drive, whether there's going to be an American attack or not.

BURNETT: Right. Right. And that -- that, of course, is so crucial.

I want to ask you about something. Kate had a conversation earlier with Congressman Jason Crow, who obviously is a veteran, and he was referring -- he's from Colorado -- to, you know, U.S. bunker missile storage in a mountain in Colorado, a 50-year-old basically structure that was built deep in a mountain to withstand a nuclear bomb. And it was built for that. He was just making the simple point that while complex, that technology to do that, to build something that resilient has existed for 50 years, he was using that just to raise the question of, to just say because you dropped one bunker buster bomb in the first military scenario you've ever dropped it in, say Fordow is obliterated would be way too simplistic of a conclusion.

I'm just curious as to what, you know, what your take is. Like, is it -- is it safe to think that Iran -- not safe to think because we don't know, but is it fair to assume that they would have had the technology to build this -- this facility in Fordow in a way that would have been perhaps as strong and resilient as the U.S. facility in Colorado?

KIMMITT: Well, first of all, I -- I appreciate Representative Crow. He's a fellow paratrooper, fellow ranger. So, I normally give him the benefit of the doubt.

Look, the fact remains is, technology improves. Mountains don't change much. So, I think there might be the case that we have as much of a vulnerability in that mountain, quite frankly, as Fordow was as we develop these bunker busters. So, I think we need to look at that question in reverse.

BURNETT: Yes. That's interesting. Right, to look at it as what the -- as what the bunker busters could have accomplished.

But you said something, General, very important, which is, the reason this intelligence matters is right now we're in a pause.

KIMMITT: No, what I mean is -- what I mean is -- is --

BURNETT: Yes. Yes, go ahead. Yes.

KIMMITT: No, my point was, it may be that we need to relook that mountain of ours to see if it's as vulnerable as Fordow may have been.

BURNETT: Ah, OK, I understand. That is different than what I understood you to say, but -- but important. And thank you for making that and making that very clear.

General, we appreciate your time, and thank you so very much.

General Mark Kimmitt.

Omar, back to you.

JIMENEZ: All right, Erin, we're continuing to monitor the latest out of the NATO summit. But in the meantime, Democratic lawmakers blasting the White House after classified briefings on the details of the Iran strikes were postponed. We're going to bring you the reaction from Capitol Hill.

Plus, as I mentioned, standing by for President Trump to speak at NATO. When that happens, we will bring it to you live.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:30:00]