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Soon, Pentagon News Conference Amid Questions on Iran Strikes; Senate Receives Classified Briefing Today on Iran Strikes; Iran's Supreme Leader Makes First Comments Since Ceasefire Took Effect. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired June 26, 2025 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking this morning severely damaged and destroyed. That's how Trump officials are now describing the impact of American strikes on Iran's nuclear sites. After an early Intel assessment CNN obtained found those strikes only set back the nuclear program by months. We're standing by for a news conference from the Pentagon next hour.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Also today, senators will get their first classified briefing on those strikes after the plan was to happen earlier this week and that was abruptly canceled. But now they may not get all the details they want, as the Trump administration says it's going to be limiting how much classified information it shares with Congress going forward.

And Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez, a very different news, are now welcoming their a whole slew of famous and fabulous friends to Venice for their lavish wedding. They're also being met by protests happening right outside the celebrations.

I'm Kate Bolduan with Sara Sidner. Berman's out today. This is CNN News Central.

SIDNER: We're standing by to hear from the Pentagon next hour on those U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear sites and just how much damage they truly managed to do. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff expected to face some tough questions.

And Iran's supreme leader lashing out at the U.S. and his first public comments since the ceasefire with Israel took effect. It comes as President Trump is still insisting but those nuclear sites in Iran were totally obliterated, his words, despite a preliminary assessment from the Pentagon's own intelligence arm that found those strikes set back Iran's program not by years, but by only a few months. CNN was the first to report that assessment.

New this morning, the head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog says the center fusions at Iran's Fordow nuclear facility are, quote, no longer operational after the strikes. This is before and after an image of that site, which is dug into a mountain and goes deep underground. And the head of the CIA now saying there is credible evidence that the strikes, quote, severely damaged Iran's nuclear program.

Also new this morning, those first comments in days from Iran's supreme leader, he claimed Iran, quote, crushed Israel and said the U.S. did not gain anything in this war. President Trump says, U.S. and Iran will meet next week on a possible nuclear deal, but Iran has declined to confirm that meeting.

We start with CNN's Alayna Treene, who is at the White House, as she always is for us in the morning. We are learning a lot of different things, a lot of different words being used to describe exactly what happened, depending on who you talk to. What are we expecting to hear out of this news conference today?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, Sarah. I mean, look, we are four days out now from those US strikes on these Iranian nuclear facilities, and it's clear that not only we are trying to learn more, but also we are getting increasingly more intelligence coming from this administration regarding the extent that those strikes did to damage those nuclear facilities and essentially the question of whether they were severely damaged, they were moderately damaged, or if they were totally obliterated, as the president has been saying repeatedly now.

Now, you mentioned it, but I want to repeat it again. We have now heard from the CIA director, John Ratcliffe. His words were that the strikes had, quote, severely damaged Iran's nuclear program. Then we also heard from the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency who said that, on the basis of satellite images, given the power of these bombs and technical characteristics of the centrifuges, that we do know now that they are no longer operational, referring to the centrifuges at Fordow.

Now, of course, we are continuing to hear, Sara, that much of these different intelligence reports are still preliminary. They're still trying to gather more evidence. And we are still waiting as well to see if and when people are actually going to be able to go to these sites physically on the ground and look at these different sites and really observe the damage face-to-face, as the president suggested yesterday when he was at the NATO summit that people were doing.

Now, really this entire subject, Sara, dominated the NATO summit yesterday, and particularly that press conference we saw at the conclusion of the summit, where the president not only was answering questions about this, but also clearly wanted to focus on some of these intelligence analyses, and also really try to downplay that report from the Defense Intelligence Agency, one that, which I should say for people who don't know, is the intelligence agency. It's an arm, the intelligence arm, really, of the Pentagon, and the director of it is actually the principal intelligence adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Now, we did hear as well from the president, but also Hegseth say yesterday reiterating over and over again this new intelligence analysis that they said had moderate to severe damage to these different nuclear sites, really trying to focus on the latter part of that, severe damage. And then we heard, you know, the president come out and continue to say as well as Hegseth, that those sites were obliterated.

All to say, Sara, I think it's really important to note that, one, I don't think anyone is you know, trying to refute the courageous and valiant efforts of those soldiers or you know people in the military who flew those planes and carried out these strikes. The question is how much damage was really done to those different sites as the United States continues to assess really what the next steps are and how to move forward here.

SIDNER: All right. Alayna Treene, thank you so much for your reporting there for us from the White House. Kate?

BOLDUAN: And today, senators will hear from some of the key players on what led up to the president's decision to launch strikes on Iran's nuclear sites and what U.S. intelligence really assesses now as the level of damage left behind, as Alayna was just getting at.

But this briefing, this kind of long now it's become kind a long anticipated briefing for senators, maybe shorter on details than they would like. As the administration now says, it's going to be limiting how much classified information it's going to share with Congress.

CNN's Lauren Fox is watching all of this for us this morning from Washington. With all of that together, what does that -- what are senators, what are you hearing, your reporting is going to happen today in this briefing.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kate, I mean, one of the top concerns from a lot of Democrats who are going to be part of this briefing later today is the fact that they may not get fulsome answers that they are looking for. I mean, they point out that two of the key briefers, including Pete Hegseth, who's the defense secretary, as well as Senator Marco Rubio, they are a little concerned. They're going to come in and really reiterate the president's talking points.

Now there are other briefers as well, the director of the CIA, John Ratcliffe, as well as just general Dan Caine of the Joint Chiefs. But it's really going to be an important moment for lawmakers because they have been waiting for this briefing for days now. If you remember, this was previously scheduled with intelligence officials on Tuesday, that was delayed. And the reason given was the fact that they wanted to make sure that Rubio and Hegseth could be in the room.

Well, that really struck some lawmakers with alarm bells because their concern is that this is going to be just a reiteration of administration talking points, and they're not going to be able to drill down deeper and understand all of the intelligence going into this decision to strike these Iran nuclear facilities as well as all of the intelligence that exists, even if they have concerns that perhaps these strikes were not as effective as what the president initially assessed, that they want to make sure that they get all of that information as part of this briefing. Lawmakers understand that intelligence comes in waves, right, that you may not have a full assessment within the first 48 hours in the wake of this attack. But that doesn't mean that they don't want to understand the full picture of what is available, what the differences are between various intelligence agencies. They want to make sure that they have that full picture.

And here's just a sampling of some of that frustration from especially Senate Democrats yesterday on the Hill.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): The president said over the weekend that the sites were obliterated. They were 100 percent not obliterated. What we know is that we really have no sense of how much was damaged, and the early estimates are that we made relatively minor impact, that we probably only set back the program a handful of months.

That's not worth the hundreds of millions of dollars that we spent taxpayer money on this strike. That's not worth the risk that we put our troops in the region. That's not worth the number of Israelis that were killed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOX: Now, on the flipside of this, Republicans are arguing if Democrats want all of the information, then waiting a couple of extra days is probably the right moot, because that might allow the intelligence agencies to have even more to share with lawmakers in these briefings. Obviously, this briefing happening today at 2:00 P.M., we're going to get a lot more information as lawmakers come out of that meeting.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. What they -- a lot of what they can't say, but their characterization on if they're satisfied what they have received, that's definitely going to be the quickest read we're going to be getting straight out of that.

[07:10:02]

Lauren's going to be there for us. Thank you so much, Lauren. I appreciate it. Sara?

SIDNER: All right. Ahead, how the IAEA is assessing the damage at one of Iran's nuclear facilities, but does it differ from what President Trump has been saying?

And it was once surging. Now, shares of President Trump's media company have plunged by nearly half since he took office. And now the company taking some action.

Plus, Kim Kardashian, Oprah, and many more arriving in Venice this morning for Jeff Bezos's wedding to Lauren Sanchez. The celebrities are there, but so are protesters who want to stop the wedding from taking place in their city. We'll explain why, coming up.

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SIDNER: Breaking news this morning, we are hearing for the first time from Iran's Supreme leader, since the U.S. strikes on Iran. Ayatollah Khameini congratulating the great nation of Iran for its victory over the fake Zionist regime.

[07:15:02]

That is how he put it. It's as the International Atomic Energy Agency says that centrifuges at Iran's Fordow nuclear site are, quote, no longer operational as a result of those U.S. strikes with bunker- buster bombs.

CNN's Nick Robertson is live on the ground in Tel Aviv. Israel put out their own damage assessments of this. We've heard from, of course, President Trump. We are going to hear from Secretary of Defense Hegseth today. What is the reaction on the ground there where you have been reporting as you go from site to site where some of these missiles from Iran have struck buildings in Israel?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Look, the view from people here is that they're happy that this is over, that they think it was a success. They'll listen to the words of the supreme leader in Iran and when he describes a crushing victory over Israel, they'll see just how hollow that is, that's not how it's perceived and it's not how it is here.

Interestingly, that's the same language that Prime Minister Netanyahu used two days ago to describe the victory over Iran crushing. The key question here for both the military and the intelligence agencies and for the prime minister, is how long in the, in terms of what the IAEA is describing, will those Iranian facilities remain out of operation? The prime minister here, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been very clear if Iran does try to reconstitute its nuclear programs. Then he said, Israel will take the same actions as previously. So, that is a very clear warning to the Iranian leadership that this may not be over depending on their next move.

Now, we know the Iranian parliament has voted although this is not binding yet, not approved by the Guardian Council, voted not to interact and work with the International Atomic Energy Agency. And we know from the International Atomic Energy Agency, they still have inspectors in Iran who haven't been able to do their work over the past number of weeks, and they are ready to go back to these sites to make their assessments and perhaps when and if they can. I think it's a big effort at the moment that might get the best independent international eyes on the situation.

We do know from both the Mossad chief here, the External Intelligence Service chief, and the head of the military, head of the IDF here, that Iran's program has been set back several years and not just a sort of an isolated strike, but a systemic destruction of Iran's nuclear capabilities, according to the IDF Chief. But it's not clear how close and how much visibility Israel has been able to have on the ground, if at all. The Mossad chief did congratulate his operatives and their work inside Iran in the recent months, even years, he said, and we do know that specialists, elite forces from the Israeli military were on the ground part of the time during their strikes.

SIDNER: Yes. Nic Robertson you hit the nail on the head. It's hard to assess exactly what happened when you are not on the ground there, but several agencies and the U.S. and Israel both saying that there was a major, major destruction that was done by those bunker buster-bombs and Israel's subsequent strikes.

Thank you so much, Nic Robertson, for all your reporting there in Israel.

Coming up, we have some brand new CNN reporting on President Trump's media stock. It has plunged by more than half since Election Day. But they say they have a plan to try to turn things around, and that's ahead.

And an emotional NBA draft. We are going to give you all the highlights, all the good feels coming up.

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BOLDUAN: Time for a little sports to start your morning, friends. Duke University standout Cooper Flagg going to Dallas as the top pick in the NBA draft, a big night in Brooklyn.

CNN's Andy Scholes is watching it all. Tell me more.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Okay. I love NBA draft night for so many reasons. One, because it's so emotional, two, seeing these guys live out their dream always so much fun. And, you know, no surprises at the top. Cooper Flagg was known for a while that he was going to be that first overall pick. And when the Mavs won the lottery with less than a 2 percent chance to do so, he knew he was going to be going to Dallas. And last night it became official as the Mavs took the Duke phenom with the first pick.

Flagg, 6'9", considered one of the best prospects this century alongside LeBron and Victor Wembenyama. Now, Flagg doesn't turn 19 until December. He's from Newport, Maine, and they had a big old watch party in his hometown for the draft. And here was Flagg on realizing his dream of making the NBA.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER FLAGG, 2025 NATIONAL COLLEGE PLAYER OF THE YEAR: I don't think it's set in yet. It feels surreal. I'm just playing the moments back in my head, standing up hearing my name. And it just -- it went so fast. Like it feels like a blur, but I just feel really blessed and honored just to be here.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SCHOLES: All right. Just three picks later, Flagg's Duke teammate Kon Knueppel got drafted by the Charlotte Hornets. And Kon is one of five Knueppel brothers, and he had them all with him, Kidman, Kash, Kager, and Kinston.

Now, Kon's dad, also named Kon, had three brothers all with the names that started with K as well. They played in three-on-three tournaments together under the team name the Flying Knueppel Brothers, just one of the best names ever for a team. Strong basketball genes in that Knueppel family.

Now, Duke's huge night, it continued as center Khaman Maluach went tenth to the Rockets, but he's going to the Suns as part of that Kevin Durant trade.

Now, Maluach, he grew up in Uganda after his family fled conflict- ridden South Sudan. He didn't start playing basketball until he was 14, quickly became a star at the NBA Academy Africa and then at Duke. And Maluach there, his tears running down his face after completing his journey to the NBA.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KHAMAN MALUACH, DRAFTED #10TH OVERALL: Man, I'm here representing the whole continent. Living in Africa, I had the whole continent of my back giving hopes to young kids, inspiring young kids, and the next generation of African basketball.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Yes, it was one of the most emotional drafts ever, so many tears. But Michigan Center Danny Wolf's older brother, Jake, won the most emotional award. After Danny got drafted 27th for the Nets, Jake just lost it. He was so happy, even minutes later during Danny's interview that tears just kept on flowing.

Kate, that's going to be a new NBA in sports meme, but that's what the draft right there is all about. Just the emotion, you know, probably so many hours of playing in the driveway together. He just was so happy he couldn't keep it together.

BOLDUAN: I mean, absolutely. And you know, like, and you know when I'm saying this, and, yes, men can cry and should cry, but, you know, he's probably like this morning being like. I could have cut it off a couple seconds sooner. I could have cut it off a couple seconds sooner. That's really great. It's really fun to see. Thanks for bringing it to us, Andy. Big men can cry. It's okay, friends.

Next hour, so I mean, every morning, Sara, every morning. Next hour, the Pentagon is going to be holding a press conference. And the continued questions about the U.S. strikes on Iran, how much damage was done, how much was the nuclear program set back? U.N.'s nuclear watchdog just said this morning, it believes the centrifuges at Iran's main facility are, quote, no longer operational. Much more to come. Also this Jeff Bezos, Lauren Sanchez preparing for their big, over the top, much anticipated wedding and facing some serious backlash in Venice.

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