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Iranian Foreign Ministry: Nuclear Sites Badly Damaged; Trump: U.S. and Iran to Meet Next Week on Nuclear Deal; Trump Says He Is with NATO All the Way Following Summit; Trump Presses Lawmakers to Approve Sweeping Legislation. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired June 26, 2025 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN ANCHOR: Well, hello and welcome. I'm Becky Anderson, live from our Middle East programming headquarters here in Abu Dhabi. Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM, uncertainty remains over the fate of Iran's nuclear program as preliminary reports continue to piece together the extent of damage to its facilities.

U.S. President Donald Trump says a nuclear agreement with Iran isn't necessary now, why he stands firmly in that belief. That's ahead.

Plus, the president taking a victory lap after getting NATO members to agree to increase their defense spending. We'll discuss what else came out of what have been these crucial talks at the NATO summit.

And a new plan from Trump's administration could end asylum claims for hundreds of thousands of migrants. The details of this latest plot in Donald Trump's deportation campaign is coming up.

Well, we could learn more information in just a few hours about the damage to Iran's nuclear sites when U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth holds a news conference at the Pentagon. Others in the Trump administration are rushing to defend the president's repeated claim of total obliteration.

The CIA chief says a body of credible evidence shows severe damage. And the director of national intelligence adds that, quote, Iran's nuclear facilities have been destroyed. New assessments from Israel conclude that Iranian sites suffered systemic damage and the program has been set back several years.

Even Iran's foreign ministry says the nuclear installations were badly damaged by repeated attacks from the U.S. and Israel.

President Trump lashed out at the media for reporting on the early intelligence assessments, which didn't align with his conclusion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The document said it could be very severe damage, but they didn't take that. They said it could be limited or it could be very severe.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there any indication from U.S. intelligence that Iran was able to move any material?

TRUMP: No, just the opposite. We think we hit them so hard and so fast they didn't get to move. And if you knew about that material, it's very hard and very dangerous to move.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: Well, meanwhile, President Trump says that the U.S. will meet with Iran next week about a potential nuclear agreement, but he doesn't believe a deal is necessary because he says the U.S. destroyed Iran's nuclear capabilities.

Joining me now, CNN's Paula Hancocks, who's been monitoring all of this. Paula, frankly, it could take months to get both a technical and human assessment of what really happened at these sites. Trump, though, seems to suggest that this is mission accomplished. Where does this leave any prospective talks between the U.S. and Iran going forward?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Becky, it's worth first reminding ourselves that there were talks between Iran and the U.S. before Israel started these strikes. And so, of course, the obvious question to President Trump was, are you going to resume these talks? If you are, what is going to happen?

So let's first of all listen to his response to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We may sign an agreement. I don't know. To me, I don't think it's that necessary. I mean, they had a war, they fought. Now they're going back to their world. I don't care if I have an agreement or not.

The only thing we'd be asking for is what we were asking for before, about we want no nuclear. But we destroyed the nuclear. In other words, it's destroyed.

I said, Iran will not have nuclear. Well, we blew it up. It's blown up to kingdom come. And so I don't feel very strongly about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANCOCKS: So from what we're hearing from the U.S. president, those strikes replaced the need for a deal. That's his basic message, almost as though he's now moving on to the next issue. It's worth pointing out as well that Iran is very wary of these talks, because, of course, they were in talks when Israel started these strikes.

And they have been saying very publicly that they don't mean very much, clearly, negotiating with the United States. If there was even a deal, would that be something that Iran could trust going forward?

ANDERSON: We are very much focused on the sort of military impact of the strikes on these nuclear facilities and indeed on the focus on the sort of military impact of the strikes on these nuclear facilities and indeed on the sort of, you know, the strategy and impact of the military operations over the past sort of 12 days. This is a 12-day war, as Trump has concluded. What about the human impact on the ground in Iran?

HANCOCKS: That does have the danger of being lost in all of this. We know from Iranian officials that 627 people died during this time. Now, authorities say the majority were civilians. They don't give us an exact breakdown of military versus civilian. And we know that almost 5,000 people were injured. Now, this is a country that is not accustomed in recent history to having this kind of barrage, these kinds of attacks on their residential areas.

Now, Israel says that it was targeting the military. They say that it was targeting the nuclear program. But we know that civilians were caught up in this as well.

It was the Iran-Iraq war back in the 80s is the last time where they had this kind of impact. And of course, many people would not have been born at that point. So there has been a human toll on what has happened.

You saw thousands, tens of thousands trying to get out of Tehran, the capital, when President Trump was saying everyone should evacuate. This was a terrifying time for the civilians in Iran at this point.

We're hearing the military impact. We're hearing the nuclear impact. But we shouldn't forget that there were many people that were severely impacted by what happened.

ANDERSON: And it's very unclear what happens next. We are hearing reports of people being rounded up, deemed to have been working for Israeli intelligence on the ground. So, you know, for those who are in Tehran and in cities around the country, this doesn't stop, despite the fact that Donald Trump seems to suggest that this is mission accomplished after, as I say, what he declares was the 12-day war.

Good to have you. Thank you. Paul Hancocks with me.

Well, President Trump says he is with NATO all the way after the alliance agreed to increase its defense spending during its summit in the Netherlands. Trump said it was very big news that NATO members, with some exceptions, pledged to raise their spending goals to 5 percent of GDP annually, up from the 2 percent that was originally mandated. A long-time demand, it has to be said, of the President.

And he reaffirmed his support for NATO's collective defense pact, known as Article 5. President Trump said he would not have attended the summit if he did not believe in Article 5. Well, a day earlier, he edged on his answer about that, saying Article 5 really depends on your definition.

But as he departed the summit, President Trump suggested he is leaving with a more positive impression of NATO.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Without the United States, we couldn't -- they couldn't really have NATO. It wouldn't work. It wouldn't work. It will in the future, because now they're paying much more money, but it wouldn't work. It was great.

And I left here differently. I left here saying that these people really love their countries, it's not a rip-off, and we're here to help them protect their country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: Well, President Trump also said it's impossible Russian leader Vladimir Putin could have territorial ambitions beyond Ukraine. Mr. Trump met with Ukraine's president for almost an hour on the sidelines of that NATO summit on Wednesday. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it was a, quote, long and substantive meeting that covered a range of what he called truly important issues.

President Trump says the U.S. is considering providing Patriot missile systems to Ukraine, but he cautioned there could be supply constraints as these systems are in high demand and currently being supplied to Israel as well.

President Trump said he would speak with Vladimir Putin soon about ending Russia's war on Ukraine. NATO Secretary General says the alliance will continue to support Ukraine and what he described as its irreversible path to NATO membership.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK RUTTE, NATO SECRETARY GENERAL: I think the message that comes out of this summit is clear, NATO's commitment to Ukraine endures. And it is now in the summit declaration with a clear link to the money. And I think that is important for the next five to 10 years, not that we expect the fight to take so long, but that whatever is necessary, we will keep you in the fight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: Well, let's bring in David Sanger. He's CNN political and national security analyst and the author of "New Cold Wars, China's Rise, Russia's Invasion and America's Struggle to Defend the West." He joins me now live this hour from The Hague.

[04:10:00]

And I note President Trump in talking about or describing the U.S. attacks on the nuclear sites as having obliterated them, also suggesting that this action reasserted American deterrence. You are there in The Hague, where we saw the performative nature of the Trump administration. Here's Pete Hegseth to remind our viewers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: Iran's nuclear program is obliterated. And somebody somewhere is trying to leak something to say, oh, with low confidence, we think maybe it's moderate. Those that dropped the bombs precisely in the right place know exactly what happened when that exploded. And you know who else knows? Iran.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: And we expect to see more of that today when Hegseth holds a Pentagon briefing and Senate lawmakers are expected to receive a classified briefing on the Israel-Iran conflict. Senator Tim Kaine, David, saying that America shouldn't be lied into a war and the questions of that briefing will be focused on that concern.

So first question to you, can the public press conferences and classified briefings have any impact on the direction this administration takes at this point?

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Probably not at this late point, Becky. But a few things jumped out from that press conference and from the statements that we were hearing here in The Hague. The first is that the administration, angry that the intelligence report had leaked, decided, as it frequently does, that the problem here must be the press, the group that got it, not what the intelligence report said.

So they were making the case that to question whether or not it was a successful strike would be to impugn the skills and the bravery of the pilots and all and everybody else who worked on the raid over Fordow and Natanz. And that seemed to us to be a little bit of a strange argument. One could conduct this bravely and perfectly and the damage might not be exactly what the president said.

I think the problem here was that the president came out and said it was completely obliterated before there had even been a battle damage assessment of any kind. And then, of course, he had to bring everybody in the administration in line with his wording, no matter what they determined later.

ANDERSON: I just want our viewers to just see a little bit of analysis from our colleague Stephen Collinson, who wrote this, quote, Everything that involves intelligence is by definition opaque and lasting judgments from technical or human sources on how far the U.S. has set back Iran's nuclear program could take months. It's also not possible to know whether the administration does have more information on the aftermath of the strikes than it is not releasing for operational reasons.

Look, so, I mean, you know, if we were to sort of, you know, rest the battle of narratives here by saying, you know, I think Stephen's right, you know, this could take months. So we move on. That performance we saw by Hegseth, also by Marco Rubio and Donald Trump over Iran, overshadowing what was a real success at The Hague, David, that commitment to 5 percent annually of GDP by member states on defense spending. How do you assess that achievement?

SANGER: So the achievement itself was quite big. 5 percent is a big number and they would not have been discussing that a year ago, six months ago. They might not have even been discussing it at all had President Trump not been re-elected. I know when I was in Germany in February, people were discussing just getting up to 3 percent if they were lucky. So there's been a big change. That 5 percent is over 10 years, so President Trump won't be in office to go see how this works out.

But I think it's finally a recognition by the Europeans that they have a built-in threat here from Russia, that there's no reason to believe that Vladimir Putin would stop at the Ukraine border. And they need to stop pretending as if the United States is always going to be around there to defend them from that. And so I think, you know, it's been probably a decade or a decade and a half late for the Europeans to go do this.

In some countries, it's going to be a big lift getting there politically. And, you know, one recession, one downturn could make some countries pull back from that, I think.

[04:15:00]

ANDERSON: Yes, and Spain already opting out, suggesting that, frankly, they can't afford it at this point. So it's not all members, but it is pretty much all members.

Donald Trump said he left this NATO summit, truncated NATO summit, with a much better attitude, effectively, towards Europe. He sort of understood that European countries, he said, really loved their countries and their people. And he understood it seemed more about why NATO was so important.

But to your point, while saying that the U.S. is committed, is that a long term commitment? How do you read Donald Trump's position? Because there will be people at that meeting, leaders who are concerned about the unpredictability of Donald Trump and this administration.

SANGER: Yes, they certainly have every reason to be concerned about that. It was only a little while ago that he was, just a few years ago, that he was saying that NATO was obsolete. Now, because they've come to the budgeting elements that he likes, and they've committed to contributing more, he's saying they love their countries.

I think the big question about NATO is, can it develop enough of a capability that it can operate in many spheres without the United States if it needs to? If it turns out that Donald Trump or a successor is not as engaged in European security as they want them to be. And that, I think, if anything, the Trump administration has made them realize they can't necessarily count on Washington blindly the way they did for the first 75 years of NATO.

ANDERSON: It's good to have you there, sir. Your insight so important to us. David from 4.15am eastern time. Thank you, David.

SANGER: Wonderful to be with you, Becky.

ANDERSON: 4:15 a.m. Eastern time -- thank you, David -- 12:15 here in Abu Dhabi. Still to come, President Trump will soon try to rally support for his Big, Beautiful Bill, but some Republican lawmakers still aren't sold. We'll have a closer look at the latest sticking points for you, coming up.

[04:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANDERSON: Donald Trump has stepped up his attacks against the Federal Reserve chairman, the same man he picked back in 2017. The president has been berating Jerome Powell for months, arguing that the Fed's reluctance to cut interest rates is costing the federal government hundreds of billions of dollars in interest.

Well, on Wednesday, Trump suggested his list of potential replacements has been narrowed down to three or four people, and he used brutal language to describe Powell.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: He's an average mentally person. I'd say low in terms of what he does. Low IQ for what he does.

Yes, I know within three or four people who I'm going to pick. I mean, he goes out pretty soon, fortunately, because I think he's terrible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON: Well, during his semiannual monetary policy report to Congress on Tuesday, Chairman Powell warned that the national debt is unsustainable and will eventually be a problem for the country.

With that in mind, in the coming hours, President Trump is set to host what the White House is calling one big, beautiful event. He is trying to rally support for his sweeping domestic policy agenda.

Some Senate Republicans, though, still aren't sold on its contents, with a July 4th deadline looming as CNN's Manu Raju reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: President Donald Trump is demanding that Republicans fall in line and push through his massive domestic agenda within days. But there are still significant divisions in the Senate and in the House to get the bill over the finish line. This bill is sweeping in nature, a multi-trillion dollar overhaul of the United States tax code.

It would pump hundreds of billions of dollars into new programs for defense and for border security projects. It would provide a call for new energy drilling across the country and new work requirements on social safety net programs.

But it is those deep spending cuts in particular that have divided Republicans, both in the Senate and in the House, and over a number of issues, but namely on the issue of Medicaid.

That is a huge entitlement program for the disabled and for low-income individuals. And there are concerns from Republicans that the cuts that are being called for could lead to many losing their health insurance in their states and in their districts, and particularly the concerns over the Senate's plan's impacts on rural hospitals. That is a huge issue that is now dividing Republicans in the Senate, and it's unclear how they'll ultimately resolve that, get those members in line, without alienating the more conservative members who are worried about the budget deficit impacts of this bill, and actually pushing for even deeper cuts.

But one key Republican senator, Thom Tillis, who is up for reelection in North Carolina next year, told me that that plan needs to change in dealing with how far to cut in Medicaid, or he could vote against it.

SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): I think that the Medicaid cuts are directionally right. But I think very difficult for the states to absorb. And we've just got to figure out a way to achieve what we're trying to do, bend the curves.

[04:25:00]

RAJU: Right not this could have a big -- negative impact on North Carolina.

TILLIS: Well, the currents estimates are about $38 billion over ten years. That's a big -- that's a big impact. I don't think anybody believes that the current text is final. So I don't believe anybody would vote for it in its current form. We've got a lot of things that we're working on.

RAJU: But beyond Medicaid, there are other issues that are dividing Republicans, including how to deal with tax breaks, state and local tax deductions. That is something that has been pushed by particularly New York Republicans, who are trying to increase the amount that taxpayers can deduct from the local levies that they face every year.

But there are many Republicans, particularly in the Senate, who say that it's too expensive and they will not go along with the deal that was cut by those New York Republicans and the Speaker of the House to get their plan across the finish line by a single vote before Memorial Day. That is one of those complicated sticking points that they still have to figure out in order to get this through both chambers and into law. But how this will get resolved is unclear.

Whether they'll actually have the votes to even begin the debate, which could occur as soon as Friday, that key procedural vote, how that gets there is still an open question at this moment. But there are so many other major issues that are part of this bill, including a $5 trillion increase to the national debt limit. That is something that has deficit hawks, including Senator Rand Paul, threatening to vote against it, showing that the Republican leaders and Donald Trump have very little margin for error to get his major agenda bill across the finish line.

Manu Raju, CNN, Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE) ANDERSON: Well, Israel out with new assessments of the damage from U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, how they square with President Trump's claim of total obliteration is up next.

Plus, a Salvadoran migrant who was deported illegally is back in the U.S. but is now facing serious charges. We'll have the latest on Kilmar Abrego Garcia ahead on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[04:30:00]