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Trump Administration Delays Congressional Briefings on Iranian Strikes; CNN Gets Up-Close Look at Airstrike Damage in Tehran; Trump Questions Article Five of NATO. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired June 25, 2025 - 06:00   ET

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

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: It's Wednesday, June 25, and here's what's happening right now on CNN THIS MORNING.

[06:00:36]

"Completely and totally obliterated." That is how the White House has been describing the damage to Iranian nuclear facilities. But a new assessment sheds some doubt on that.

Plus, right now, President Trump attending a one-day NATO summit, and he's questioning Article Five. Is the U.S. committed to defending NATO allies?

And the Middle East on edge as a tenuous ceasefire enters a second day. Can it continue to hold?

It's 6 a.m. here on the East Coast. Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish. I want to thank you for waking up with me.

We're going to start today with President Trump lashing out at an early U.S. intelligence assessment, which found that U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites may not have destroyed them completely.

Now, seven people briefed on the intelligence tell CNN the strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan severely damaged the above-ground structures. But the early Defense Intelligence Agency assessment finds Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium material was not destroyed. Another source tells CNN the centrifuges are still largely intact.

Now, the early assessment finds the strikes likely set back Iran's nuclear program by a few months, contradicting public comments by Trump administration officials, who declared Iran's nuclear program to be obliterated.

Trump once again pushed back on the intelligence report a short time ago during the NATO summit in the Netherlands.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: What they've done is they're trying to make this unbelievable victory into something less. Now, even they admit that it was hit very hard. OK? But it wasn't hit. It was hit brutally, and it knocked it out. The original word that I used -- I guess it got us in trouble, because it's a strong word. It was obliteration. And you'll see that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Joining me now in the group chat, Margaret Talev, senior contributor at Axios; Joel Rubin, former deputy assistant secretary of state during the Obama administration; and Doug Heye, Republican strategist and former communications director at the RNC. Thank you, guys, for being here.

And Doug, welcome back.

DOUG HEYE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Thank you.

CORNISH: Because you were actually in Israel, right, for a time?

HEYE: Last week, yes.

CORNISH: Yes. And so, tell me a little bit about the significance of this intel moment, because to me, it seems like everything rests on this. The moves from Israel or the U.S.

HEYE: Well, everything we see from Donald Trump from day one when he took that escalator ride was, as we're talking about, legislatively, big and beautiful.

So, we have a big, beautiful bill that's in front of the House and the Senate right now. He's talking right now about big, beautiful bombs, which is why he's talking about things like obliteration.

And what we see in an initial assessments may be true, may not be true, but they certainly contradict -- contradict what Donald Trump has said. It's why he's angry about it.

But ultimately, so much of what we do in politics and, unfortunately, foreign affairs is the basketball game is over. What happened and what does it mean moving forward in the next round of the playoffs?

I think we need to take our time and wait and see what happened and what it means, both here and obviously in Iran and in Israel.

CORNISH: Joel, I want to ask you about an op-ed actually written by the former secretary of state, Antony Blinken, who served under President Biden. And he was writing this, that "The strike on three of Iran's nuclear facilities by the U.S. was unwise and unnecessary. Now that it's done, I very much hope it succeeded."

Now, that is a question mark, in some ways.

JOEL RUBIN, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE DURING THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: Right.

CORNISH: Or rather, what does it mean to succeed is a question mark. Yes. Talk about how to think about this now.

RUBIN: Yes. Sure, Audie. So, a couple of things. First of all, success is whether or not Iran's nuclear program has been fully set back and leads to, I believe, verifiable, strong negotiations that conclude this chapter of the Iran-U.S. battle over -- over -- over the future of, frankly, these weapons of mass destruction.

But for Secretary Blinken, you know, what he was making, the point is, is that there are high risks involved. And we're seeing it now in the discussion about the intelligence.

But I do think, and I agree with Doug on this. Let's wait to see what the full intelligence community assessment is. One leak from one out of 16 intelligence agencies is not definitive. It's --

CORNISH: Say that again: one leak.

RUBIN: One leak out of 16 intelligence agencies is not definitive.

CORNISH: So, you're listening for more?

RUBIN: I'm listening for more.

CORNISH: Do you trust what you hear, if the president casts doubt on the intelligence that he's been hearing?

[06:05:05]

RUBIN: I trust the intelligence community's full assessment more than anything. I think that President Trump is probably continuing to make and articulate an argument that, quite frankly, makes a lot of sense.

CORNISH: Yes.

RUBIN: But until we have the full data, we don't know.

And it's also very important to point out that we do not have full information either, prior to these strikes. So, to assume that there's some computer out there that's going to spit out the exact answer, that's -- that's unrealistic.

CORNISH: Margaret, lawmakers were supposed to receive a classified briefing. That's been delayed by a week. Senators are talking about what they know. They're worried about what they don't know.

I want to play for you Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator Rand Paul, because I think they both have some interesting insights here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): I'm glad we have a ceasefire, but does it lead to peace? Or is it just a way for, you know, Iran to rearm and come back at it another time?

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): This will either be heralded as the greatest military strike in recent history, or, if they make a sprint to the nuclear weapon, people will look back, you know, in retrospect and say, oh, my goodness, what happened here? I don't think it's known yet. SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): There is a legal obligation for the

administration to inform Congress about precisely what is happening. What are they afraid of?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Schumer, of course, among those pushing to have the conversation that's more about powers, right? Who can declare what?

But interesting Rand Paul raising this issue. Could it make a sprint to a nuclear weapon? Like, he's raising more what-ifs.

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: This issue really is -- it's not just factually complicated. It is also politically complicated.

There are divisions among every political faction, including the Republican Party and many Democrats, who don't like President Trump, don't like the way he did this, but think, you know what? Iran was awfully close to being ready with the weapon. And maybe there should have been some intervention like this.

I think what Lindsey Graham is talking about, and with Paul and Graham, you really see the difference between, like, interventionist --

CORNISH: Yes.

TALEV: -- and like, what are we doing?

But what Graham is talking about is quite interesting, because the question is, even if the ceasefire holds, does that mean that Iran has changed its mind and is like, oh, never mind; not doing, you know, the nuclear weapon thing anymore?

Or does it just have no incentive now to negotiate? Is there nothing to negotiate? Is it going to remove itself from any inspections regime and kind of take the North Korea path? And did President Trump's actions push them further?

CORNISH: And the North Korea path, meaning doing a surreptitious program. Yes.

TALEV: And much faster than people thought they could.

CORNISH: Exactly.

TALEV: And so, all of these questions are really moving targets. They're quite important.

And the irony is you're going to see Trump now at NATO for this very quick visit, basically saying Article Five, whatever. Leaving a lot of questions about the U.S. role with the allies.

But if Iran does take that -- that sort of quiet path away from negotiations, it probably is only a NATO ally, not the United States, that has the even theoretical capacity to bring them back to the table.

CORNISH: OK, you guys stay --

HEYE: The politics are huge here in Israel, as well. When I landed in Israel, the conversation politically was, will there be a vote of no confidence on Benjamin Netanyahu? And will it be a round of three? How far does it go?

We met with Yair Lapid, who's the opposition leader, and that's half of what our conversation was, was a vote of no confidence. Not only is he not talking about that right now, he's saying job well done, Benjamin Netanyahu. That doesn't happen very often.

CORNISH: All right, you guys. Stay with us. We're actually going to hear both from the Netherlands and from Iran, because this fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran seems to be holding, at least for now.

We are getting a clearer picture of the damage left behind by Israeli warplanes across Iran. And we have CNN senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen, who's been on the ground in Tehran. And he joins us now.

Fred, can you tell us what you're seeing this morning?

FRED PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Audie. I'm actually at one of the sites where these airstrikes took place.

The Iranians are saying this happened a couple of days ago. I'll show you a little bit. This is a building in Western Tehran where the Iranians say several people were killed in an airstrike on this building. They're not saying who these people were.

But they are saying that several people are also still in hospital, that the damage was significant.

And one of the things that they've been trying to show us is, with these strikes in the residential areas, that, of course, some of them took out some high-value targets. But they also say there was significant collateral damage, as well.

And what we saw in this building was actually a bakery in the bottom floor that seems to have been significantly damaged. They also said there was a beauty salon that was damaged and a psychology clinic, but also two residential units, as well, that were -- that were also damaged.

So, the Iranians are saying that there is significant damage to a lot of the buildings that were hit, obviously, in these Israeli airstrikes.

And at the same time, you're absolutely right. The ceasefire is still very much tenuous. It's been interesting to see Iranian politicians over the past 24 hours, since the ceasefire has been in place, namely the president of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, who said Iran wants to resolve its differences with the United States.

[06:10:06]

At the same time, the Iranians saying, as they put it, that their finger is still on the trigger, because they don't trust the ceasefire that is in place now. And obviously, in the early hours of that ceasefire, it was really tenuous, whether or not it was going to hold.

At the same time, you have areas like this where I am right now, where the damage is significant, where people are picking up the pieces.

And certainly, if you look at Tehran this morning, we've been sort of around the city a little bit. You can also see that a lot of people are now coming back, hoping that the ceasefire will hold. Businesses opening up again.

So, there are, of course, a lot of people also here in Iran who are breathing a sigh of relief, hoping that all of this could be over now -- Audie.

CORNISH: Very early in this process of trying to rebuild. Fred Pleitgen, CNN senior international correspondent, thank you.

Coming up on CNN THIS MORNING, the U.S. attack briefings canceled on Capitol Hill. Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Dingell calls that unacceptable. She's going to join me later to discuss.

Plus, an attack on one is an attack on all. But does President Trump plan to keep his commitment to NATO's Article Five?

And Israel's prime minister gets a firm talking to from Washington about keeping the peace with Iran.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's typical Trump.

He really does not want to get into war. On the contrary. So, it's like a parent scolding the child. He's scolding us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:15:51]

CORNISH: Right now, President Trump is in the Hague, Netherlands, working to clear up concerns about his commitment to NATO's alliance. He's also meeting with NATO leaders, his first summit since returning to office.

Questions about Trump's stance on NATO's mutual defense started coming up after he made these comments on his way to the summit yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: It depends on your definition. There's numerous definitions of Article Five. You know that, right? But I'm committed to being their friends. You know, I've become friends with many of those leaders, and I'm committed to helping them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Now he says, quote, "We're with them all the way."

Joining me now live from the Hague is CNN correspondent Clare Sebastian.

Clare, I understand there are some protests outside as people are talking about this conflict. And then these comments from the president going in, you know, the implications of which, when you talk about Article Five, are pretty stark.

Can you talk about how European allies are responding and how that's affected things?

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Look, I think on the one hand, Audie, we've seen a real wholesale charm offensive to try to get to this point. Certainly, from the NATO secretary-general, who, of course, his text message to President Trump was published by the president on Truth Social yesterday, giving him full credit for this 5 percent of GDP defense spending pledge that we're expecting to have signed off by NATO allies today; praising him for his actions in Iran; saying European allies, when referring to defense spending, are going to pay up big time, using the sort of Trump style block capitals.

And that charm offensive which, so far, given the mood of the president that we saw this morning, seems to be working, continued into the leaders' arrivals this morning. One particularly strong example of that was the Lithuanian president. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GITANAS NAUSEDA, LITHUANIAN PRESIDENT: I think we should choose the motto, "Make NATO great again."

I would like to extend my gratitude to President Donald Trump, because without his engagement, I can imagine that it would discuss probably the level of 2.5 percent with no clear outcome and positive outcome. Probably those discussions will lead to nothing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SEBASTIAN: So, all of this, of course, is about maintaining the appearance of unity in NATO, which is a critical part of the very deterrent that they're trying to create here.

But on the flip side, of course, we do have these comments that President Trump made on his way to the summit, refusing essentially, to fully endorse Article Five.

And leaders this morning have faced countless questions on that. The Dutch prime minister, saying, actually, Article Five is very clear.

But of course, no one wanting to overtly criticize President Trump. Because I think, if anything is clear from the way the summit has been structured, tailor-made to the president, the way we've seen those sort of flattering comments from the secretary-general is that they absolutely cannot afford to lose U.S. support -- Audie.

CORNISH: Clare Sebastian, thank you so much.

Coming up on CNN THIS MORNING, is the ceasefire truly the end of this conflict or a band-aid to cover up what's boiling underneath?

Plus, the Big, Beautiful Bill, will it get passed by the Fourth of July?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:23:04]

CORNISH: So, now that there's a ceasefire in place, what's next? Well, it's complicated. Both the U.S. and Israel are trying to get a better understanding about what's left of Iran's nuclear program and what happened to its uranium stockpiles.

And they're also trying to figure out whether Iran is still capable of moving quickly to make a weapon, something that could invite more strikes from Israel.

Meanwhile, Iran has suffered massive intelligence, military, and leadership losses. The 86-year-old supreme leader was reportedly making succession plans while sheltering in a bunker during the U.S. strikes.

Joining me now to discuss is columnist and geopolitical analyst Bobby Ghosh.

Bobby, welcome back to the program.

BOBBY GHOSH, COLUMNIST AND GEOPOLITICAL ANALYST: Hi, Audie.

CORNISH: I -- one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you is because on social media, you were pointing out that what's happening in Iran now is trying to understand the intelligence failures, et cetera. You described it as long -- a night of long knives as the regime apportions blame for the disaster.

And how much -- how much of that is going to stick to the supreme leader?

You also talk about how they're going to go after spies or opposition. Can you talk about how this might move forward?

GHOSH: Well, you have to understand that, from the point of view of the supreme leader, from the point of view of Khamenei, this has been a -- an enormous blow, not just to his nuclear ambitions, but to his personal prestige and his credibility as a ruler of Iran. His whole -- the whole concept of the Islamic Republic is built around

the idea that this group of people, this -- these theocrats, are capable of protecting Iran from foreign invasion.

Well, they have been bombed in their own homeland relentlessly by Israel and now by the United States. Somebody has to be -- somebody has to be blamed for this national disgrace, which is how they would see it.

In the past, the way they have dealt with this is to basically try and use this opportunity to crack down on all kinds of domestic opposition, real opposition, as well as imagined opposition. Any potential threat.

[06:25:04]

Now, we're already seeing reports coming out of Iran that they are hunting down so-called Israeli spies and collaborators. Some of those, I'm sure, are genuine Israeli spies. But more than likely, they will use those terms -- spies and collaborators -- much more broadly and attach them to anybody that they feel opposes the regime.

This will be the -- this will be a chance for the regime to test loyalty of the people around it, to understand who it can trust. And it's already historically been a fairly paranoid kind of regime. And so, the -- the capacity to trust is actually quite small.

CORNISH: In the meantime, we've been talking so much about these intelligence reports. CNN was reporting about an early assessment about how much damage was done to the nuclear ambitions.

And one of our panelists even raised the idea of a sort of North Korea-like response. Meaning, does Iran find that it is panicked into sprinting towards the creation of a weapon? How do you hear that discussion? And what are you looking for?

GHOSH: Well, I'm sure there are hardliners within the Iranian regime who will argue for that, who will say, look, this would not have happened if we'd already had a bomb.

And -- and if they had the capacity to sprint toward creating that bomb, there will be a strong lobby within the regime that will want to do that.

Hopefully, more saner voices will prevail, hopefully more saner voices will be able to say, if we hadn't been pursuing a bomb, we wouldn't have come to this place already. We would not have been bombed, this national humiliation. Two different countries sending their planes into our territories, bombing our infrastructure, killing our people. This would never have happened if we hadn't been pursuing a bomb in the first place.

So, that's the debate that will be taking place within the country.

There's a strong anti-war sentiment among ordinary Iranians. We've also seen good reporting coming out on that. Ordinary Iranians do not want to see the war prolonged. And that may have some bearing on what the decision making of the leadership is.

But there will be people, very powerful people in the regime, who will be arguing very strongly, if the capacity exists. It's a very big if at this stage. Audie, we really don't know. But if the capacity exists, there will be a constituency within the establishment that will want a bomb quickly.

CORNISH: That's Bobby Ghosh, columnist and geopolitics analyst. Thank you, Bobby.

GHOSH: Anytime, Audie.

CORNISH: Next on CNN THIS MORNING, Trump claims U.S. strikes obliterated Iran's nuclear sites. We'll tell you more about the new intel, which finds that could be a stretch.

Plus, President Trump says he's not happy with Israel. More on the ceasefire violations that triggered the lash-out.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:30:00]