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Hegseth: Strike On Iran "Was An Historically Successful Attack"; Hegseth Criticizes Media Coverage Of Preliminary Intel Assessment Of Impact; Medicaid Change To Trump's Megabill Ruled In Violation Of Senate Rules; Today: Senators To Receive Classified Briefing On Israel-Iran Conflict. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired June 26, 2025 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:55]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Happening now, breaking news, quote, "historically successful attack." The U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on the U.S. strikes in Iran as we're getting more assessments of the damage to the Iranian nuclear facilities there.

Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer, Pamela Brown is off today, and you're in The Situation Room.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News.

BLITZER: Right now, we're following major breaking news on two big stories. At any moment, the U.S. Supreme Court will release new opinions, and they potentially could decide some of the biggest cases of the year. The U.S. justices could shape a range of issues such as immigration, healthcare, and religion.

Also, new assessments and new reporting of the damage from the U.S. airstrikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. That topic certainly front and center this morning from the U.S. Defense Secretary during a news conference. And later this afternoon, U.S. lawmakers will go behind closed doors for the intelligence briefing they have demanded.

But let's begin this hour over at the Pentagon. The Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth backing up President Trump who says that Iran's nuclear sites were obliterated. That, despite an early assessment from the U.S. Intelligence Community over at the Defense Department that suggested Iran's nuclear program may have been just set back a few months. Hegseth is forcefully emphasizing the attacks were a success.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: The reality is you want to call it destroyed, you want to call it defeated, you want to call it obliterated, choose your word. This was a historically successful attack. We should celebrate it as Americans, and it gives us a chance to have peace, a chance to have a deal, an opportunity to prevent a nuclear Iran, which is something President Trump talked about for 20 years. And no other presidents had the courage to actually do.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BLITZER: All right, let's begin our coverage this hour with CNN Senior National Security Reporter Zachary Cohen, who was at the briefing at the Pentagon. Zach, this briefing had a very singular goal, didn't it?

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, Wolf, that certainly seemed to be true as far as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is concerned. He spent the majority of his remarks really emphasizing his and President Donald Trump's stated belief that these military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities completely obliterated the country's nuclear capabilities and really deriding the media for recent reporting by CNN and confirmed by a host of others that a preliminary intelligence assessment did raise some questions and some uncertainty about the status of that nuclear program.

And look, Pete Hegseth really leaning into what the president has said publicly, in fact, said immediately after these military strikes were conducted, that they were not only successful, but they completely obliterated the country's program. That is not something that is reflected in the facts and something that still remains a question even after today.

We did pick up some new details, though, about what that confidence from Hegseth and Donald Trump seems to be based on, and that is based on the capabilities of this MOP, the Massive Ordinance Penetrator. These bombs intended to penetrate deep under the ground, as well as the fact that they seem to have hit their desired targets at the Fordow facility.

General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, walked reporters through how this bomb works, showing a video, a training video that illustrates how it penetrates the ground and then explodes. Also showing a graphic that does indicate that these bombs hit key ventilation shafts at the Fordow facility.

But beyond that, though, we still don't know -- and this is something Caine and Hegseth seem to acknowledge, we still don't know what the level of damage was that was inflicted not only beneath Fordow, but the other two sites that were targeted in these strikes. In fact, the other two sites, Natanz and Isfahan, were not even mentioned during today's press conference, despite the fact that they both are believed to have underground facilities that are used for nuclear purposes.

[10:05:00]

So, a lot of questions still today. But take a listen to what Pete Hegseth said when he was pushed on how -- what is the underlying factor that makes him so confident Iran's nuclear program was, in fact, obliterated.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

HEGSETH: No one's under there right now. No one's under there able to assess, and everyone's using reflections of what they see, and that's why the Israelis, the Iranians, the IAEA, the U.N., to a man and to a woman who recognize the capability of this weapons system are acknowledging how destructive it's been.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

COHEN: So, still, that's based on what all these players that are involved are seeing from the outside, but we still have yet to learn anything about what the actual damage on the inside and underground of these facilities is.

BLITZER: Zach, what additional intelligence are we expecting today?

COHEN: Yes, Wolf, we've really been -- we've known the whole time, we've been reporting that an intelligence assessment about the damage that was inflicted will take days to weeks to be complete and get a fulsome picture. Really the key thing is if anybody can get boots on the ground at these sites to determine the level of damage to these underground facilities. And also finding out what was actually being stored there and potentially destroyed, we still don't know the status of that stockpile of already enriched uranium.

That was something that Defense Secretary Hegseth today really sidestepped when he was pressed by reporters. We also don't know the status of those underground facilities potentially at the other two sites that were hit. Again, that was not even mentioned today. So still a lot of intelligence to be collected, assessed, and analyzed, but that does not stop Donald Trump from continuing to insist that Iran's nuclear program was obliterated.

BLITZER: All right, Zachary Cohen reporting for us from the Pentagon today. Zachary, thank you very, very much.

Let's discuss what's going on with the Retired U.S. Army Brigadier General Steve Anderson. Steve, thanks so much for coming in. You told me the other day that you thought the strikes themselves were an operational success, but a strategic mistake. Do you still believe that --

BRIG. GEN. STEVE ANDERSON (RET.), U.S. ARMY: I --

BLITZER: -- based on what we heard this morning?

ANDERSON: Yes, Wolf, I still believe that. I mean, we still don't know, with battle damage assessment, we do not know the results of this incredibly successful attack. I mean, no one has taken that away from the soldiers that -- and the airmen that delivered -- that executed this mission.

However, we still don't know what happened to the 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium. We still do not know if there are two secret or three secret facilities in an area the size twice -- two and a half times the size of Texas. We still don't know what Iranian intentions are. Do they want to rebuild their program, or are they going to stand down? So they failed to answer any of this.

What we saw today, Wolf, sadly, was more of a performance for an audience of one than it was for a briefing to the American people.

BLITZER: You mean a performance for the president --

ANDERSON: Absolutely.

BLITZER: -- that's what you're saying. I want to play something that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Dan Caine, said today during the briefing, and then we'll discuss. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

GEN. DAN CAINE, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: In the days preceding the attack against Fordow, the Iranians attempted to cover the shafts with concrete to try to prevent an attack. The cap was forcibly removed by the first weapon, and the main shaft was uncovered. Weapons 2, 3, 4, 5 were tasked to enter the main shaft, moved down into the complex at greater than 1,000 feet per second, and explode in the mission space.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BLITZER: And they showed video, by the way, of that attack with the bunker-busting bombs going down. We're going to play that video for our viewers momentarily. But if the Iranians had time to prepare, and presumably they were anticipating perhaps that the U.S. would do this, could they have moved enriched uranium and other key parts of a nuclear bomb out of that area?

ANDERSON: Absolutely, and we've seen in Isfahan that there was perhaps a dozen trucks that left that facility on Wednesday, a couple of days before the attack. So, look, Wolf, I've been in bunkers in North -- in Korea, and in Cheyenne Mountain, in Raven Rock. You know, they are meant to withstand nuclear attacks.

I mean, no one's denying that the targets were hit. However, the impact we still don't know, and we won't know until we actually get boots on the ground to go inside there and see what was -- what really happened.

BLITZER: Well, let me ask you about this so-called test video that they showed during the course of this morning's press briefing at the Pentagon. Watch this.

Now you see what's -- walk us through. You see that initial explosion, and then you see this video from what they say was underground. Look at this. Watch.

Totally devastated. Looks -- that's very impressive, that video, isn't it?

ANDERSON: It is. It is impressive, but this was a test. We don't know the operational impact of the actual execution of this mission. It looks really impressive on video, but I can tell you that 300 feet is a long way. That's higher than the Statue of Liberty.

[10:10:06] And, you know, we built facilities 60 years ago in Cheyenne Mountain in Raven Rock that were made to essentially withstand nuclear attacks. They put everything on big springs down there. They're -- they have all kinds of secure devices down there and vaults that can secure the area down there.

Are the centrifuges still active? Probably not. But how much was actually decimated? We don't know, and we need to find out.

BLITZER: As you know, the early -- and I want to stress the word early, Defense Intelligence Agency, DIA, assessment was based on what they call a Phase III analysis of battle damage. How valuable are these reports in the days immediately following attacks like the one that the U.S. carried out over the past few days?

ANDERSON: Well, as a veteran of four tours in the Pentagon, I can tell you that the quicker we can get information out to leadership, the better. And so what they try to do is they try to make an initial analysis. They rated it as low competence. They knew that they'd get more information to build on this.

But what's really sad is that, you know, perhaps the only thing that truly has been obliterated is the morale of the intel analysts that put that thing, that report together. There are hundreds of people. I mean, General Caine talked a lot about the DTRA (ph) gentlemen -- two folks that worked on this facility. It started in the Obama administration, by the way, back in 2009.

But what about all those analysts that are working round the clock to give our nation's leaders the best possible information they can? We threw those people under the bus, and it's really sad.

BLITZER: The initial assessment --

ANDERSON: Yes, absolutely.

BLITZER: -- potentially could change.

Retired General Steve Anderson, thanks so much for joining us.

ANDERSON: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Appreciate it very, very much.

At the start of that news conference, the U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lashed out at the news media, condemning outlets, including CNN, for reports that suggest the U.S. strikes on Iran weren't as effective as the Trump administration was initially saying. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

HEGSETH: Because you cheer against Trump so hard, it's like in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump, because you want him not to be successful so bad, you have to cheer against the efficacy of these strikes. You have to hope maybe they weren't effective. Maybe the way the Trump administration's representative isn't true.

So let's take half-truths, spun information, leaked information, and then spin it, spin it in every way we can to try to cause doubt and manipulate the mind -- the public mind over whether or not our brave pilots were successful.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BLITZER: All right, joining us now to discuss is CNN's Chief Media Analyst, Brian Stelter. Brian, thanks for joining us. We should just note that Hegseth's attacks are false. CNN has reported that this was a preliminary assessment. Why is he now trying to say otherwise?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Right. And journalists are not the main story here, the main story is what you just covered, the impact of the U.S. strikes on Iran. The public still has a lot -- wants to know about the impact of the strikes. But the administration is picking a fight with the press and casting legitimate journalism as unpatriotic right now.

The Trump administration is not actually challenging the facts of what CNN reported. Instead, it's objecting to the existence of reporting. The Trump administration just wants everyone to repeat Trump's words instead of following up, instead of asking questions. And Hegseth was very emotional, almost spitting mad about this at the press conference this morning, very clearly trying to perform for the president.

And we know that is partly why the president picked Hegseth from Fox in order to run the Defense Department. That kind of performance is what Trump was looking for. But it seems to me, Wolf, Trump is far from the first politician to use the military as a shield against fair-minded scrutiny.

You know, Trump is saying that the B-2 pilots were devastated by this news coverage. But the reporting by CNN that was matched by The New York Times and other outlets was not the last word on the matter. It was really just the first word. There's so much more reporting to do on this topic. This is a very complex matter, even though Trump tried to make it sound simple on Saturday night.

It's really important to note what CNN did not report. CNN did not report that this mission was a failure. Far from it. It may have turned out to be a tremendous success. We just don't know all the facts yet, and neither does the U.S. government. So this performance from Hegseth today, it's part of a pattern of attacking the press, trying to claim it's unpatriotic to ask these questions.

But I think the history, going back to Vietnam and more recently the Iraq War, shows that it is quite patriotic to ask these questions and hold the government to account.

BLITZER: Yes, we were simply reporting what was leaked to CNN by a U.S. official from that initial DIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, report, and we reported it in context to be sure.

You write in a new article for CNN, Brian, that questioning power is certainly patriotic. Explain for our viewers why it's necessary for the news media to report on these assessments, even if they are preliminary.

[10:15:07]

STELTER: Because some of the biggest embarrassments for the American media of the last 50, 60 years have been times where the questions were not asked efficiently, when people might have neutered themselves, might have quieted themselves because there was a rally around the flag effect. Best example, of course, being in the run-up to the Iraq War in 2003.

Now this set of circumstances is very different. The U.S. airstrikes on Iran were courageous. The actions by the pilots were courageous. Gosh, I would love to hear from the pilots directly, by the way. There's a lot more reporting to do.

It seems that Trump doesn't want that reporting to happen and he's calling for firings and those sorts of things. Both CNN and the New York Times have strongly defended the reporting because it has not actually been challenged. The actual details have not been challenged.

But, you know, as you've said on this program, Wolf, there's a lot more to learn about this subject. And that's what the public wants from the press. The public expects the press to do that work dispassionately, neutrally, not looking for an outcome, but trying to find out what actually happened inside Iran.

BLITZER: Yes. And the details that CNN reported from that initial DIA report were, in fact, confirmed by current U.S. officials in the course of their public comments, even as they were trying to attack the news media for reporting all that.

Brian Stelter, thank you very, very much for that.

Still ahead, U.S. senators will soon get their top-secret briefing on Iran from Trump administration officials, notably missing the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. Stay with us. You're in The Situation Room.

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[10:21:05]

BLITZER: We're also following breaking news up on Capitol Hill. A key Medicaid change in President Trump's so-called mega bill is in violation of U.S. Senate rules.

Let's go live to our Congressional Correspondent, Lauren Fox. She's over at the Capitol. Lauren, take us through what happened and what this means for President Trump's bill.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Wolf, this is a really significant development because under the Senate budget rules, they have very strict parameters of what is allowed and what isn't allowed. And as part of this process, they go through with the Senate parliamentarian each provision in their carefully crafted bill. Then she makes a determination about whether or not they allow for that in the Senate rules.

And the reason you want to comply with those rules is because it allows you to move forward with this bill with just 51 votes, a simple majority, meaning Republicans don't need any Democratic votes. Now, she has now ruled the fact that a key pay-for in this bill, which would have affected Medicaid in states across the country, is not going to be allowed.

Now, Republicans are saying they're going to go back to the drawing board, they're going to try to retool this. Democrats, obviously, claiming a major victory here because this was a huge pay-for in this legislation. A source told me that they expected this would cover about $200 billion of the tax bill that Republicans are trying to pass. And that just gives you a sense that now Republicans have this hole that they're going to have to try to figure out.

And the deadline that they are trying to move this bill forward with was by the end of this week. Obviously, that is all really in flux right now. It's really unclear if they're going to be able to pass this by the 4th of July next week. Wolf?

BLITZER: All right, Lauren Fox, explaining rather complex Senate rules. Thanks very, very much.

We're also following a very busy day of other developments in the U.S. airstrikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. This afternoon, President Trump's top defense officials will deliver their first classified briefing to members of Congress. This time, members of the U.S. Senate will be briefed today and members of the House will be briefed tomorrow. And the briefings come as the White House is trying to decide to limit its sharing of classified information with U.S. lawmakers.

CNN's Alayna Treene is over at the White House for us. Alayna, what can you tell us about these new White House limits on sharing highly classified information with key members of the Senate and the House?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, we learned some of this yesterday, Wolf, and it's still unfolding. But essentially what we've been told from the Trump administration and our sources here at the White House is that they are planning to limit the amount of classified intelligence and classified information that they will be sharing with members on Capitol Hill both today, of course, in that all-Senate briefing, but also tomorrow during the House briefing as well.

And I want to read for you what one of the officials told CNN. They said essentially that the administration believes that the report, that Defense Intelligence Agency report, that, you know, an arm of the Defense Department that CNN first reported on, because of that report they believe that it was posted on Capnet, which is essentially a system that's used for sharing classified information. It's one that these lawmakers up on Capitol Hill can access. They believe that that's how this was -- that information was leaked to different media outlets, again, including CNN. And so now they're deciding to pull back on the amount of classified intelligence that they will be sharing on that. All to say, we've now heard from many different Democrats and other lawmakers who say they find this very concerning.

We just had Senator Tim Kaine, who was on our air earlier today, saying that he does not believe that that is the right next step in this and that lawmakers deserve to have the same amount of information that many people in this administration have when it comes to important matters like the United States striking these Iranian nuclear facilities.

[10:25:03]

BLITZER: Alayna, amongst all of this, the White House will send four of its top national security officials to brief the lawmakers, notably absent, though, the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. How significant is that?

TREENE: Yes, it is pretty significant, Wolf, because -- and we actually heard Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth say this this morning, that the two people in the president's cabinet who would have the kind of access to the intelligence that they need to make the assessment of how much damage was actually done to those different nuclear facilities would be the CIA Director, John Ratcliffe, who will be joining other cabinet members on the Hill today to engage in these briefings.

But then the other person would be the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and as you mentioned, she is not one of the four members of the cabinet who are going. That includes Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine.

Now, all of this comes, as we know, that the president has, in recent days and weeks now, said that Tulsi Gabbard was wrong for sharing back-in-March intelligence that seemed to suggest that the Iranians were not actively moving very close or would not be able in a short amount of time to be able to build a nuclear bomb, something that, of course, came up in the context of all of this as the president was deciding whether or not to move ahead with those military strikes. Wolf?

BLITZER: All right, Alayna Treene, over at the White House for us, thank you very, very much.

Coming up, Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, saying in a new video that it's, quote, "a joke," his word, a joke that Iran could surrender its nuclear enrichment. What does this mean for upcoming talks with the U.S. if, in fact, they take place? I'll discuss that and more when we come back.

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