Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine held a Thursday (June 26, 2025) morning information convention to reply to an early leaked intelligence report suggesting U.S. strikes in opposition to Iran possible put the nation again mere months.
President Donald Trump has insisted the U.S. strikes delivered a “devastating” attack and that questioning his evaluation of the strike was not solely unpatriotic but additionally makes the pilots who dropped the bombs “very upset.”
Drawing dependable conclusions about the impact of the U.S. strikes is troublesome solely days after they happened.
Trump’s fights with the intelligence group
President Trump’s fights with the intelligence group have been a operating theme of his first time period as he raged in opposition to an investigation into his marketing campaign’s alleged hyperlinks to Russia. Now, a sequel is taking part in out as Trump battles to form the public’s understanding of his overseas coverage gamble in Iran.
An early U.S. intelligence evaluation stated Iran’s nuclear program has been set again solely a few months after American strikes on three websites final weekend. The Republican president has rejected the report and pronounced the program “completely and fully obliterated.”
The dispute is unlikely to fade anytime quickly. Top administration officers are urgent Trump’s case, with Mr. Hegseth scolding the media at a Pentagon briefing Thursday for “breathlessly” focusing on an intelligence report he downplayed as preliminary. Briefings are also scheduled for lawmakers, although the White House plans to restrict the sharing of categorized data after the preliminary evaluation leaked this week.
