Live updates: Trump officials brief lawmakers on U.S. strikes on Iran; Hegseth criticizes media over intelligence reporting

New York Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, the leader after the first round of New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary this week, threw jabs at incumbent Eric Adams in an interview on CNN in which he also appeared unfazed by the prospect of Andrew Cuomo's continuing his mayoral bid.

Adams formally launched his re-election campaign today and blasted Mamdani in a speech as a "manicured" assemblyman who has not passed a bill and is pushing "empty promises."

Mamdani told CNN's Erin Burnett that the attack was hardly surprising.

Kenneth Chesebro, a former legal adviser for Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign, is now barred from practicing law in New York over his role in a scheme to overturn Trump’s election loss five years ago.

In an order today, a state appeals court in New York said Chesebro’s criminal conduct, namely conspiring to commit filing false documents in connection with efforts to negate Trump’s 2020 defeat in Georgia to Joe Biden, “undercuts the very notion of our constitutional democracy that he, as an attorney, swore an oath to uphold.”

Chesebro was first admitted to practice law in New York in 2007. His disbarment is effective immediately, the order says.

Chesebro struck a plea deal with Georgia prosecutors in 2023, when he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit filing false documents after he was indicted on seven counts.

Read the full story here.

A top Justice Department official boasted at a private Republican gathering that the Trump administration was able to kill a Texas law that gave undocumented immigrants in-state tuition “in six hours” by coordinating with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, according to a recording obtained by NBC News.

On June 4, the Justice Department sued Texas over the Texas Dream Act, then quickly filed a joint motion with Texas asking a judge to declare the law unconstitutional and permanently enjoin Texas from enforcing the law. The same day, the judge did.

Outside organizations sought to invalidate the ruling Tuesday, arguing that the Justice Department and Paxton’s office “colluded to secure an agreed injunction” and engaged in improper “legal choreography” to obtain their desired outcome.

Read the full story here.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the E.U. received a new trade offer today from the United States. Reuters first reported the letter this afternoon. 

“Today we received the latest U.S. document for further negotiations. We are assessing it as we speak right now,” von der Leyen said at a news conference wrapping up an E.U. Summit with all 27 countries’ leaders. 

“We are ready for a deal. At the same time, we are preparing for the possibility that no satisfactory agreement is reached,” she said, adding, “All options remain on the table.”

The E.U. has tens of billions of retaliatory tariffs essentially on standby in case no deal is reached. 

The E.U.’s 27 nations are collectively the United States’ largest trading partner, with trillions of dollars of goods crossing E.U. and U.S. borders each year. 

The European Commission, which is the executive arm of the E.U., negotiates trade measures such as tariffs on behalf of the entire bloc.  

Speaking at a White House event to promote his "One Big Beautiful Bill," Trump caused some confusion by appearing to suggest the United States had signed a trade deal with China.

"We just signed with China yesterday," Trump said. "We're starting to open up China — things that never really could have happened."

After the event, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Bloomberg TV that the signing Trump referred to took place two days ago and that it codified tariff agreements the United States and China made in the Geneva and London negotiations. It was not a comprehensive trade deal between the world's two largest economies.

Lutnick said this month that the United States reached a "handshake for a framework" of an agreement with China after negotiations in London. In May, during negotiations in Geneva, the countries agreed to reduce their respective tariffs.

At his “One, Big, Beautiful Event” at the White House this afternoon, Trump said: “And we will deliver no tax on tips, no tax on overtime and no tax on Social Security for our great seniors.”

The last part is false.

The Republican bill backed by Trump would not affect Social Security taxes, and if it did, that provision would have to be stripped out. Social Security is ineligible under Senate rules for the filibuster-proof reconciliation process that Republicans are using to pass the sweeping legislation.

Trump lobbed attacks at Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell at a White House event aimed at boosting the "One Big Beautiful Bill."

Trump argued provisions in the bill would create jobs, stimulate economic growth and reduce taxes. He said interest rate cuts would further spur those economic benefits, a notion Powell rejected this week despite the criticism from Trump.

"If we had a person over at the Fed that would lower interest rates a little bit, that would be helpful, too," Trump said. "We have to fight this guy. He’s not doing the job. Each point that he keeps it up is the equivalent of $300 billion."

Powell said this week that the Federal Reserve will continue to assess the health of the economy before it decides whether to cut interest rates. Trump pushed back against that idea today, arguing inflation has eased enough to justify the cuts.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., criticized the Trump administration today for condemning a leak of classified intelligence this week after it downplayed a Signal chat that included details about impending strikes in Yemen in March.

"I have been extraordinarily consistent that leaks of any kind should be prosecuted," Warner told reporters. "I simply wish that the administration would adhere to that same level of secrecy about classified information that shouldn’t be shared on nonclassified channels like Signal."

"The fact that we don’t even know if some of the participants on those calls have ever even had their phones scrubbed for malware, that is malpractice," he added.

Warner spoke after a classified briefing for senators about the U.S. military’s strikes on Iran. Trump and his allies have condemned news reports this week about an initial intelligence assessment that said Iran's nuclear sites weren't as damaged as Trump insisted.

Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican, is taking steps to run for governor in New York, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Though no official launch date has been set, the sources described it as a matter of “when, not if.” Her team has started interviewing consultants and staff members for a prospective campaign.

Stefanik had been seriously considering running for the governor’s mansion after Trump withdrew her nomination to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations because of the slim House GOP margins.

After the Senate briefing, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters that he was deeply dissatisfied with the information the Cabinet officials shared about the strikes on Iran.

"President Trump said that the nuclear stockpile was completely and totally obliterated. I did not receive an adequate answer to that question," Schumer said. "What was clear is that there was no coherent strategy, no end game, no plan, no specific, no detailed plan on how Iran does not attain a nuclear weapon."

Schumer said Congress needs to enforce the War Powers Act "and force them to articulate an answer to some specific questions and a coherent strategy right away."

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said after the classified briefing about the U.S. strikes on Iran's major nuclear facilities that it's still not clear how much damage they caused.

"Iran continues to be a threat," Blumenthal told reporters on Capitol Hill.

He said that because there has not yet been a final battle damage assessment, it's not clear how much Iran's nuclear program the strikes might have destroyed.

Speaking to reporters after a classified briefing from Trump administration officials about the U.S. military's strikes on Iran, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said: "I don’t want the American people to think that this is over. It is not over until the regime decides to change their attitude and their behavior."

Graham said Iran has been "weakened," adding, "They've never been this weak."

But, he said, the likelihood that the United States and Israel would ever reach a peace deal with Iran is low.

"There's probably never going to be a deal with these people, because they'll never give up their ambitions to destroy Israel, purify Islam and come after us," Graham said.

The White House plans to limit intelligence sharing with members of Congress after an early assessment of damage caused by U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites leaked this week, a senior White House official confirmed to NBC News.

The administration specifically plans to post less information on CAPNET, the system used to share classified material with Congress, the official said.

The decision, which almost certainly won’t sit well with Democrats, came as top Cabinet officials were set to provide a classified briefing to senators about the strikes this afternoon.

“The administration should immediately undo this decision,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told NBC News today. “They seem not to want to see the facts to get out. Just Trump’s version of the facts, which we know is often false.”

Read the full story here.

Speaking to reporters after a classified briefing to senators about the U.S. military's strike on Iran, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said the briefers condemned a leak of classified intelligence this week.

"There was condemnation of the leaks by both the briefers and by Republicans and by Democrats," Cotton said, adding, "We should not ever leak classified information."

Cotton was referring to multiple news reports, which Trump has also condemned, that suggested the U.S. strike was not as successful as Trump had asserted.

Senators were briefed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

Coming out of a classified briefing with top Cabinet officials, Sen. Chris Murphy said it "still appears that we have only set back the Iranian nuclear program by a handful of months."

"There's no doubt there was damage done to the program, but the allegations that we have obliterated their program just don't seem to stand up for reason," Murphy, D-Conn., told reporters on Capitol Hill.

Murphy said that while he couldn't share any details from the briefing, "I just do not think the president was telling the truth when he said this program was obliterated."

"I walk away from that briefing still under the belief that we have not obliterated the programs," he added. "The president was deliberately misleading the public when he said the program was obliterated."

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Thursday formally launched his third bid for governor before a cheering crowd, his wife, MK Pritzker, at his side. 

Pritzker stood onstage in a South Side neighborhood, where he announced his first run for governor in 2017. The governor, widely viewed as a 2028 presidential contender, noted his and the state’s role in acting as a resistance to the White House. 

“The workers of today and tomorrow choose Illinois because we built an iron wall around their freedoms — and because we told the fascist freak show fanatics to run their experiments on ending democracy somewhere else,” Pritzker said. 

But he also noted that his own party needed to adapt to change to face challenges ahead.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump's 90-day tariff extension deadline "is not critical" in remarks to reporters at her daily briefing.

"The president can simply provide these countries with a deal if they refuse to make us one by the deadline, and that means the president can pick a reciprocal tariff rate that he believes is advantageous for the United States and for the American worker, and he will continue to do that," she said when asked whether the deadline was still firm and whether the president would consider trade deals after the deadline.

Asked again by another reporter whether there were any plans to extend the July 9 deadline, Leavitt said that "perhaps it could be extended," adding that any such decision would be Trump's to make.

Earlier this month, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested the administration could further extend the tariff pause beyond the deadline for countries that were negotiating in "good faith."

Asked by a reporter about the administration's decision to limit intelligence sharing with Congress, Leavitt said that the "administration wants to ensure that classified intelligence is not ending up in irresponsible hands."

"That person was irresponsible with it, and we need to get to the bottom of it, and we need to strengthen that process to protect our national security and protect the American public," Leavitt said.

Leavitt noted in the briefing that the FBI is trying to determine who leaked the preliminary report, but she acknowledged it is not clear whether the leak originated in Congress or within the administration.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the administration is "on a diplomatic path with Iran."

Trump's team, including special envoy Steve Witkoff, is in communication with the Iranians, Leavitt said. She added that the president would like to see more countries sign onto the Abraham Accords to normalize relations with Israel.

Asked about potential talks with Iran next week, Leavitt said there was nothing scheduled as of now.

Rep. Jim Himes, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said that the public discussion about whether Iranian nuclear sites were “obliterated” misses the point.

“The only question that matters is whether the Iranian regime has the stuff necessary to build a bomb, and if so, how fast,” Himes, of Connecticut, wrote in a social media post.

Himes argued that obliteration "means nothing" if Iran moved materials necessary to create a weapon. He said that the "smart questions" were whether Iran moved uranium, centrifuges and other engineering equipment, and if so, whether they were moved to an unknown location.

"If the answer to these questions is yes, it’s possible that Iran’s nuclear program was barely set back. In that case, the Iranians will be thrilled to abide by Trump’s 'ceasefire.' The Israelis probably less so, to say the least," Himes said.

The Supreme Court ruled for South Carolina in its effort to defund Planned Parenthood, concluding that individual Medicaid patients cannot sue to enforce their right to pick a medical provider.

The court held in a 6-3 ruling along ideological lines, with the conservative justices in the majority, that the federal law in question does not allow people who are enrolled in the Medicaid program to file such claims against the state.

The ruling, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, is a boost to the state’s effort to prevent Planned Parenthood from receiving funding through Medicaid, a federal program for low-income people that is administered by the states, because it prevents individual patients from enforcing their right to choose their preferred health care provider.

Read the full story here.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker announced Thursday that he would run for a third term as governor in the 2026 election, amid speculation about his 2028 White House aspirations.

Pritzker made the announcement, which was anticipated for today, via video. He is set to host a formal launch event later this morning. Pritzker will not immediately have a running mate and is not expected to announce one today. His lieutenant governor, Juliana Stratton, announced a bid for the U.S. Senate to succeed retiring Democratic senior Sen. Dick Durbin. Pritzker recently endorsed Stratton.

In his launch video, Pritzker said his focus is on combating President Donald Trump's policies as well as bettering economic conditions for Illinoisans.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump praised the Pentagon news conference that Hegseth and Caine held on Iran this morning.

"One of the greatest, most professional, and most 'confirming' News Conferences I have ever seen!" Trump wrote.

The president then attacked the press just as Hegseth did during the briefing.

"The Fake News should fire everyone involved in this Witch Hunt, and apologize to our great warriors, and everyone else!"

In a follow-up post on his account, Trump suggested that no enriched uranium was moved out of the nuclear sites that the U.S. targeted.

"The cars and small trucks at the site were those of concrete workers trying to cover up the top of the shafts. Nothing was taken out of facility. Would take too long, too dangerous, and very heavy and hard to move!" he said.

Hegseth dodged several questions during the news conference about whether Iran moved highly enriched uranium away from the three nuclear facilities targeted by the U.S. before the strikes.

Instead, the defense secretary attacked the reporter who questioned him.

"Of course, we're watching every single aspect," he said before telling the reporter, "you've been about the worst, the one who misrepresents the most, intentionally what the president says."

"We're looking at all aspects of intelligence and making sure we have a sense of what was where," he said.

When another reporter repeated the question about whether enriched uranium was moved, he said, "I'm not aware of any intelligence that I've reviewed that says things were not where they were supposed to be, moved or otherwise."

Asked by a reporter how the administration could be so confident in its assessments of major damage to Iranian nuclear enrichment capabilities just days after the strike, Hegseth turned back to complaints about news reports.

The reporter referred to previous comments from Caine, who had said that the final assessment would take some time. When asked if he would join other administration officials in referring to Iran's nuclear enrichment sites as being "obliterated," Caine referred the question to the intelligence community.

Asked again what changed in the past few days to make the U.S. so confident in its public assessment, Hegseth jumped in.

"I think I explained what changed. There was a great deal of irresponsible reporting based on leaks, preliminary information in low confidence," Hegseth said.

Hegseth added that he and Caine were there to "clarify what these weapons are capable of."

"Anyone with two eyes, some ears and a brain can recognize that kind of firepower with that specificity at that location and others is gonna have a devastating effect," he said.

Rather than going into the widely reported damage assessment, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine used his initial remarks at the news conference to detail aspects of the U.S. operation in Iran, describing how over the course of years, U.S. intelligence circles studied the Fordo nuclear site and developed weapons that would be able to strike an underground target.

Caine displayed a graphic depicting ventilation shafts in Fordo — the U.S. target for missile entry. He detailed how six weapons targeted each side of the facility to uncover the ventilation shaft and penetrate the target.

Caine also described the experiences of troops leading up to the Iranian retaliatory strikes on a base in Qatar, adding that he believed the U.S. response to the missiles was the largest single engagement of U.S. Patriot missiles in American military history. There were no reports of U.S. casualties.

"These awesome humans, along with their Qatari brothers and sisters in arms, stood between a salvo of Iranian missiles and the safety of Al Udeid," Caine said, praising troops who defended the base. "They are the unsung heroes of the 21st century United States Army."

Hegseth spent much of his initial remarks at the news conference strongly scolding the news media for reporting on the early Defense Intelligence Agency assessment that said the U.S. strikes on Iran only set its nuclear program back by several months.

"There's been fawning coverage of a preliminary assessment. I've had a chance to read it all. Every outlet has breathlessly reported on a preliminary assessment from DIA," the defense secretary said at his Pentagon news conference.

Hegseth alleged the news media was spinning information and cheering "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," he said. "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 has represented them 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."

Hegseth began his news conference complaining about media coverage of the U.S. strikes against Iran's nuclear enrichments sites last weekend. He cited administration officials, the United Nations, and Israeli and Iranian officials talking about severe damage to the nuclear facilities.

The defense secretary criticized reports on a widely reported preliminary intelligence assessment of the strikes that said they set Iran's nuclear program back several months, noting that the assessment also pointed out it would take weeks to gain a fuller understanding of the scope of the damage.

In the days after the strikes, Trump and other U.S. officials have repeatedly said that the sites were "obliterated."

Trump will hold an event at the White House this afternoon to promote the Republicans' sweeping domestic policy legislation, which the president and others have dubbed "the one big, beautiful bill," as senators consider changes to the House-passed legislation.

The event will focus on urging the Senate to pass the legislation and will feature everyday Americans — including a delivery driver, border state resident, sheriff and flight attendant — who the White House says will benefit from the bill.

Any changes by the Senate would need to go through the House again. The bill has divided GOP lawmakers over its potential impact on Medicaid and the national deficit.

Senate Republicans aim to pass the bill by July Fourth.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe said yesterday that credible intelligence indicated Iran’s nuclear program was “severely damaged” in recent U.S. airstrikes and that several key sites were “destroyed.”

A Defense Intelligence Agency initial assessment leaked Tuesday found that the U.S. bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites may have set back the country’s nuclear program by only several months, a more limited impact than Trump stated after the strikes.

The precise damage inflicted on Iran’s nuclear facilities and the viability of its broader program have become politically charged issues, with Trump and his deputies denouncing the leak of the DIA report and the news outlets that reported it. Democratic lawmakers have accused the White House of possibly overstating the effect of the strikes.

Read the full story here.

A federal district judge granted a preliminary injunction yesterday to prevent the administration from closing Job Corps centers.

The Labor Department said earlier this month that it would pause Job Corps operations at 99 centers, prompting a lawsuit from the National Job Corps Association and other groups.

Judge Andrew Carter said in an order that the Labor Department "exceeded their statutory authority by closing the centers without following the statutory requirements."

Carter also agreed that the plaintiffs would face "irreparable" harm if the programs closed.

Trump’s decision to launch airstrikes Saturday on several nuclear facilities in Iran has divided Americans and exposed fault lines within the coalitions of both the parties, according to a new NBC News Decision Desk Poll powered by SurveyMonkey.

Among U.S. adults, 45% oppose the airstrikes, versus 38% who support them. An additional 18% of Americans said they neither support nor oppose the strikes, illustrating how fluid the situation is. 

While this survey was in the field from Monday through Wednesday, Iran launched a retaliatory missile barrage at a U.S. military site in Qatar. Trump then announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, chastised both countries for appearing to break the terms and then congratulated them for stopping attacks. Meanwhile, questions still remain about the ultimate consequences of the U.S. strikes, including exactly what damage they did to Iran’s nuclear program.

Read the full story here.

Iranian lawmakers voted almost unanimously yesterday to suspend all cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog. They followed the vote with chants of “death to America” and “death to Israel”

If approved by Iran’s powerful Guardian Council, yesterday’s legislation to stop working with the IAEA will make it harder to determine the damage from Israeli and American strikes, or monitor the enrichment and transportation of Iran’s existing uranium supplies.

Read the full story here.

The Trump administration plans to hold a classified briefing for senators today on recent U.S. airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear sites amid a partisan political debate over the true impact of the bombing raids on Tehran’s nuclear program.

The White House is expected to send four senior officials to brief senators: Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, two sources with knowledge of the matter said. 

Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, is not scheduled to take part in the briefing, according to the two sources and a senior administration official.

“Director Ratcliffe will represent the intelligence community tomorrow while Tulsi Gabbard continues her critical work at DNI," the official said. "The media is turning this into something it’s not."