Hegseth launches extraordinary assault on media over reporting on US strikes on Iran
Hegseth may be very aggressively and bizarrely attacking the press corps, claiming:
Since you cheer towards Trump so arduous – it’s in your DNA and in your blood to cheer towards Trump, since you need him not to achieve success so unhealthy – it’s important to cheer towards the efficacy of those strikes. You need to hope that perhaps they weren’t efficient.
He then accuses the media of “spinning” leaked data “in each manner we are able to to attempt to trigger doubt and manipulate the general public thoughts over whether or not or not our courageous pilots have been profitable”.
Hegseth has some recommendations for tales the media may write – together with “how arduous it’s to fly a airplane for 36 hours”, and blames “the hatred of this press corp” on tales like that not taking place, including: “It’s irresponsible.”
Key occasions
Supreme courtroom paves manner for South Carolina to defund Deliberate Parenthood, setting stage for states to go after reproductive well being care large
Carter Sherman
The US supreme court has paved the best way for South Carolina to kick Planned Parenthood out of its Medicaid program over its standing as an abortion supplier, in a choice that might embolden pink states throughout the nation to successfully “defund” the reproductive healthcare group.
The case, Medina v Deliberate Parenthood South Atlantic, facilities round a 2018 govt order from South Carolina’s governor, Henry McMaster, that blocked clinics that present abortions from receiving Medicaid reimbursements. “Cost of taxpayer funds to abortion clinics, for any objective, ends in the subsidy of abortion and the denial of the proper to life,” McMaster mentioned on the time, regardless that the reimbursements couldn’t be used for abortions. Abortions are additionally now banned in South Carolina after six weeks of being pregnant.
Deliberate Parenthood South Atlantic, a Deliberate Parenthood affiliate that operates two clinics in South Carolina, and Julie Edwards, a affected person who sought contraception, sued over McMaster’s order, arguing that it flew within the face of a federal provision generally known as the “free selection of supplier” clause. That provision ensures that folks insured by Medicaid, the federal government medical insurance program for individuals with low revenue or different eligibilities, can freely select their very own suppliers so long as they settle for this system and are certified to offer care. Decrease courts have repeatedly sided with Deliberate Parenthood South Atlantic and Edwards, holding McMaster’s order from taking impact.
The case in entrance of the supreme courtroom didn’t immediately take care of the query of whether or not South Carolina may legally take away Deliberate Parenthood from Medicaid. As a substitute, the justices have been requested to weigh in on a extremely technical query: Do Medicaid beneficiaries have the proper to sue in the event that they imagine their proper to a free selection of supplier has been violated?
South Carolina, which was represented within the case by the highly effective rightwing group Alliance Defending Freedom, argued that beneficiaries couldn’t sue and that the free selection of supplier clause lacked “clear rights-creating language”, as ADF senior counsel John Bursch put it in oral arguments.
These technicalities cloaked the doubtless sweeping penalties of the case. If individuals can’t sue once they imagine a state is violating Medicaid, it’s far more durable to cease states from discriminating towards controversial care, comparable to abortion, Nicole Huberfeld, a well being legislation professor at Boston College’s Faculty of Public Well being, advised the Guardian forward of oral arguments.
The South Carolina case was additionally a part of a longstanding effort by anti-abortion activists, together with ADF, to “defund” Planned Parenthood by reducing it out of Medicaid. Of the two.4 million individuals handled at Deliberate Parenthood every year, virtually half use Medicaid.
Iran moved uranium from Fordow earlier than US strikes, EU capitals imagine – FT
Opposite to that, the Monetary Instances is reporting that European capitals imagine Iran’s extremely enriched uranium stockpile stays largely intact following US strikes on its most important nuclear websites.
The newspaper, citing two individuals briefed on preliminary intelligence assessments, mentioned European capitals imagine Iran’s stockpile of 408 kilogram of uranium enriched near weapons-grade ranges was not concentrated in Fordow, one among its two most important enrichment websites, on the time of final weekend’s assault.
Trump says nothing taken out of facility at Iran nuclear website forward of US bombing
Trump has claimed that nothing was taken out of the power on the Iranian nuclear website struck by the US final weekend, as his administration continues its marketing campaign to insist that the strikes have been more practical than early intelligence has found.
The president wrote on Fact Social minutes in the past, with out offering proof:
The vehicles and small vans on the website have been these of concrete employees making an attempt to cowl up the highest of the shafts. Nothing was taken out of facility. Would take too lengthy, too harmful, and really heavy and arduous to maneuver!
We simply heard similar from protection secretary Pete Hegseth who mentioned he was unaware of any intelligence suggesting Iran had moved any of its extremely enriched uranium to protect it from US strikes on its nuclear program.
Hegseth ends the briefing by reiterating that the assault was “devastating” and “historic, setting again the Iranian nuclear program untold variety of years”.
Caine says he hasn’t been pressured to alter evaluation of US strikes on Iran
Requested if he’s been pressured to alter his evaluation of US strikes on Iran, Normal Dan Caine says:
I’ve by no means been pressured by the president of the secretary to do something aside from inform them precisely what I’m considering and that’s precisely what I’ve executed.
No recognized intelligence that Iran moved uranium, Hegseth says
Pete Hegseth says he’s unaware of any intelligence suggesting Iran had moved any of its extremely enriched uranium to protect it from US strikes on Iran’s nuclear program over the weekend.
I’m not conscious of any intelligence that I’ve reviewed that claims issues weren’t the place they have been purported to be, moved or in any other case.
“I’ve chills actually speaking about this,” says Caine as he recounts the mission.
Caine goes into element concerning the individuals behind the mission and a map of the Fordow enrichment website.
High US normal: there have been ‘indications’ of Iran’s intention to assault army bases
Chairman of the joint chiefs of employees air power normal Dan Caine says that on Monday morning they started to obtain “indications and warnings that Iran meant to assault US bases within the area” and moved most personnel out of the realm.
Hegseth – of Signal group chat leak fame – is now bemoaning that the press is reporting tales based mostly on “leaked categorized data”.
Time and time once more, categorized data is leaked or peddled for political functions to attempt to make the president look unhealthy.
Hegseth launches extraordinary assault on media over reporting on US strikes on Iran
Hegseth may be very aggressively and bizarrely attacking the press corps, claiming:
Since you cheer towards Trump so arduous – it’s in your DNA and in your blood to cheer towards Trump, since you need him not to achieve success so unhealthy – it’s important to cheer towards the efficacy of those strikes. You need to hope that perhaps they weren’t efficient.
He then accuses the media of “spinning” leaked data “in each manner we are able to to attempt to trigger doubt and manipulate the general public thoughts over whether or not or not our courageous pilots have been profitable”.
Hegseth has some recommendations for tales the media may write – together with “how arduous it’s to fly a airplane for 36 hours”, and blames “the hatred of this press corp” on tales like that not taking place, including: “It’s irresponsible.”
Hegseth is now studying out numerous quotes from UN, IDF, CIA and Iranian figures suggesting that the nuclear websites have been “severely broken” and “successfully destroyed”, supposedly opposite to the DIA’s early findings.
Pete Hegseth cites an announcement from Trump’s CIA director to refute press experiences that Iran’s nuclear program is not as obliterated as Trump needs individuals to imagine pic.twitter.com/zndtWYCIg9
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 26, 2025
Hegseth calls the UN “no pal to the United States, or definitely Israel typically”.
Hegseth assaults the media for reporting on the “preliminary evaluation” by the Protection Intelligence Company (DIA), claiming “there’s low confidence on this specific report”. (Only a reminder that the DIA is the intelligence arm of the Pentagon – Hegseth’s personal division).
He mentioned:
This was preliminary and leaked as a result of somebody had an agenda to attempt to muddy the waters and make it seem like this historic strike wasn’t profitable.
