Turns Out, Trump’s Reckless Iran Strikes Didn’t Achieve Anything

An early U.S. intelligence assessment has determined that Donald Trump’s airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear bases failed to destroy core components of the nation’s nuclear program.

The president’s attack, conducted without the express approval of Congress, damaged facilities in Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan on Saturday. But a battle damage assessment by the Pentagon’s intelligence arm determined that the missile barrage only set Iran’s nuclear program back by a few months, CNN reported Tuesday.

The White House denied the contents of the leaked report, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt rebuffing the whistleblower as a “low-level loser.” But she still acknowledged that the report had been classified as “top secret.”

In the wake of the attack, Trump celebrated that Iran’s nuclear program had been “completely and totally obliterated.” He told reporters aboard Air Force One Tuesday that the nation should “get on to being a great trading nation” with regard to its oil supply. He further promised that, based on the severity of the attack, “the last thing on Iran’s mind right now is nuclear weapons.”

But not everyone on Capitol Hill shared Trump’s evaluation. In an interview with Steve Bannon Tuesday, Republican Senator Rand Paul wondered if Iran would respond “with a sprint to creating a nuclear weapon.”

“There are news reports out today saying that 400 kilograms of enriched uranium at 60 percent was spirited out before the attacks,” Paul said.

Israeli officials signaled Sunday there was evidence that Iran had moved equipment and uranium—enriched to 60 percent purity—from one of the bomb sites ahead of the attack. The fuel was reportedly stored inside another nuclear complex near the ancient capital of Isfahan.

International Atomic Energy Agency Director Rafael Grossi texted The New York Times that his inspectors had laid eyes on the uranium a week before Israel attacked, and that Iran has “made no secret that they have protected this material.”

Paul warned he wasn’t “sure you can bomb away the ability to make a nuclear weapon.” He noted that the Iranians had enough uranium to manufacture about 10 weapons. “I hope the war will not continue, but I guess I rest my judgment on the previous incursions of so many presidents—from Obama to Bush—overseas that really didn’t go as planned,” Paul said.

At least 606 people have been killed in Iran since Israel first attacked on June 13, according to Iran’s health ministry. Approximately 107 people died on Monday alone, making it the deadliest single day of the conflict.

Iranian officials have made it clear that they are no longer interested in negotiating with American leadership, citing the nation’s deception ahead of prearranged talks regarding Iran’s nuclear program that were scheduled to take place earlier this month.

Trump preemptively announced a successful ceasefire between Iran and Israel Monday evening, before the two nations had jointly come to an agreement on the terms of ending their conflict. Hours after the ceasefire deadline had passed, the two nations continued lobbing missiles at one another.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that yet another wrongly deported immigrant must be returned to the United States to receive due process.

Last month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported Jordin Melgar-Salmeron, 31, to El Salvador minutes after the Second Circuit ordered that he remain in the U.S.—and despite the government having assured the court it would hold off on his removal until at least the following day.

The government chalked the wrongful removal up to “a confluence of administrative errors”—though Politico reports that the Department of Homeland Security has said there was “no error” in his deportation, alleging that Melgar-Salmeron is a member of MS-13.

In a Tuesday ruling, a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court ruled that the government must facilitate Melgar-Salmeron’s return.

The judges, one of whom was appointed by Trump in his first term, also gave the government a one-week deadline to file a document clarifying Melgar-Salmeron’s “current physical location and custodial status” as well as “what steps the Government will take, and when, to facilitate his return to the United States.”

The Second Circuit judges in their Tuesday decision cited the Supreme Court’s decision in Noem v. Abrego Garcia, in which the high court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongly deported to El Salvador.

Melgar-Salmeron’s is just the latest instance in which courts have had to step in to rein in Trump’s wanton deportation campaign. Politico reports that Melgar-Salmeron’s is the fourth case—Abrego Garcia’s being the most famous—of federal courts ordering the administration to return illegally or improperly deported immigrants to the United States.

Despite issuing guidance that measles can be treated with simple vitamins, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. admitted Tuesday that he’s never actually had to help someone recover from the disease before.

Kennedy was excoriated by Washington Representative Kim Schrier before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health Tuesday. She torched Kennedy for continuing to spread vaccine misinformation and refusing to listen to medical experts while he leads the nation’s public health policy.

“Have you ever treated measles?” asked Schrier, a former physician.

“No,” Kennedy said with a short laugh.

“Well I have,” Schrier said. “Let me tell you how miserable it is: These kids have high fevers, struggling to breathe, and they are crying. They suffer. The great thing is that there’s a vaccine to prevent it.”

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials have described the current measles outbreak in Texas as the worst uptick the agency has seen in measles cases in the last 25 years. But the lackadaisical public response to the contagion has only been made worse by Kennedy’s politics, which include unfounded claims that the disease-eradicating vaccine was contributing to higher autism rates in kids.

Schrier also accused Kennedy of lying to Republican Senator Bill Cassidy during his February confirmation hearings when he promised not to alter the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Cassidy was a critical vote for Kennedy clinching the Cabinet role.

“But then two weeks ago you fired all 17 experts on that very committee. Mr. Secretary, question for you, did you lie to Senator Cassidy when you told him you would not change this panel of experts?” Schrier asked.

Kennedy denied having made that commitment altogether, calling it “inaccurate.”

“I made an agreement with him, and he and I talked many times about that agreement,” he said of Cassidy.

Kennedy claimed that all 17 members had potential conflicts of interest before instating eight new members who were reputed vaccine and Covid-19 skeptics.

In May, Kennedy justified a religious Texas community’s decision not to receive the vaccine by claiming that the measles vaccine contains “aborted fetus debris” as well as “DNA particles.”

It should go without saying, but the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine does not contain pieces of aborted fetuses. The vaccine contains live or weakened measles, mumps, and rubella viruses and ingredients to stabilize the solution.

The return of historically eradicated diseases is thanks to a growing movement of anti-vax parents who refuse to provide their children with the same public health advantages that they received in their youth, mostly in fear of thoroughly debunked conspiracy theories. The researcher who sparked that myth with a fraudulent paper lost his medical license and eventually rescinded his opinion. Since then, dozens of studies have proven there’s no correlation between autism and vaccines, including one study that surveyed more than 660,000 children over the course of 11 years.

But America’s is not the first measles response that Kennedy has bungled. Under Kennedy’s stewardship, the anti-vax nonprofit Children’s Health Defense had its own questionable history with the disease. Preceding a deadly measles outbreak on Samoa in 2019, the organization spread rampant misinformation about the efficacy of vaccines throughout the nation, sending the island’s vaccination rate plummeting from the 60–70 percent range to just 31 percent, according to Mother Jones. That year, the country reported 5,707 cases of measles as well as 83 measles-related deaths, the majority of which were children under the age of 5.

A majority of House Democrats have killed Texas Representative Al Green’s articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump. The House voted 344–79 to table Green’s resolution on Tuesday, just hours after he introduced it. 

Green filed the articles on the  grounds of “abuse of presidential powers by disregarding the separation of powers—devolving American democracy into authoritarianism by unconstitutionally usurping Congress’s power to declare war.”

“President Trump’s unilateral, unprovoked use of force without congressional authorization or notice constitutes an abuse of power when there was no imminent threat to the United States, which facilitates the devolution of American democracy into authoritarianism,” he wrote. “I did not come to Congress to be a bystander while a president abuses power and devolves American democracy into authoritarianism with himself as an authoritarian president. President Trump’s unauthorized bombing of Iran constitutes a de facto declaration of war.”

All 79 votes against tabling the resolution came from Democrats. The rest of the party voted with Republicans to kill the legislation.

The vote makes it clear that most Democrats, like Republicans, do not see impeachment as a realistic, successful option. But maybe they shouldn’t—the president himself has already been impeached twice. 

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump struggled Tuesday to answer a simple question about America’s role in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization while en route to a summit of the group’s leaders.

The president cast doubt on Article 5 of NATO, which obligates member states to collective defense: An attack on one is an attack on all. But when asked whether he was committed to such a rule, Trump played dumb.

“It depends on your definition, there are numerous definitions of Article 5, you know that right?” Trump told reporters on Air Force One.

“But I’m committed to being their friends, you know I’ve become friends with many of those leaders,” Trump continued.

“I’m committed to saving lives. I’m committed to life and safety. And I’m going to give you an exact definition when I get there. I just don’t want to do it on the back of an airplane,” Trump said, according to Politico, leaving it up to interpretation whether he actually knows what Article 5 says, let alone his position on it.

But Trump hasn’t been a very good friend—in fact, his surprise decision to bomb three of Iran’s nuclear facilities inspired some key NATO members to skip Wednesday’s meeting.

NATO members are expected to sign a new agreement Wednesday to raise defense spending from 2 percent of gross domestic product to a target of 5 percent, following Trump’s ceaseless whining that member states are taking advantage of America’s exorbitant defense budget.

On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that Canada had launched a new defense partnership with the European Commission and European Council, limiting its ability to procure weapons and other materials from the United States.