Khamenei claims victory; Hegseth says nuke strikes were 'decimating': Live updates

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned on Thursday that any future attacks against Iran would come at a great cost to Israel and its allies, while Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth doubled down on Trump administration claims that U.S. bombs devastated Iran's nuclear program.

In a statement released on social media, Khamenei said assaults such as the one on a U.S. base in Qatar on Monday could be repeated if Iran is struck again. The rockets fired by Iran were intercepted and little damage was reported at the base.

President Donald Trump said Iran had provided advance notice of the missile launch, which amounted to a face-saving attempt at retaliation after the U.S. dropped 14 bombs on Iranian nuclear sites last weekend.

"The Islamic Republic delivered a heavy slap to the U.S.’s face,'' Khamenei said in the statement, which claimed the U.S. entered the conflict to save Israel, but achieved nothing.''

Khamenei, who also made televised remarks in his first public appearance since last week, congratulated Iranians for their "victory" over Israel and the U.S., and he pledged that Iran will never submit to other countries' will.

"It is no longer about enrichment, nor about the nuclear industry − it is about Iran’s surrender," he said. "Iran, with its grandeur, its history, its culture, its unbreakable national resolve − the very notion of surrender for such a country is a joke to those who know the Iranian people."

How much damage was done to Iran's nuclear program?

Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said the Iranian program sustained "enormous damage" from the dual strikes launched by Israeli and U.S. forces.

"What I can tell you, and I think everyone agrees on this, is that there is very considerable damage," he said.

Hegseth says nuke strikes were a 'resounding success'

Hegseth dug in on the Trump administration's pushback on a preliminary Pentagon report into the damage incurred by Iran's nuclear facilities from the U.S. strikes over the weekend.

The 30,000-pound bombs, known as ''bunker busters,'' were "decimating − choose your word − obliterating, destroying," he said at a news conference. The Pentagon assessment, Hegseth said, was a "preliminary, low-confidence report" that relied on "multiple lynchpin assumptions."

A U.S. official who has been briefed on the Defense Intelligence Agency’s initial assessment told USA TODAY the core components of Iran’s nuclear program appear to remain intact after the attack. The official briefed on the report said only portions of the report were labeled low confidence.

But Hegseth directed combative comments at the media Thursday, blaming press outlets for "trying to make the president look bad." He called the strikes "historic."

"It was a resounding success resulting in a ceasefire agreement and the end of the 12-day war," he said.

White House seeks Iran meeting to promote Middle East peace

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday there is no meeting scheduled yet between U.S. and Iranian officials, but that one is in the works.

Trump said Wednesday at the NATO summit in the Netherlands that a meeting would take place but an agreement was not necessary because the bombing mission he ordered had "obliterated'' Iran’s nuclear weapons program and effectively ended the war with Israel. He said he did not see Iran continuing to pursue nuclear weapons.

Asked what the purpose and goals of the meeting are, Leavitt said: “To continue moving forward toward a long-standing peace in the Middle East.”

Tehran has repeatedly denied decades of accusations by Western leaders that its nuclear program sought to develop nuclear arms. But Tehran has also adamantly refused to abandon its uranium-enrichment program.

− Bart Jansen

Trump lauds Hegseth, wants journalists fired

After the briefing, Trump posted on social media that it was "one of the greatest, most professional, and most 'confirming' News Conferences I have ever seen! The Fake News should fire everyone involved in this Witch Hunt, and apologize to our great warriors, and everyone else!"

Trump also refuted claims that activity around the targeted nuclear sites indicated Iran had moved uranium and other valuable components of its program.

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

Pentagon provides details of attack on US base

Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the military began to receive preliminary reports that Iran wanted to attack U.S. bases on Monday. At Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which Iran targeted with missiles, and other bases, the military assumed minimum-force posture and extended the security perimeter, Caine said at a news conference.

Only two Patriot air defense systems and about 44 soldiers remained on base, Caine said. The oldest soldier was a 28-year-old captain and the youngest was a 21-year-old soldier.

"We believe that this is the largest single Patriot engagement in U.S. history," Caine said. "I'm not going to tell you how many" missile interceptors were fired, "but it was a bunch," he said.

Trump said 13 of the 14 Iranian missiles were intercepted and the other one was deemed nonthreatening.

Iranian Americans fear for those left behind

Some Iranian Americans are dismayed at American involvement in the Iran-Israel conflict and fear for those still in Iran, saying a resurgence in violence could ripple around the world.

Neda Bolourchi, executive director of the Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans, has lobbied Congress to help Iranian Americans stay in touch with family and friends in Iran during times of crisis. Reza Rajebi, an Iranian-born novelist and physician who now lives in Houston, said he worries daily about those still living in his homeland.

“Like many in the diaspora, I live in two worlds,” said Rajebi, who came to the U.S. in 2005 and writes under the pen name Diako Hazhir. “One is here in the U.S, where I work, making a living and care for my family. The other is in my mind, always carrying the weight of anxiety for those I love and all the people in Iran who have no escape.” .

− Marc Ramirez and Terry Collins

Congress urged to curb further strikes on Iran

A coalition of largely progressive advocacy groups sent a letter to lawmakers Thursday urging them to rein in Trump’s authority for future strikes against Iran. The letter, led by Muslim civil rights group MPower Change, presses Congress to pass a war powers resolution to put “an end to all illegal and unauthorized offensive military attacks against Iran.” The letter further argues “there is no military solution to security concerns around Iran’s nuclear program.”

The letter’s more than 60 signatories include human rights groups, religious groups like the Quaker-affiliated Friends Committee on National Legislation and foreign policy groups like the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

Three war powers resolutions are currently pending in Congress. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, introduced one in the Senate that will likely receive a vote on Thursday or Friday before the body begins debate on the budget reconciliation bill. Kaine authored a similar bill that passed Congress in 2020 amid a previous round of tensions with Iran, but Trump vetoed the measure.

A billboard bearing pictures of Iranian senior military officials killed in recent Israeli attacks is set up in Tehran on June 26, 2025. Farsi slogan on the billboard reads: "Israel should know that it will drown in the blood that it has spilled.".

US can't allow 'weaponization'

Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, reiterated in an interview with CNBC the administration’s position that Iran – deemed by the U.S. a state sponsor of terrorism – can’t be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon.

“We can’t have weaponization,’’ Witkoff said. “That will destabilize the entire region. Everyone will then need a bomb and we just can’t have that.’’

Trump said he was confident Tehran would pursue a diplomatic path toward reconciliation.

"I'll tell you, the last thing they want to do is enrich anything right now. They want to recover," he said.

Iranian Nobel laureate says Tehran government could fall

Iran's war with Israel has revealed the weakness of Tehran's leadership and could lead to regime change in a peaceful revolution, Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi said. Ebadi made the prediction as a fragile ceasefire appeared to be holding.

The conflict has been devastating in Iran. The Human Rights Activist News Agency put the Iranian death toll at more than 1,000. Thousands more were wounded in the intense missile attacks.

Hundreds of Iranians have been detained on political and security charges as the government works to retain its grip on power. Ebadi, a lawyer who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her work defending human rights, has been a staunch critic of the Shi'ite Muslim clerical establishment that has ruled Iran since 1979.

"The people of Iran and the world saw that and realized what a paper tiger this administration is," Ebadi told Reuters in an interview in London, where she has lived in self-imposed exile since 2009.

People hold flags of Iran and Hezbollah, as well as posters of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in downtown Enghelab (Revolution) Square in Tehran.

What nuclear capability does Iran have?

The U.S. intelligence community has been consistent: It does not believe Iran has been building a nuclear weapon. U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said as much when she testified to Congress about Iran’s nuclear program in March.

U.S. spy agencies, Gabbard said, “continue to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003."

Trump and Netanyahu dismissed that assessment. Trump has doubted U.S. intelligence agencies before − for example, over who was responsible for the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi (it was Saudi Arabia). Netanyahu, meanwhile, has been talking about Iran's existential nuclear threat to Israel for as along as he's been in the public eye.

Still, U.S. intelligence agencies, Trump, Netanyahu and the United Nations' nuclear watchdog − the International Atomic Energy Agency − agree on the issue of Iran's uranium.

All believe Iran has developed a large stockpile, and at a sufficiently enriched level, to sustain a nuclear reaction that could be used in a bomb if it decided to. But how quickly Iran could then "sprint to a nuclear weapon," as Gen. Michael E. Kurilla put it on June 10, is also a matter of dispute, and estimates range from one week to one year.

−Kim Hjelmgaard

Why did the US strike Iran nuke facilities?

Trump ordered the strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities − Operation Midnight Hammer − effectively joining a war that Israel started on June 13 when it began bombing Iranian nuclear and military infrastructure. Israel said it helped the U.S. coordinate and plan the strikes.

Trump said all three sites were "totally obliterated." A Pentagon assessment was less definitive, and Iran says its nuclear program will hardly skip a beat. The actual damage and the impact on Iran's program could become more clear in coming days.

Contributing: Reuters