Questions Linger About Iran’s Enriched Uranium Stockpile After U.S. Airstrikes

The location of some enriched uranium is still in question after the U.S. bombed three key nuclear facilities in Iran, according to the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and experts on arms control and global security.

At a press conference during the NATO summit in The Hague on June 25, President Donald Trump was asked whether there was any indication that Iran was able to move enriched nuclear material from its targeted sites before the U.S. airstrikes. Trump said, “No, just the opposite. We think we hit them so hard and so fast that they didn’t get to move. … If you knew about the material, it’s very hard and dangerous to move. Many people call it dust. But it’s very, very heavy, very, very hard to move, and they were way down. They were 30 stories down.”

Asked the same question at a June 26 press conference, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth 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.“

But IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said that Iran may have relocated some of its enriched uranium after Israel began its airstrikes and before the U.S. attack on June 21. Grossi said that Iran had sent a letter to the IAEA on June 13 warning that Iran would adopt “special measures” to protect its nuclear equipment and materials, the Guardian reported.

“They did not get into details as to what that meant, but clearly that was the implicit meaning of that, so we can imagine that this material is still somewhere in Iran, Grossi said.

Israeli officials said there was evidence that Iran had moved uranium and equipment from the Fordo site before the U.S. attack, the New York Times reported on June 22.

RFK Jr.’s New Vaccine Panel Casts Doubt on Hepatitis B Shot at Birth

The chair of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s newly constituted vaccine advisory committee announced in his first meeting that the panel will revisit the longstanding practice of vaccinating all babies against hepatitis B, questioning whether it was “wise” to administer shots to every newborn before leaving the hospital.” Experts, however, say there are valid reasons to vaccinate babies against hepatitis B, and that it has proven to be safe and very effective.

“It’s virtually eliminated hepatitis B acquisition during childhood,” one infectious disease expert told us.

Martin Kulldorff, the chair and one of seven new members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, is a former professor at Harvard Medical School who gained notoriety for opposing various public health measures during the COVID-19 pandemic. ACIP has for more than 60 years advised the agency on who should get which Food and Drug Administration-approved vaccines, how often, and when.

Earlier this month, Kennedy, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, removed all 17 existing members of the panel, citing conflicts of interest issues and inadequate scrutiny of vaccines. As we’ve written, there is no evidence to support those claims. Kennedy is a longtime anti-vaccine advocate.

Two days after dismissing the committee, Kennedy announced eight new members, including several with a history of spreading false and misleading information about vaccines, as well as others with little or no expertise in vaccines. (The night before the group’s first meeting, HHS told the New York Times that one of the named panelists decided to withdraw “during the financial holdings review.”) Some remaining panelists have past ties to vaccine-related litigation, including Kulldorff, who served as an expert witness for plaintiffs alleging harm from HPV vaccination. 

Did Trump Have Legal Authority to Strike Iran? 'TELL IT LIKE IT IS' Investigates

In the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s decision to bomb three of Iran’s nuclear facilities, numerous Democrats claimed the president’s actions were unconstitutional and a violation of the War Powers Resolution.

It is a contentious and hotly debated issue not only in Congress but also in academia. Constitutional experts have told us that those claiming the president’s decision is unconstitutional may be correct, according to an originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. However, over the last several decades, Congress has allowed presidents some latitude to engage militarily without prior consent from lawmakers.

“A lot of people over the next few days are going to argue with confidence that President Trump violated, or didn’t violate, the Constitution when he bombed Iran over the weekend without congressional authorization,” Jack Landman Goldsmith, a professor at Harvard Law School and nonresident senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, wrote in a June 23 op-ed headlined, “Was the Iran Strike Constitutional?”

“You might think that the Constitution would provide a clear answer to such a momentous question. But it doesn’t,” Goldsmith wrote.

Although the military hostilities involving Iran, Israel, and the U.S. have ended, numerous Democrats have continued to press the issue and have proposed legislation to try to rein in the president’s military reach.

U.S. Strike Damages, But Fails to Cripple, Iran’s Nuclear Program

The bombing of three Iranian nuclear facilities on June 21 by American B-2 aircraft damaged the sites and set back Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, but didn’t completely destroy the sites or Iran’s nuclear capabilities, according to experts we spoke with and a classified U.S. intelligence report.

But in a televised address on the night of the U.S. attack, President Donald Trump said, “Our objective was the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s number one state sponsor of terror. Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.”

(PICTURED RIGHT: Trump addresses the nation, alongside Vice President JD Vance (from left), Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, from the White House on June 21, following the announcement that the U.S. bombed nuclear sites in Iran. Photo by Carlos Barria/Pool/AFP via Getty Images.)

The president claimed in a June 23 Truth Social post, “Monumental Damage was done to all Nuclear sites in Iran, as shown by satellite images. Obliteration is an accurate term!”

At a June 22 press conference at the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth echoed Trump’s assessment of the strike, saying, “Iran’s nuclear ambitions have been obliterated.” 

Trump went further in a Truth Social post on June 24, claiming the U.S. attack ended Iran’s nuclear weapons capability: “It was my great honor to Destroy All Nuclear facilities & capability, and then, STOP THE WAR!”

U.S. Report: Strikes Delay Iran’s Nuclear Program by Only Months

A U.S. intelligence report suggests that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back only a few months after U.S. strikes and was not “completely and fully obliterated” as President Donald Trump has said, according to two people familiar with the early assessment.

The report issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency on Monday contradicts statements from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the status of Iran’s nuclear facilities.

According to the people, the report found that while the Sunday strikes at the Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites did significant damage, the facilities were not totally destroyed. The people were not authorized to address the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. has held out hope of restarting negotiations with Iran to convince it to give up its nuclear program entirely, but some experts fear that the U.S. strikes — and the potential of Iran retaining some of its capabilities — could push Tehran toward developing a functioning weapon.

The assessment also suggests that at least some of Iran’s highly enriched uranium, necessary for creating a nuclear weapon, was moved out of multiple sites before the U.S. strikes and survived, and it found that Iran’s centrifuges, which are required to further enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels, are largely intact, according to the people.

At the deeply buried Fordo uranium enrichment plant, where U.S. B-2 stealth bombers dropped several 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs, the entrance collapsed and infrastructure was damaged, but the underground infrastructure was not destroyed, the assessment found. The people said that intelligence officials had warned of such an outcome in previous assessments ahead of the strike on Fordo.

Trump Concludes Surprisingly Friendly NATO Summit, Marking Shift from First Term Tensions

THE HAGUE, Netherlands | U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday wrapped up participation in the annual NATO summit facing an alliance that had largely bent to his will.

Far from the tense meetings of Trump’s first term, much of the annual summit in The Hague seemed catered to the impulses and worldviews of the Republican president whose “America First” foreign policy ethos downplays the importance and influence of multilateral coalitions.

After less than 24 hours on the ground in the Netherlands, Trump headed back to Washington having secured a major policy change he’s pushed for since 2017: a significant boost in defense spending by other NATO countries whom the president has for years accused of freeloading off the United States. The focus on Ukraine was scaled back dramatically, with its invasion by Russia earning only a passing mention in the summit’s official statement, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s profile at the gathering diminished.

Trump also sent NATO scattering for reassurances that the United States would remain committed to the alliance’s mutual defense pledge, affirming on Wednesday that he would abide by Article 5 of the NATO treaty just a day after he rattled the 32-nation alliance by being equivocal about the pact.

“I stand with it. That’s why I’m here,” Trump said when asked to clarify his stance on Article 5. ”If I didn’t stand with it, I wouldn’t be here.”

NATO Allies Agree To Boost Defense Spending To 5% at the Hague Summit

PARIS | NATO allies agreed to boost defense spending to 5% of GDP, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said after a vote of the 32 member countries on Wednesday at a summit in The Hague.

As part of the agreement, allies committed to investing at least 3.5% of GDP on “core defense requirements,” up from the current target of 2%, Rutte said at a press conference following two days of meetings. The NATO secretary-general credited United States President Donald Trump for the result, saying the spending increase wouldn’t have happened without him.

Trump has repeatedly criticized European NATO members and Canada for not spending enough on defense, suggesting the U.S. might not honor the alliance’s mutual-defense commitments for allies that don’t step up. As recently as two years ago, most NATO countries had failed to meet a 2% spending target agreed at a summit in Wales in 2014.