McConnell says he will not run for reelection
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Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell is announcing he will not run for reelection in 2026, bringing an end to a multiple decades long career in the Senate. (AP Video: Mike Pesoli)
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Associated Press
15 minutes ago
- Associated Press
CIA chief told lawmakers Iran nuclear program set back years with strikes on metal conversion site
WASHINGTON (AP) — CIA Director John Ratcliffe told skeptical U.S. lawmakers that American military strikes destroyed Iran's lone metal conversion facility and in the process delivered a monumental setback to Tehran's nuclear program that would take years to overcome, a U.S. official said Sunday. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive intelligence, said Ratcliffe laid out the importance of the strikes on the metal conversion facility during a classified hearing for U.S. lawmakers last week. Details about the private briefings surfaced as President Donald Trump and his administration keep pushing back on questions from Democratic lawmakers and others about how far Iran was set back by the strikes before last Tuesday's ceasefire with Israel took hold. 'It was obliterating like nobody's ever seen before,' Trump said in an interview on Fox News Channel's 'Sunday Morning Futures.' 'And that meant the end to their nuclear ambitions, at least for a period of time.' Ratcliffe also told lawmakers that the intelligence community assessed the vast majority of Iran's amassed enriched uranium likely remains buried under the rubble at Isfahan and Fordo, two of the three key nuclear facilities targeted by U.S. strikes. But even if the uranium remains intact, the loss of its metal conversion facility effectively has taken away Tehran's ability to build a bomb for years to come, the official said. Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Sunday on CBS' 'Face the Nation' that the three Iranian sites with 'capabilities in terms of treatment, conversion and enrichment of uranium have been destroyed to an important degree.' But, he added, 'some is still standing' and that because capabilities remain, 'if they so wish, they will be able to start doing this again.' He said assessing the full damage comes down to Iran allowing in inspectors. 'Frankly speaking, one cannot claim that everything has disappeared, and there is nothing there,' Grossi said. Trump has insisted from just hours after three key targets were struck by U.S. bunker-buster bombs and Tomahawk missiles that Iran's nuclear program was 'obliterated.' His defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has said they were 'destroyed.' A preliminary report issued by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, meanwhile, said the strikes did significant damage to the Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan sites, but did not totally destroy the facilities. As a result of Israeli and U.S. strikes, Grossi says that 'it is clear that there has been severe damage, but it's not total damage.' Israel claims it has set back Iran's nuclear program by 'many years.' The metal conversion facility that Ratcliffe said was destroyed was located at the Isfahan nuclear facility. The process of transforming enriched uranium gas into dense metal, or metallization, is a key step in building the explosive core of a bomb. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in comments at the NATO summit last week also suggested that it was likely the U.S. strikes had destroyed the metal conversion facility. 'You can't do a nuclear weapon without a conversion facility,' Rubio said. 'We can't even find where it is, where it used to be on the map. You can't even find where it used to be because the whole thing is just blackened out. It's gone. It's wiped out.' The CIA director also stressed to lawmakers during the congressional briefing that Iran's air defense was shattered during the 12-day assault. As a result, any attempt by Iran to rebuild its nuclear program could now easily be thwarted by Israeli strikes that Iran currently has little wherewithal to defend against, the official said. Ratcliffe's briefing to lawmakers on the U.S. findings appeared to mesh with some of Israeli officials' battle damage assessments. Israeli officials have determined that Iran's ability to enrich uranium to a weapons-grade level was neutralized for a prolonged period, according to a senior Israeli military official who was not authorized to talk publicly about the matter. Tehran's nuclear program also was significantly damaged by the strikes killing key scientists, damage to Iran's missile production industry and the battering of Iran's aerial defense system, according to the Israeli's assessment. Grossi, and some Democrats, note that Iran still has the know-how. 'You cannot undo the knowledge that you have or the capacities that you have,' Grossi said, emphasizing the need to come to a diplomatic deal on the country's nuclear program. ___ AP writer Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.
Politico
17 minutes ago
- Politico
Alaskan whaling captains score special tax cut in GOP megabill - Live Updates
There's a surprising winner in the latest draft of Senate Republicans' domestic policy megabill: whaling boat captains. Buried in the 940-page bill is a provision upping a deduction some can take for whale-hunting-related expenses to $50,000 from the current $10,000. It's one of the more unusual breaks in the tax code, and often mocked because it allows people to deduct the cost of maintaining boats and weapons as a charitable contribution. But it's long been important to Alaskan lawmakers. Spokespersons for Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The provision comes as lawmakers released last night the latest draft of the tax, energy, defense and immigration bill they hope to push onto President Donald Trump's desk by early next month. The deduction was added to the code in 2004. In order to claim the benefit, the IRS says someone has to be recognized as a whaling captain by the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission and must be engaged in the sanctioned, subsistence hunting of bowhead whales. A cost estimate of the proposed increase was not available.
Politico
23 minutes ago
- Politico
Dueling deficit signs
Senate Republicans are on the cusp of formally adopting a controversial accounting tactic to zero out much of the cost of their massive domestic policy bill. The matter came to a head on the Senate floor Sunday afternoon, when Democrats sought to prevent the use of the current policy baseline, as the tactic is known. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer objected to the maneuver and accused Republicans of setting a new precedent with the 'budgetary gimmick.' The Senate is set to vote on Schumer's objection later Sunday or Monday, but Republicans believe their members will back up Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). That's in part because they were able to sidestep a situation where senators would be asked to overrule Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough on the baseline question. Instead, Republicans are asserting that Graham has the ability to establish which baseline is used under the 1974 law governing the budget process, rather than having MacDonough issue a formal ruling. 'There is nothing to debate and we consider this matter settled,' Graham spokesperson Taylor Reidy said. The revised baseline allows Republicans to essentially write off the $3.8 trillion cost of extending tax cuts passed in 2017 that are set to expire at the end of the year. The effect on the megabill's bottom line is profound as a pair of new Congressional Budget Office reports show. One, released late Saturday night using the current policy baseline, showed the legislation would reduce the deficit by $508 billion. The other, released Sunday morning using the traditional method accounting for expiring provisions, showed the megabill would increase the deficit by $3.25 trillion. 'Things have never, never worked this way where one party so egregiously ignores precedent, process and the parliamentarian, and does that all in order to wipe away trillions of dollars in costs,' Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said during a speech on the Senate floor Sunday. The maneuver came as little surprise. The GOP plan has been quietly in the works for months, and Thune had suggested they would reprise the no-formal-ruling strategy they'd used earlier in the process of passing the megabill. 'As we did on the budget resolution, we believe the law is clear that the budget committee chairman can determine the baseline we use,' Thune told reporters. Graham on Sunday embraced the CBO ruling showing the deficit savings — and his own authority to make the accounting change: 'I've decided to use current policy when it comes to cutting taxes,' he said. 'If you use current policy, they never expire.' The baseline change is crucial for Senate Republicans because under the budget blueprint they adopted earlier this year, the Finance Committee provisions in the bill can only increase the deficit by a maximum of $1.5 trillion. The bill now under consideration wouldn't comply under the old accounting method. Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden , the top Finance Democrat, called it 'budget math as fake as Donald Trump's tan,' and said the GOP amounted to a 'nuclear' choice that would weaken the chamber's 60-vote filibuster. 'We're now operating in a world where the filibuster applies to Democrats but not to Republicans, and that's simply unsustainable given the triage that'll be required whenever the Trump era finally ends,' he said.
