Trump news at a glance: No mention of ‘big beautiful bill' July 4 deadline in president's final pitch
Just two days ago, Donald Trump told Republican members of Congress to cancel their vacation plans until his 'big beautiful bill' is sewn up and ready for his signature on 4 July.
But in his final pitch to congressional leaders and cabinet secretaries at the White House on Thursday, he made no mention of deadlines, as his marquee tax-and-spending bill develops a logjam that could threaten its passage through the Senate.
Trump stood before an assembly composed of police and fire officers, working parents and the mother and father of a woman he said died at the hands of an undocumented immigrant to argue that Americans like them would benefit from the bill, which includes new tax cuts and the extension of lower rates enacted during his first term, as well as an infusion of funds for immigration enforcement.
'There are hundreds of things here. It's so good,' he said.
The bill is highly divisive and deeply unpopular with segments of the country. Democrats have dubbed the bill the 'big, ugly betrayal', and railed against what would be the biggest funding cut to Medicaid since it was created in 1965, and cost an estimated 16 million people their insurance. It would also slash funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), which helps Americans afford food.
Republicans intended to circumvent the filibuster in the Senate by using the budget reconciliation procedure, under which they can pass legislation with just a majority vote, provided it only affects spending, revenue and the debt limit. But on Thursday, the Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, ruled that a change to taxes that states use to pay for Medicaid was not allowed under the rules.
Democrats took credit for MacDonough's ruling, with Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer saying the party 'successfully fought a noxious provision that would've decimated America's healthcare system and hurt millions of Americans. This win saves hundreds of billions of dollars for Americans to get healthcare, rather than funding tax cuts to billionaires.'
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The US supreme court has paved the way for South Carolina to kick Planned Parenthood out of its Medicaid program over its status as an abortion provider, a decision that could embolden red states across the country to effectively 'defund' the reproductive healthcare organization.
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The US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, defended the US strikes on Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities and said that Trump had 'decimated … obliterated' the country's nuclear program despite initial intelligence assessments that last week's strikes had failed to destroy key enrichment facilities and they could resume operations within just months.
But he and the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Dan Caine, largely based that assessment on AI modeling, showing test videos of the bunker buster bombs used in the strikes and referred questions on a battle damage assessment of Fordow to the intelligence community.
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The US state department has been advised to terminate grants to nearly all remaining programs awarded under the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, which would effectively end the department's role in funding pro-democracy programming in some of the world's most hostile totalitarian nations.
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A critical federal vaccine panel has recommended against seasonal influenza vaccines containing a specific preservative – a change likely to send shock through the global medical and scientific community and possibly impact future vaccine availability.
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Health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr's reconstituted vaccine advisory panel recommended a new treatment to prevent respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in infants. The treatment, a new monoclonal antibody called clesrovimab, was recommended by the powerful committee after being approved by the Food and Drug Administration roughly two weeks ago.
The tortured vote took place a day late and after rounds of questions from the panel's seven new members – all ideological allies of Kennedy, who views 'overmedicalization' as one of the greatest threats to American children.
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A US army veteran who lived in the country for nearly 50 years – and earned a prestigious military citation for being wounded in combat – has left for South Korea after he says past struggles with drug addiction left him targeted by the Trump administration's immigration crackdown.
'I can't believe this is happening in America,' Sae Joon Park, who held legal permanent residency, told National Public Radio in an interview before his departure Monday from Hawaii. 'That blows me away – like [it is] a country that I fought for.'
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The dollar has fallen to a three-year low following a report that Trump is considering soon announcing his choice to succeed the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell.
The US justice department sued the Maryland federal judiciary over an order that bars deporting undocumented immigrants for at least one day after filing a challenge.
Clothing prices are starting to rise in the US as Trump's tariffs on imported goods start to have an effect, according to the CEO of H&M.
Catching up? Here's what happened on 25 June 2025.
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Daily Mail
23 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
MARK DUBOWITZ: Iran's 'missing' uranium stockpile... and how the Mullah's devious last-ditch scheme to hide it has fooled the world
More than five days after President Donald Trump ordered unprecedented US strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities, Americans are just now starting to receive the first sober analysis of the attacks. Though the assessments are not coming from the US government and, especially, not from the mainstream American media.
Telegraph
30 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Iran still has enriched uranium, Israel admits
Iran still possesses enough nuclear material to build a bomb despite recent air strikes, a senior Israeli military official has said. He also told reporters there were 'concerns' that Tehran would rush to build a crude nuclear weapon now that the conflict between the two nations was over. The comments came as Abbas Araghchi, Iran's foreign minister, rejected claims by Donald Trump that it would resume nuclear talks with the US next week. On Wednesday, Iran's parliament approved legislation to suspend all co-operation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog. The senior Israeli defence official said on Friday: 'We understand that there is still enriched material in Iran.' They added that the Israel Defense Forces would strike the Islamic Republic again if it detected future efforts to develop a nuclear weapon. A ceasefire deal was agreed earlier this week to end the 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran. The US also carried out strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, including using bunker-busting bombs on the fortified Fordow enrichment facility. Mr Trump claimed the raid caused 'total obliteration' and that it would take 'decades' for Iran to rebuild its nuclear programme. The US president and senior administration officials also launched scathing attacks on reported leaks of US intelligence which suggested the campaign only set back Iran's ambitions by months. But while praising the accuracy of the US's B2 stealth bombers in the strikes, the Israeli official said the prospect of Iran using its surviving enriched uranium to fashion a crude nuclear warhead in secret was 'a concern'. 'It's very hard to find every gram of enriched material,' he said. 'We are tracking this, also with our allies.' He suggested that controlling whatever nuclear fuel Iran possesses could be best done through diplomatic channels. Shortly before the conflict began, the IAEA said it believed Iran possessed just over 408kg of uranium enriched to at least 60 per cent. Further enriching the material to weapons-grade, around 80 to 90 per cent, is a relatively short process. The watchdog said this could be enough for Iran to build 10 nuclear bombs. Even before the campaign began, the prospect of Iran producing a warhead and then miniaturising it to mount a ballistic missile without detection was considered nearly impossible. However, there have long been concerns that it could build a functional warhead that could be delivered manually, such as by boat or truck, undetected. On Thursday, it was reported that two European governments believed the stockpile was not at the Fordow site at the time of the strike on Sunday. Mr Trump had claimed during this week's Nato summit that talks between Iran and the US would begin next week. But speaking during a television interview, Mr Araghchi said: 'Don't take Trump's words seriously. No agreement for renewed negotiations has been made.' He added that Iran was 'reviewing its policies' following the attacks but said it was 'too early to judge whether successful negotiations are possible.' The foreign secretary also admitted that US and Israeli attacks on Iran's nuclear sites had caused 'serious damage,' although he said the full extent remained unclear as the country's Atomic Energy Organisation continued to assess the situation. 'These damages were not minor, and serious harm has been inflicted on our facilities,' he added. Rafael Grossi, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief, said he had written to the Iranian government requesting permission to travel to the country and to resume nuclear inspections. Tehran previously claimed it moved its enriched uranium before the US strikes, and Grossi said inspectors needed to check the stockpiles. 'We need to return. We need to engage,' he said. However, Mr Araghchi said Iran had 'no plans to receive' Mr Grossi. On Wednesday, Iran's parliament passed a new law suspending all co-operation with the IAEA, including removing monitoring cameras from nuclear sites and banning the watchdog's inspectors from entering the country. Providing any reports to the agency is also now illegal. The legislation passed with 222 votes in favour and none opposed. Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, the Iranian parliament's speaker, said the country's nuclear programme would now be pursued with 'greater speed.' Iran's foreign ministry also claimed that if Europe activated a 'snapback' mechanism to restore UN sanctions, it would be committing a 'historic mistake' that would 'completely eliminate Europe's role' in nuclear talks. On Thursday, Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, said that Moscow wanted Iran to continue co-operating with the IAEA, putting pressure on Tehran to reverse course. On Friday, the fragile ceasefire appeared to be holding despite both sides blaming each other for violating it. Across Iran, officials continued to celebrate what they described as a 'victory' over Israel and the US. Meanwhile, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has announced that funerals for senior commanders killed in the Israeli attacks will be held on Saturday. It is unclear if Ali Khamenei, the country's supreme leader who usually leads prayers for senior officials, will attend.
Daily Mail
33 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE The truth behind Trump's bombings and the huge Iran secret kept from the world that's hoodwinked all of America
Two days before American B-2 stealth bombers dropped the biggest payload of explosives since World War II on Iran, trucks were seen lining up outside the primary target at Fordow. Satellite images showed scores of cargo vehicles outside a tunnel entrance to Iran's key nuclear base inside a mountain. Donald Trump has insisted that the Islamic Republic's nuclear program was destroyed in the precision strikes, an assessment backed by the CIA and Israeli intelligence. But there was also a frantic effort to move centrifuges and highly enriched uranium before US bombers attacked, the key question for the Pentagon now is: where did it go? One possibility, according to experts, is a secret facility buried even deeper under another mountain 90 miles south of Fordow: 'Mount Doom.' In Farsi, the potential new ground zero for Iran's nuclear program is Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, otherwise known in English as 'Pickaxe Mountain,' located in the Zagros Mountains in central Iran on the outskirts of one of the regime's other nuclear sites at Natanz. 'It is plausible that Iran moved centrifuges and highly enriched uranium (HEU) to secret or hardened locations prior to the recent strikes - including possibly to facilities near Pickaxe Mountain,' Christoph Bluth, professor of international relations and security at the University of Bradford, told the Daily Mail. Previous intelligence had showed 'large tunnels being bored into the mountain, with possible infrastructure for an advanced enrichment facility,' he claimed. 'The site may be buried 100 meters below the surface. So it is conceivable that advanced centrifuge cascades have been hidden there, but there is no specific evidence at this time to confirm where centrifuges and fissile material has been moved to.' A satellite picture provided by Maxar Technologies and taken on June 19, 2025, shows trucks positioned near the entrance of Iran's Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant Previous satellite images have shown heavy construction at Pickaxe, and Iran reportedly dismissed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) when asked what was occurring in the bowels of the mountain. Experts have suggested that, if there was a centrifuge hall being built there, it could be bigger than Fordow. The site has four tunnel entrances, each is 20 feet wide by 26 feet high, and experts who have analyzed satellite data suggest its tunnels could go well beyond 382 feet deep, further underground than Fordow. 'It would be much harder to destroy using conventional weapons, such as like a typical bunker buster bomb,' said Steven De La Fuente, a research associate at the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington. According to Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the IAEA, the Iranian regime may have moved about 880lbs of uranium that was being stored in casks the size of scuba tanks and was transportable by vehicles. If material from Fordow was hauled to Pickaxe Mountain, it would have likely been driven for two hours along Iran's Route 7 freeway. The emergence of Pickaxe Mountain comes amid a furious row within the Trump administration over the impact of Saturday's strikes on Fordow and two other Iranian nuclear sites, Natanz and Isfahan. A preliminary US intelligence assessment determined with 'low confidence' that Iran's nuclear program was only set back by a matter of months. The initial report was prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon's main intelligence arm, which is one of 18 US intelligence agencies. However, the classified assessment is at odds with that of President Trump and high-ranking US officials who said the three sites had been 'obliterated.' Weapons expert David Albright, founder and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, concluded the centrifuge halls at Fordow were destroyed by the numerous 30,000lb bombs the US dropped. A video shows a Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) 'buster bunker' bomb just before hitting a target during a Pentagon test After viewing satellite images, he said the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOP) were dropped at one end of the centrifuge hall, and on a ventilator shaft. 'Basically, what you have is a very big explosion that will blow one way and then perpendicular,' he concluded. 'It would have destroyed the inside of that centrifuge plant. 'We believe that the MOP went into the hall. We think those centrifuges have been mostly destroyed. I think these reports that somehow there weren't centrifuges taken out are just incorrect.' Albright added: 'It is pretty devastating. A lot of their above-ground facilities that are a critical part of the centrifuge program have been destroyed. A lot of what really is left is sort of what I call the residuals or the remnants of the program.' Iran likely lost nearly 20,000 centrifuges at Natanz and Fordow, he estimated, creating a 'major bottleneck' for any attempt to restart its nuclear program. Andrea Stricker, deputy director of the nonproliferation and biodefense program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, concluded that, for Iran, 'weaponization may be impossible for the foreseeable future.' But, she added: 'Washington and Jerusalem must act swiftly to eliminate any of Tehran's remaining HEU stocks, advanced centrifuges, and weaponization capabilities.
