Live updates: Trump speaks at NATO summit; Andrew Cuomo concedes to Zohran Mamdani in NY mayoral primary

NBC News

25-06-2025

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The Trump-backed Republican domestic policy bill is hitting some snags in the final stretch toward Senate passage. Updated June 25, 2025, 10:39 AM EDT
Iran is restoring its internet connections with the rest of the world, the country's minister of communications, Sattar Hashemi, said on X, as Tehran's ceasefire with Israel takes effect.
Two companies that track global internet connectivity, Kentik and Cloudflare, confirmed the country was coming back online.
Iran directed its internet providers to shut off access to the broader internet last week, claiming it was due to fears of Israeli cyberattacks. The country's domestic, government-run web services remained accessible, but chat apps that Iran cannot easily monitor, like WhatsApp, became impossible for most Iranians to use and many citizens were cut off from news from the outside world.
Trump singled out Spain for pushing against an increase in defense spending, threatening to make Spain pay double.
"We're negotiating with Spain on a trade deal. We're going to make them pay twice as much," the president said. "And I'm actually serious about that."
NATO members agreed to increase defense spending to 5% of their GDP, but Spain declined to commit to the target.
Trump said during his press conference that he had a good meeting with Zelenskyy at The Hague about Ukraine's conflict with Russia.
"Couldn't have been nicer, actually," he said, adding that the Ukrainian president has been "fighting a brave battle."
"I took from the meeting that he'd like to see it end," Trump said.
The president also said that he'll be speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin. "I consider him a person, I think, [who] has been misguided," Trump said.
Trump said that the U.S. would "talk with" Iran next week, adding, "we may sign an agreement, I don't know." He said that he didn't think an agreement to curtail its nuclear program was "that necessary."
"I don't care if I have an agreement or not," he said. "The only thing we'd be asking for is what we were asking for before, about we want no nuclear, but we destroyed the nuclear. In other words, it's destroyed."
"We're going to meet with them, actually," he added. "We're going to meet with them."
Trump doubled down during his press conference at The Hague on his claim that the U.S. strikes he authorized on three major Iranian nuclear facilities last weekend resulted in total "obliteration."
He pushed back against the early assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency that the strikes only set the nuclear program back by a few months.
"The document said it could be very severe damage," Trump said. "Since then, we've collected additional intelligence. We've also spoken to people who have seen the site, and the site is obliterated, and we think everything nuclear is down there. They didn't take it out."
Trump asserted that Iran didn't move any nuclear materials before the strikes either. "We think we hit them so hard and so fast, they didn't get to move. And if you knew about that material, it's very hard and very dangerous to move."
"It's very, very heavy. It's very, very hard to move. And they were way down. You know, they're 30 stories down. They're literally 30, 35 stories down underground," he said.
Trump and Zelenskyy held a meeting on the sidelines of the NATO summit, both sides confirmed. Details on the meeting have not yet been provided.
Zelenskyy called the meeting "long and substantive," saying in a post on X that they "discussed how to achieve a ceasefire and a real peace."
"We spoke about how to protect our people," he said. "We appreciate the attention and the readiness to help bring peace closer. Details will follow."
NATO allies today agreed to more than double their defense spending target from 2% of gross domestic product to 5% by 2035, in the most decisive move from the alliance in more than a decade.
In a joint declaration, the Western military bloc said it was 'united in the face of profound security threats and challenges,' in particular the long-term threat posed by Russia to Euro-Atlantic security and the 'persistent threat' of terrorism.
Read the full story here.
One of the most talked about staff members of the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency has left the federal government, continuing a stream of DOGE-related departures.
Edward Coristine, the 19-year-old nicknamed 'Big Balls' who joined DOGE as one of its original staffers, has left his job and the administration entirely, a White House spokesperson said yesterday. The spokesperson did not provide details.
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U.S. lawmakers urged the Trump administration to recommit to a nuclear submarine deal with Australia and Britain, saying it was vital to 'deter Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific region.'
A Pentagon official said earlier this month that the deal, known as AUKUS, was under review to ensure it was 'aligned with the President's America First agenda,' amid concerns that the U.S. is not building nuclear-powered submarines fast enough to sell some to Australia as agreed under the deal.
'This is a defense alliance that is overwhelmingly in the best interest of all three AUKUS nations, as well as the entire Indo-Pacific region,' the lawmakers said in the letter sent Monday to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
They said much progress had already been made on the deal, with Congress passing related legislation, U.S. shipbuilding rates accelerating and Australian naval officers undergoing joint training.
The letter was signed by Reps. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., and Michael McCaul, R-Texas, who are co-chairs of the Friends of Australia Caucus, as well as Reps. Mike Rogers, R-Ala.; Adam Smith, D-Wash.; and Trent Kelly, R-Miss.
Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles told reporters in London yesterday that he was 'not going to speculate about what the review will ultimately say' and that Australia supported the review as a 'perfectly natural step for an incoming administration to take.'
Trump and his top Cabinet officials are disputing reports that indicate the U.S. airstrikes on Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities set Iran's nuclear program back by only a few months — despite his initial claim that the U.S. 'obliterated' the program.
Speaking to reporters in the Netherlands today, Trump repeatedly referred to the strikes as causing 'obliteration.' He claimed that he thinks the U.S. strikes set Iran back decades. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed the president's comments.
'That hit ended the war. I don't want to use an example of Hiroshima. I don't want to use an example of Nagasaki, but that was essentially the same thing,' Trump said, referring to the U.S. hitting two Japanese cities with nuclear bombs that led to the end of World War II and killed an estimated 110,000-210,000 people.
NBC News and other outlets reported yesterday that an initial assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded the U.S. strikes only set Iran's nuclear program back by three to six months, according to sources with knowledge of the report.
The Senate bill's Medicaid cuts are too aggressive for politically vulnerable Republicans.
Its clean energy funding cuts are too tame for conservative House Republicans, who are threatening to sink the legislation.
And the $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions, or SALT, is a nonstarter for key blue-state House Republicans.
The GOP-led Congress is barreling toward its own deadline to pass the 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act,' and it's getting messy in the final stretch as Trump ramps up the pressure on lawmakers to put it on his desk by July 4.
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State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani is the leader as first-choice votes are tallied in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, ahead of former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who declared his rival the winner even though no candidate is set to secure a majority in the first round of the ranked choice election.
Mamdani had been surging in the race's final weeks as he touted a progressive vision for a new direction for the city — one with rent freezes and city-run grocery store price caps, free city buses and more. He boosted his appeal with energetic direct-to-camera videos, as well as moves such as spending a weekend night before Election Day walking the length of Manhattan, stopping to chat with voters and record clips along the way.
And he won the backing of prominent liberal politicians in the city as the flag-bearer of a unified, progressive effort aimed at depriving Cuomo of a political comeback.
Read the full story here.