Supreme Court Ruling Boosts Presidential Power - The Source with Kaitlan Collins - Podcast on CNN Podcasts
Supreme Court Ruling Boosts Presidential Power The Source with Kaitlan Collins 47 mins
In a day full of Supreme Court rulings, one controversial ruling shifts the balance of powers.
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CNN
13 minutes ago
- CNN
Analysis: Final battle damage assessment of US strikes on Iran will be key in US push for Iran nuclear deal
As the Trump administration looks to quickly pivot from military strikes to a diplomatic deal on Iran's nuclear program, the final military and intelligence assessment on the recent US strikes will be critical in informing what the Trump administration needs to accomplish in future Iran negotiations. Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff will need to use that final battle damage assessment – including a detailed summary of the facilities' damage and the locale of the nuclear material – to help formulate the US strategy for diplomatic efforts to completely halt the regime's ability to develop a nuclear weapon in the future, current and former US officials explained. 'You're not going to the negotiation assuming that the other side is going to tell you everything you need to know about the state of their program,' explained Pranay Vaddi, a former senior official for nonproliferation at the National Security Council. 'We need to have a baseline that is established by the US intelligence community before that,' Vaddi added. 'If the Trump administration is committed to some kind of deal still – which it makes statements on – they need to know what they were able to get through military action, compared to what they need to get through the diplomatic process.' President Donald Trump continues to claim that Iran's nuclear program has been 'fully obliterated,' which does not mirror an early assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency, finding that the attack did not destroy the core components of the country's nuclear program. The early assessment has split lawmakers on the effectiveness of the strikes. And Trump's absolutist pronouncements could also complicate Witkoff's job, officials said. Even if the facilities themselves have been badly damaged, it does not mean that the nuclear program itself has been wholly destroyed. Prior to the US strikes, experts and former officials had expressed skepticism about the idea that the nuclear program could be militarily destroyed, noting that there would still be people with the knowledge to support it. 'The basic problem is that the equivalency between the success of the bombing and the success of ending the nuclear program is putting pressure on having this narrative that there isn't a threat,' said Beth Sanner, former deputy director for national intelligence. 'If you think that you've eliminated the nuclear program then you are not dealing with the fact that there is some residual of that program.' And while the final battle damage assessment will be important to take into account, future negotiations with Iran should prioritize getting the UN's nuclear watchdog back on the ground in Iran, said former officials who worked on previous Iran negotiations. 'I don't know that there will be any assessment that I think is fully viable until there are inspectors on the ground,' said a former senior US official who worked on past Iran negotiations. 'We must recreate the kind of intrusive verification and monitoring that was in the 2015 deal.' The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had a presence in Iran before the 2015 nuclear deal signed during the Obama administration – a deal which Trump pulled the US out of during his first term – but the presence of IAEA inspectors in the country drastically increased as a result of that deal. 'The deal meant there were inspectors on the ground 24/7, there was electronic monitoring, there was a process by which – that didn't exist anywhere else in the world – that if there was intelligence about a suspected site, if Iran, over a period of some days, couldn't satisfy the IAEA that there was a reason the IAEA could go and inspect,' the official explained, citing some benefits of the IAEA inspection efforts. But this week the Iranian parliament this week suspended its work with the IAEA, because of the 'regrettable role' played by the agency's chief Rafael Grossi, Iran's foreign minister said. Iran accused Grossi of facilitating the US and Israeli strikes in Iran, citing an IAEA report a day prior to the Israeli strike, which declared Iran was violating its nuclear non-proliferation obligations. This move follows years of Iran making moves to restrict the agency's oversight of it's program. For example, in 2022 Iran responded by removing surveillance cameras from key sites after IAEA censured Iran over uranium particles found at the undeclared sites. The steps that would need to be taken as part of any verifiable deal on Iran's nuclear program would likely include: destroying elements of the program that still exist, monitoring any further activity, blending highly enriched uranium, and declaring parts of the program that are in use. In order to prepare to take those steps, inspectors on the ground would be essential, former officials pressed. 'I think it's been a long time since the US intelligence assessments have been accepted globally as authoritative when it comes to Iran's nuclear program. They would certainly be challenged by Iran. In order to have a successful negotiation everybody needs to at least agree on the source of facts,' said Laura Holgate, the former US Ambassador to the United Nations International Organizations in Vienna. 'The IAEA will be needed to develop a new baseline of what exactly Iran has, where it is, and what its condition is in, and that's going to take time, and it will be based on Iran's cooperation,' Holgate added. With the IAEA access being diminished over the years and virtually nonexistent at this moment, the world now has large gaps in its knowledge of Iran's nuclear inventory. That is particularly true when it comes to the locale of Iran's enriched uranium. Trump administration officials have said in recent days that the stockpile was not moved ahead of the US strikes but the IAEA said Iran may have moved some of the enriched uranium out of the sites before they were attacked. Vice President JD Vance said the day after the strikes that working on what to do about that fuel would be a priority for the US. 'We're going to work in the coming weeks to ensure that we do something with that fuel. And that's one of the things that we're going to have conversations with the Iranians about,' Vance said. Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, cited the importance of having 'a full accounting' following an all-member classified briefing on Capitol Hill earlier this week. 'There is enriched uranium in the facilities that moves around, but that was not the intent or the mission,' McCaul said. 'We need a full accounting. That's why Iran has to come to the table directly with us, so the IAEA can account for every ounce of enriched uranium that's there, I don't think it's going out of the country, I think it's at the facilities.' The final US military 'battle damage assessment could take days or even weeks to complete,' multiple sources familiar with the Pentagon's process told CNN. CIA Director John Ratcliffe on Wednesday said the agency underscored that a broad intelligence community effort is ongoing to determine the impact of the US strikes on three of the country's nuclear sites on Saturday. The Trump administration was already working on possible terms to offer Iran to bring them back to the able for nuclear deal talks before the US military strikes occurred. But if they are able to pull Iran back to the table, they will have to then enter into much more technical talks to put a legitimate and verifiable deal into place. 'I think that you want to strike while the iron is hot, to try and get them to the table while they're feeling weak,' Sanner said. 'One of the key requirements for the negotiation is setting mechanisms for cataloging Iran's residual capabilities in order to have that conversation and ultimately a deal that is worth the paper it is written on.'
Fox News
33 minutes ago
- Fox News
University of Virginia president resigns amid pressure from Trump admin over DEI initiatives
The University of Virginia president stepped down on Friday after facing intense pressure from the Trump administration over the institution's diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. James E. Ryan, who had led the school since 2018, said he had already decided that next year would be his last and decided not to "fight the federal government in order to save my own job" until then. To make a long story short, I am inclined to fight for what I believe in, and I believe deeply in this University," Ryan wrote to the UVA community on Friday. "But I cannot make a unilateral decision to fight the federal government in order to save my own job. To do so would not only be quixotic but appear selfish and self-centered to the hundreds of employees who would lose their jobs, the researchers who would lose their funding, and the hundreds of students who could lose financial aid or have their visas withheld." "This is especially true because I had decided that next year would be my last, for reasons entirely separate from this episode—including the fact that we concluded our capital campaign and have implemented nearly all of the major initiatives in our strategic plan," he continued. Robert D. Hardie, leader of the University of Virginia's governing board, said in a statement he accepted Ryan's resignation with "profound sadness," adding that he had been an "extraordinary president," led the institution to "unprecedented heights" and that the university "has forever been changed for the better as a result of Jim's exceptional leadership." This comes after the Trump administration had privately demanded that the university remove Ryan to help resolve a Justice Department probe into the institution's DEI practices, according to The New York Times. The Justice Department argued that Ryan had failed to dismantle the school's DEI programs and misrepresented the steps taken to eliminate them, amid the administration's efforts to root out DEI in higher education, the newspaper reported. The federal government's moves targeting higher education include pulling billions of dollars from elite universities such as Harvard, which has been the subject of investigations by various agencies over issues such as DEI initiatives, admissions practices and alleged antisemitism on campus. But this was the first time the administration had pressured a university to remove its president. "That sham virtue signaling of DEI has no place in our country, and the Trump administration is working tirelessly to erase this divisive, backward, and unjust practice from our society," White House spokesman Harrison Fields told Fox News Digital. "Any university president willingly breaking federal civil rights laws will be met with the full force of the federal government, and it would behoove every school in America to prioritize the civil rights of every student and end DEI once and for all," he continued. Ryan had focused on increasing diversity at the university, bringing in more first-generation students and encouraging community service. These efforts had ruffled the feathers of conservative alumni and Republican board members who argued he was "too woke" and wanted to impose his beliefs on students. Before his time as the university's president, Ryan served as the dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he received recognition for his commitment to DEI programs. In a joint statement, Virginia's Democratic senators said it was "outrageous" that the administration would demand Ryan's resignation over "'culture war' traps." "Decisions about UVA's leadership belong solely to its Board of Visitors, in keeping with Virginia's well-established and respected system of higher education governance," Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine said. "This is a mistake that hurts Virginia's future." Conservative groups have lambasted Ryan for what they regard as insufficient steps toward compliance with the administration's plans to eliminate DEI. America First Legal, a nonprofit launched by Trump advisor Stephen Miller, accused the University of Virginia last month of rebranding DEI programs to skirt Trump's executive orders aimed at ending diversity initiatives. "Rebranding discrimination does not make it legal, and changing a label doesn't change the substance," Megan Redshaw, an attorney at America First Legal, said in a statement at the time. "UVA's use of sanitized language and recycled job titles is a deliberate attempt to sidestep the law." The group took direct aim at Ryan, noting that he joined hundreds of other college presidents in signing a public statement condemning the administration's "overreach and political interference." On Friday, the group vowed to continue to use every available tool to root out DEI. "This week's developments make clear: public universities that accept federal funds do not have a license to violate the Constitution," Redshaw said in a statement to The Associated Press. "They do not get to impose ideological loyalty tests, enforce race and sex-based preferences, or defy lawful executive authority."
Forbes
37 minutes ago
- Forbes
Is France On The Cusp Of Another Political Crisis?
France's Prime Minister Francois Bayrou gestures during the political TV show "L'Evenement" (The ... More Event) broadcast on French TV channel France 2, in Paris, on December 19, 2024. Francois Bayrou said he hoped to name a government "over the weekend", "in any case before Christmas" and that a budget would be adopted "in mid-February", although work on this was interrupted by the motion of censure that toppled the previous government. (Photo by Valentine CHAPUIS / AFP) (Photo by VALENTINE CHAPUIS/AFP via Getty Images) France has now gone through three governments in the past year, each one effectively failing to clear the hurdle of passing a fiscally responsible budget. Major stumbling block here is pension reform – two years ago a proposal to raise the headline pension age met with widespread protest. Since then various governments have tried to find ways to offset the pension burden – one notable strategy is to drop the inflation indexation of pensions (a key pillar of the forthcoming budget process is likely to centre on not indexing government disbursements for a year). Prime minister Francois Bayrou has tried to find ways of building a consensus on pension reform – including a broad conclave on pensions, the idea being to raise the formal pension age to 64. This has now run aground, with the Socialists opposing it (their electorate is very sensitive to the topic) and they have threatened to vote against the government in a potential left-wing inspired vote of confidence. The far-right Rassemblement had declared that it would not support such a vote and the manner in which the Socialists had approached the process was slip-shod. Recall that the government has so far staying in power through a 'no-dissolution' pact with the Socialists, so any parliamentary vote where the Socialists vote against the government could result in the collapse of the government (with the collaboration of the Rassemblement and the far-left), and this could be close to fatal for President Macron. Bayrou has not been a convincing performer in his six months in the job, and one option for the President is to replace him, with say the minister for finance Eric Lombard, or to simply swerve the issue of pension reform altogether – which itself would be a defeat of sorts. Other more ambitious longer term pension reforms are now off the table for the time being. As result the budget process now becomes even more complicated beacuse Bayrou's actions have cut off one of the obvious avenues for the government to cut back spending. International events have given Emmanuel Macron a new platform away from domestic troubles, but Francois Bayrou has in effect imperiled his government on pension reform and the government is again on shaky foundations. The stark reality is that with a first outline of the 2026 budget due in a few weeks, France is limping towards a fiscal crisis. At a time when bond yields across the euro-zone have converged and when the imperative to boost defence spending and embark on the investment and savings union (capital markets union) is rising, Europe needs a strong France and the involvement of Emmanuel Macron. Instead, his tenure is now marked by fiscal failure that will shape the future of the French economy and society for the decade to come. Only higher taxes or dramatically lower government spending can stop the financial demise of France. Macron and none of the opposition parties will countenance this and whomever becomes the next president of France will take up a poisoned chalice.
