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Gabbard no-show at Senate briefing leaves gaping hole in Trump's claim Iran's nuclear program is ‘obliterated'
Donald Trump 's national security team briefed the Senate on Thursday about the president's decision to strike Iran's nuclear facilities last Saturday, but one Cabinet member was conspicuously absent.
Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine and CIA Director John Ratcliffe all spoke to senators in the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF).
But Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was missing from the briefing, which came after multiple news outlets reported on a Defense Intelligence Agency assessment, first reported by CNN, that questioned whether the strikes destroyed the core components of the Iran nuclear program.
Sen. Tom Cotton, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, excoriated the reports and the leaks and the characterization that the strikes may not have destroyed Iran's nuclear programs as Trump and Hegseth have maintained.
'Without any classified information whatsoever, I think it's safe to say that we have struck a major blow, alongside our friends in Israel, against Iran's nuclear program,' Cotton told reporters afterward.
Cotton's words came after the White House furiously pushed back, especially against CNN and one of its reporters, Natasha Bertrand, over the story that Iran's nuclear program was not obliterated.
Hegseth accused reporters on Thursday of trying to cast doubt on the strikes because of an underlying vendetta against the president. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt excoriated Bertrand, saying she should be 'ashamed of herself ' a day after Trump in a Truth Social post blasted her and called for her firing.
But Gabbard's absence from the briefing left some senators casting doubt on the administration officials' assessment.
'I think she has a very different opinion than than the others,' Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut told The Independent. 'I wonder what her conclusion is about. I assume that Director Gabbard does not agree with the assessment of the people in that room.'
In the lead-up to the strikes on Iran, Trump significantly broke with Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman who endorsed him in 2024. In March, Gabbard had testified before Congress and said she 'continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.'
'I don't care what she said — I think they were very close to having one,' Trump said earlier this month.
'Obviously her prior disagreement was, was on the amount of time that it was going to take for Iran to get a nuclear weapon before the strikes happened,' Murphy told The Independent.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, a former CIA analyst, said she had more questions.
'I don't, I don't know what to think of that,' Slotkin told The Independent. 'Obviously there was a public spat, so I'm assuming there's a cat fight going on. But I have no other special knowledge.'
Over the weekend, the United States conducted strikes on nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz and Ishfahan. In the case of Fordow, US forces dropped 30,000-pound bunker-busting bombs. The strikes are said to have set back Iran's nuclear program at least six months.
Hegseth and Caine's briefing did not provide adequate evidence about whether the United States knows the location of enriched uranium Iran had stored in Fordow.
'I guess for me, the most important thing is to actually get a better analysis, to actually make the termination,' Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona told The Independent.
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Daily Mail
21 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Pauline Hanson unleashes on Anthony Albanese - as she issues a warning to Australia
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The Guardian
27 minutes ago
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Friday briefing: How years of siege, war and blockade led to the unravelling of Gaza's economy
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As a result, traditional farmland quickly became overbuilt. 'In the north of Gaza, there was an area called Sheikh Ijlin, which was known for really good grapes. The area has 300,000 people living in one sq km. If you had walked in that area, you would have seen buildings and grapes side by side.' How did Gaza try to adapt? Gaza's local authorities set out new rules to manage the siege economy. 'You would go on the ministry website and see how many dunams, a unit of area, of every single plant they had. So they managed to say, 'We need this many tomatoes, so we'll do that',' Abudaka said. In some ways, Gaza's strangled economy had the potential to function better than the more prosperous West Bank's. 'The West Bank is not one continuous area,' Abudaka said. 'The PA controls these tiny islands that are surrounded by settlements. Although Gaza was seized, it was one area. So the people living there had control over their resources, which meant that they had services that worked. They had agriculture production despite everything.' But these adapted resources were battered by the wars that followed in 2008, 2012, 2014, 2021, and 2023. After each war came promises of reconstruction, but only a fraction of the aid money that was pledged ever materialised, Abudaka said. Israel wanted reassurances that aid that went in couldn't fund Hamas's military activity, Abudaka said. 'This led to the creation of the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism, which is a security arrangement where Israeli security checks the goods that enter. It didn't stop Hamas from building tunnels. It did annihilate Gaza's economy.' What does the future hold for those living there? What is now unfolding in Gaza is a process of 'de-development,' Abudaka said. In 2006, about 63% of Palestinians in Gaza relied on aid. Today, almost all of Gaza's 2.3 million inhabitants depend on humanitarian assistance. A smaller, yet still damaging version of this is playing out in the occupied West Bank. 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The Guardian
28 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘We're seeing the best of LA': as Ice raids haunt the city, Angelenos show up for each other
In the days after ramped-up immigration raids began in Los Angeles, 50-year-old Lorena, who has been running a tamale cart in Koreatown for decades, stayed home. So did her husband, who works as a day laborer. Worried about paying their bills, both of them after a few days went back out to work. 'My son would go around the block and watch out for us,' said Lorena, whom the Guardian is not identifying by her full name for fear of reprisal. He'd text them a warning when he suspected that immigration agents were nearby. Eventually, though, they concluded the effort was not only risky, but futile. There was no business. 'People are scared. They do not go out to buy anything,' she said. Then Lorena was offered a grant by a local advocacy group, KTown For All, which had raised money online from supporters to 'buy out' street vendors at risk of being detained. She and her husband have been able to remain home since, and keep a low profile. She knew the group because they had organized initiatives to support vendors during the height of the coronavirus pandemic – and on occasion she had worked with them to distribute her tamales to unhoused people and others in need. 'That is why I believe that when you give love, you receive love,' she said. 'I want more people to know about [how] this way they can also support more vendors, more sellers. Because there are many, many vendors who are still taking risks because they need to make money.' KTown for All has said publicly that its supporters donated enough money to cover a month's rent and food for at least 42 vendors and their families, and it has shared links to street vendor fundraising efforts in other Pasadena, LA's South Bay and other neighborhoods. The group did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The LA Street Vendor Solidarity Fund, a similar effort organized by several non-profits, has raised $80,000 so far, with the goal of raising at least $300,000. 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'Our economy is being destroyed, our culture is being destroyed,' said Odilia Yego, the executive director of Cielo, an advocacy group focused on local Indigenous migrant communities. 'The buzzing feeling of being an Angeleno is under attack.' When Yego went out with Cielo workers earlier this month to deliver food to 200 families, she said, the streets were eerily quiet, and restaurants were half-empty, raising concerns about how small businesses already battered by Covid, Hollywood strikes and the wildfires will weather this new crisis. It's not only undocumented residents who fear being snatched up by masked federal agents in raids community members say look and feel like kidnappings, Yego said. 'Even with documents, people are afraid to go out. Even citizens are afraid to go out. People are afraid to encounter an Ice agent regardless of their status, because of the level of violence they have seen on social media or on TV,' she said. Multiple US citizens in the Los Angeles area have reportedly been detained as part of immigration raids this month. As Cielo and similar advocacy groups help frightened immigrant families, other people are stepping up to help them. In early June, one of the city's most popular taquerias and an immigrant-owned coffee shop in West Hollywood held fundraisers for Cielo. 'We own a business, so we can't go protest,' one of the West Hollywood coffee shop's owners said. The Guardian is not identifying the businesses or its owners for fear of reprisal. Helping raise funds for Cielo was 'a way for us to show up to be a voice with our community'. 'In LA, we support each other during times of crisis,' Yego said. 'Someone sent us $100 and said: 'You helped me during the pandemic, and today, I'm able to give back.''
