Shannon Bream: Assessing Damage to Iran's Nuclear Program & Nationwide Injunctions
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Updated damage assessments have come out of the Pentagon as officials share new details about the historic bunker bus of Iran's nuclear program. Listen, this is war. We're not going to give all of our secrets away to the public, to the enemy, who is also watching this. But when you look at the precision that had to happen for them to do exactly what they did, it's really kind of mind-blowing. We speak with Fox News Sunday anchor Shannon Breen.

And Lisa Brady, humans have new weapons in a war on mosquitoes. Our species is taking on godlike powers. And the question for us and for our future is whether we can teach ourselves to use those powers wisely. And I'm Brian Kilmeade. I've got the final word on the Fox News Rundown. ♪

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon Thursday that President Trump directed the most complex and secretive operation in U.S. history. Hegseth was infuriated by reporting about an early intelligence report that questioned the extent of the damage to Iran's nuclear facilities. Because you cheer against Trump so hard, it's like in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump because you want him not to be successful so bad.

You have to cheer against the efficacy of these strikes.

You have to hope maybe they weren't affected. He read off updated intelligence data backing up the idea that the program had been set back for years. But it was Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Kaine who recounted details of the military operations from last Saturday through Monday. I have chills literally talking about this. General Kaine said in 2009, a Defense Threat Reduction Agency officer was brought into a vault and shown intelligence of Iran's nuclear program in its beginning stages.

Eventually, another officer joined him, and for 15 years, they studied everything about what was being built inside of a mountain in Iran. He watched the construction, the weather, the discard material, the geology, the construction materials, where the materials came from. He looked at the vent shaft, the exhaust shaft, the electrical systems.

the environmental control systems, every nook, every crater, every piece of equipment going in and every piece of equipment going out. They literally dreamed about this target at night when they slept. And they knew from the very first days what this was for. You do not build

a multi-layered underground bunker complex with centrifuges and other equipment in a mountain for any peaceful purpose. He praised the young soldiers at the Al Udeid base in Qatar who defended it from Iranian missiles fired in retaliation Monday.

soldiers as young as 21 were manning our Patriot missile defenses. They are the unsung heroes of the 21st century United States Army. Now, as for the aftermath, we are still on a diplomatic path with Iran, according to White House spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt. The U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff, she said, is still in communication with the Iranians and Gulf and Arab partners. The goal is to continue negotiating. There's so much more detailed stuff to come. Fox News Sunday anchor Shannon Bream.

To see them explain it, I think it's always helpful to be as transparent as you can be. Listen, this is war. We're not going to give all of our secrets away to the public, to the enemy, who is also watching this. But when you look at the precision that had to happen for them to do exactly what they did, it's really kind of mind-blowing. It's not just, you know, 37, 38-hour flight. I mean, the pinprick precision for where these bombs had to drop exactly to do what they did,

I mean, hats off. So we also know, as we talk about the damage assessments and how successful the attacks were, you know, the head of the IAEA told Martha McCallum this week there were hundreds of pounds of enriched uranium that they had not accounted for. Doesn't mean it wasn't in there, but they just don't know for sure. And an Iranian official told this IAEA chief they were going to take protective measures ahead of the strikes. Mm-hmm.

We now know since then the head of Iran's atomic energy organization says their nuclear program continues with full strength. The attacks had no impact on our determination or that of our team. What does that mean? Well, determination, true. Like they're still going to want, they're going to want to get to a weapon, even though what they tell us is we don't want our nuclear material for weaponry. We want it for other purposes. Listen, nuclear power runs.

communities all over the world. I mean, it is, you know, some people would argue like clean and safe and great. And it really we should be more dependent on it. But it's the levels at which they're enriching, which draw enormous skepticism around the globe about what their actual practice is. So not surprising at all that they will want to continue whatever efforts they had. Yeah, I believe Israel took out most of their top scientists that we know of.

But there will be younger scientists. There will be brain trust. There will be things that they have figured out over time. How quickly they could reassemble the infrastructure, I think, is going to be the big question for everybody who's watching and trying to assess where they are. It also sounds like negotiation is not really on the table for them. They want to do this, and they're going to keep doing it, and they just...

came to a certain point. Maybe they didn't conclude it, but they learned a lot in this process. I imagine they could do it more quickly a second time around, but it certainly, it makes you wonder about the future of any talks. It does because, you know, there came a point where President Trump really tried to keep that door open with them and came to believe that they were not genuine. There was not an honest commitment to coming to some kind of agreement. And

Are they a worthy partner for negotiation with the U.S.? I think that's a question the president had reached a decision at some point that, at least in the short-term assessment, it was no, although we're told those talks are going to continue. We'll see. Let's go to your beat, Supreme Court, Shannon. Today, do we expect—so the Supreme Court's term is ending today, but we're still waiting on—

Right.

Remind us a little bit about what the discussion was about, because the discussion was not about birthright citizenship. It was about nationwide injunctions. It's important to note it did come in this vehicle of birthright citizenship. But you had three different lower courts rule against what the president tried to do. President Trump's executive order kind of revoking birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment, as it's been understood for more than a century.

But that wasn't the issue of the merits of birthright citizenship, whether he can do that. The question is, can a single federal judge in this case, there were three different lower courts, but can a single federal judge put a policy and executive order, a law on hold for the entire country? There are about 680 courts.

to 700 federal judges on the bench at any one time, just that district level. So the whole argument, which was added in May, they argued it May 15th, super rare. They've never done a May argument when I've been covering the court for 18 years.

They had this conversation about can a federal judge do this? Because so much, as our listeners will know, as you well know, of what President Trump has done has immediately been challenged in court. There is forum shopping like there is with any president. You go find a court that you think is more aligned with your interests than the current occupant of the White House. And you hope that judge will give you a nationwide injunction so you can shut down the whole thing. So that is what the court is deciding is whether or not.

A nationwide injunction can be, you know, entered by any one judge of these federal judges in any district in the country and shut down all of your policies indefinitely.

Fascinating. Thursday, we did get a pretty significant ruling. Just want your brief thoughts on that. Medicaid dollars being used at Planned Parenthood in South Carolina. A woman sued because she said, wait, I have a right to pick my provider and I pick Planned Parenthood in South Carolina. But her Medicaid coverage per the state's governor would not apply at the Planned Parenthood. And the court, what did the court rule here? Yeah. So years ago, what the governor there in the Supreme House in South Carolina had said was,

He issued an executive order blocking Medicaid funding from flowing to Planned Parenthood clinics as a form of health care if somebody chooses that. Because he said, listen, they do abortions. Federal money with very, very limited tight exceptions cannot flow to any kind of abortion care. Now, Planned Parenthood would say we do screenings, we do all kinds of other things, and this money is not flowing to abortion. You can't use this Medicaid money for abortion with the rare exceptions.

But the governor said money's fungible. And if money is going to Planned Parenthood to underwrite any of their operations, it is helping them with the abortions they provide. So she...

She decided to sue this patient of a Planned Parenthood in South Carolina. And what the court said is there's not an individual right under the statute for this person to sue about where their Medicaid money goes. As long as it's flowing to other clinics and health care outlets in South Carolina, you got to pick one of those where the governor has said the money can flow. So essentially, it's kind of wonky, but saying there's no individual right for Medicaid recipient to sue to take the money to the provider they choose.

Yeah. Okay, Shanna, before I let you go, let's go to New York. Big primary election this week. Zoran Mamdani, a socialist. Yes.

has won the primary, beating former Governor Cuomo. What does this mean, do you think, for Democrats? And how do you, what's the reaction from them? How are they reading this particular primary win? What was so interesting to me is that you didn't get these big endorsements from like Senator Schumer or the top Democrat in the House, Hakeem Jeffries. Like they weren't out there endorsing in the middle of this race. Just AOC. And that's one of the,

Right. And she's, you know, as we would all agree, pretty progressive member of the squad. And she's thrilled about it and definitely was backing him. But you're seeing some of these more establishment leaders here in Washington, even if they've given sort of a congratulatory message like congratulations to Mamdani for winning the it's not like we can't wait to see you take over New York and we're behind you all the way. I think they're trying to figure out what

they do, because is this young guy who was very good on social media and very attractive to, you know, the further left younger population, is that going to be the voice of the Democrats? Because I think they're still trying to figure post-November with those really difficult losses, who the voice is. Is it Gavin Newsom? Is it AOC? Is it Bernie? Is it this potential new mayor of New York City? And there seems to be a little trepidation,

here among, you know, more traditional Democrat lawmakers about, and you've actually seen a couple of Democrats come out and say like, nope, this is not the way for our party. This is not our guy. And Shannon,

You know, Mamdani is Muslim and he had said he'd made quite a few comments about Jews, about Israel during the campaign and actually well before the campaign, actually. And that was all sort of brought up, right? His comments after October 7th about Israel being an apartheid state, defending the phrase globalize the intifada. He started a

Students for Justice and Palestine group at his college more than a decade ago. And he will not say that Israel has a right to exist. Just wondering what these views mean

For the Democratic Party, if he's the if he's the guy winning a major primary in a major city, I know you're talking about they're a little trepidatious, but what what do you think they they do with that with this? It's really tricky for them because, you know, since October 7th, it's

been one of the areas that for the most part, Democrats and Republicans have been united and Israel can defend herself. We will continue to send aid. Our most recent Fox News polling shows support for us sending aid for them to use for their military. And people are backing Israel. But there's been this split between

primarily on the Democrat side about this language that some of them are being called out for saying things past and present that feel very anti-Semitic to a lot of listeners and viewers and readers out there who see these comments.

So I think it's going to be really interesting to see where New York City goes with this. I think now that you've got some of the other folks out of the mix, sounds like Cuomo is going to be out of the mix. Do they coalesce those who are worried about those viewpoints behind an Eric Adams?

Is there a lane for Curtis Lewa to sneak up through splitting other votes? But Democrats are going to have to answer some uncomfortable questions about does he speak for you? Where is the party? Is there room for his view within your party in the mainstream? I mean, because you're right. This is the biggest city in the United States of America. Is he going to be your voice moving forward? All right. Fox News Sunday anchor Shannon Vreen. Thank you for joining. Jessica, always good to be with you.

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Every weekday, it's your go-to source for staying informed and entertained. The Fox News Primetime Highlights Podcast. The Ingram Angle, Jesse Waters Primetime, Hannity, and Gutfeld. Listen and follow now at foxnewspodcasts.com. This is Brian Kilmeade with your Fox News Commentary, coming up.

The fight against disease-spreading mosquitoes is not new, but the methods are evolving and becoming more targeted. One pilot program in California is using x-rays to sterilize male mosquitoes, and when they're released in parts of the greater Los Angeles County area and breed, the resulting eggs don't hatch.

In Northern California, the Sacramento Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control District launching its own effort against the same mosquito, the Aedes aegypti, which can spread viruses including dengue and Zika. Well,

We'll be releasing sterile males that have a bacteria called Wolbachia. When they mate with the wild females in the area, then their eggs won't hatch. So it's a way of reducing mosquito populations over time. Their public information officer, Luz Maria Robles, says Aedes aegypti mosquitoes have been spreading rapidly, needing only a small amount of standing water to breed.

A container as small as a bottle cap of water would be enough to breed these mosquitoes. The same type of mosquito has been targeted before in part of Florida by releasing genetically modified mosquitoes into the population designed to be non-biting and with a gene that's deadly to female offspring.

The CDC says using genetically modified mosquitoes is regulated by the EPA and needs approval from state and local authorities. And they've been used in several other countries in recent years, also targeting Aedes aegypti. But a not-for-profit research consortium, Target Malaria, has a different focus, so far only in laboratories, using a genetic tool known as a gene drive to introduce a mutation that could suppress and perhaps eradicate mosquitoes.

mosquitoes that carry malaria. We should be very cautious about intentionally wiping out species. Jamie Metzl is a futurist and best-selling author. His latest book is Superconvergence, How the Genetics, Biotech, and AI Revolutions Will Transform Our Lives, Work, and World. There are some species that really are pests to us, species that destroy crops, destroy livelihoods, destroy lives.

And we are very comfortable fighting against them. But when we talk about wiping out species, we need to at least appreciate that we don't fully understand how any ecosystem operates. And so we need to have a level of humility.

Now, there are thousands of kinds of mosquitoes. And in this case, they're focusing on the one that carries malaria, which does kill hundreds of thousands of people every year. So wouldn't getting rid of this mosquito kill?

be worth it, I guess is one argument. Yeah. There are about three types of mosquitoes that are the main deliverers of malaria, which kills about 600,000 people a year. And I'm very sympathetic to the possibility of using gene drives and other technologies to either wipe out or genetically transform those species so they're no longer capable of passing malaria to humans.

And there are lots of organizations, the African Union and others, who are very actively considering this possibility, which I support. We just need to have a level of care and humility because we are manipulating systems that we don't fully understand. I know Target Malaria's approach would essentially use gene editing to kill off this mosquito. It would affect their ability to breed. Can you give us kind of a layman's explanation of how a gene drive works?

So when one sexually transmitting entity, like a male mosquito and a female mosquito mate, they exchange genetic materials. And what a gene drive does is it adds just a little molecular manipulator into the genes that are transferred through sex.

which basically cooks the books. And so let's just say hypothetically that you were going to have either a male or a female offspring, you can cook the books. So everybody gets a male or everybody gets a female or making all kinds of other changes. And by doing that, you can very quickly crash entire populations because if

everybody is intersex or everybody is a female, obviously you can no longer reproduce. So that's the idea of a gene drive. And that's why people, lots of people, myself included, are excited about the possibility of using these technologies to end malaria, but

We just need to make sure we are doing this with a level of humility and caution that's required. Would it be less concerning ethically if it were, you know, some other method that didn't involve editing genes? Yes.

It may or may not be because that other method could have all kinds of potential negative externalities. But manipulating genes is just serious business and we need to do it carefully. And

because gene drives have the potential to achieve outcomes that other means so far haven't been able to achieve, we need to look at that very seriously because the cost of just continuing with doing what we're doing now is these 600,000 or so people who die every year from malaria. So I guess one of the concerns, though, is the bigger picture of what could be next if this mosquito is successfully eliminated.

Well, I mean, there are lots of pests. There are lots of pests that are causing enormous damage to huge amounts of crops. And there are people starving in places where there are crops that aren't growing. Now, as a result of global warming, pests, the range of lots of terrible pests are expanding. So gene drive is

have the potential to be a very effective tool for fighting back in ways that can help humans and even help other species. But because this tool is so powerful, we need to be careful in how we use it. Who makes a decision like this? Is there a world governing body for it or would it be up to the specific countries involved?

Yeah, that's the same question as every technology. It's the same with AI and basically everything else. We don't have a governing body for anything that can tell everybody to do anything at all. And

And so there are different organizations within countries. Certainly there are regulations that prevent the willy-nilly application of gene drives. There are regional organizations like the African Union which are considering that process. But that's a broader issue that we're facing as humans is that we have these global, world-changing, life-changing capabilities

And maybe if we're lucky, we can regulate them on the national level, but we don't really have mechanisms for doing so on an international or global level. And because mosquitoes and lots of things cross borders, that creates a challenge, not just in this case, but across the board.

So that's the biggest challenge we face in the world is the mismatch between the nature of the biggest challenges we face, which are all too often global and common, and the absence of sufficient frameworks for coming together to solve these kinds of common problems. Do scientists know whether mosquitoes serve a larger purpose in the ecosystem? Because, you know, bees, for instance, we know how important they are. How important are mosquitoes?

Oh, mosquitoes are essential to ecosystems. So if somebody said we're going to wipe out all of the mosquitoes, we would know for certain that they were going to absolutely crash entire food chains and ecosystems. But what the people who are advocating for the application of gene drives for malaria are saying is,

is that we can target primarily three different subtypes of mosquitoes. And even if we wipe them out, they aren't keystone species within the ecosystems in which they live. And so there won't be a huge change. That may or may not be true. Ecologists think it's true. But that's why we need to be extra careful. We don't understand fully these very complex systems.

aggressively manipulating them, which we've been doing for a very long time, is something that's not that we shouldn't do. But if and when we do it, we need to have a level of humility and care. Right. Because things eat

And get eaten, basically, right in the food chain. That's life. Ourselves included. I live in New York City. It doesn't feel like we're in a complex ecosystem, but we are in a complex ecosystem that only survives and exists because we have all of these other species, the pollinators, even the rats, the mosquitoes, carnivores.

ecosystems are complex and interconnected by definition. That doesn't mean we shouldn't manipulate them. We've been doing it for tens of thousands of years. It just means that we need to be careful while doing so.

What do you think will be the tipping point on this mosquito question? Does target malaria, you know, have to get some kind of permission? I know we talked about lack of a sort of governing body on these things, but do they need permission to actually go ahead and do this? It sounds like they haven't actually decided to officially try to do it yet. But what's what do you think will happen? Yeah.

Yeah. So I think it'll have to be different organizations coming together. Target Malaria is certainly focused on this issue. The African Union this year in 2025 came out with a report that was positively predisposed toward the application of gene drives. And then what they're going to need to do is to find

a country that is all in for this type of application of a gene drive to target malaria and to do it maybe starting in a controlled way, like perhaps on an island or even in a single laboratory and then expanding beyond that.

What's the best case scenario in your mind going forward on this broader issue? Yeah, well, the best case scenario is we eliminate malaria and 600,000 people per year who otherwise would have died lived. And the best case scenario, we find a way to use gene drives,

in a targeted way that addresses some of the biggest challenges that we face, and whether it's pests that are wiping out massive amounts of crops or mosquitoes or other vectors that are carrying deadly diseases. That's the best case scenario. We can also imagine very bad scenarios.

What are some of those bad scenarios? There are lots of bad scenarios that we can imagine. You could imagine terrorists getting hold of gene drives and using them aggressively to try to crash ecosystems. Let's say two countries were at war and one country said, we're just going to drop a few mosquitoes or flies or other kinds of pests into the other nation's territory, which could easily be done.

and then we can wipe out that country's entire agriculture or its wheat crop or something like that. Or you could imagine a well-intentioned effort by scientists or others to do something like wipe out malaria

and the mosquitoes mutate in ways that we hadn't foreseen. And this targeted approach, which is trying to eliminate malaria by targeting just a small subtype of mosquitoes ends up getting generalized. So there are, just as there are wonderful scenarios, there are lots of really frightening scenarios. And so the name of the game is coming together and being as thoughtful as possible to try to optimize

And I guess there has to be an ongoing conversation about, you know, protecting technology and science as well, because that intentional misuse scenario is very frightening.

Absolutely. At a time when scientific knowledge is rapidly decentralizing. And so 10 years ago, maybe there were a thousand people in the world who could imagine being engaged in this kind of gene drive technology. Now, the

there are many, many tens of thousands. Then in a few years, there'll be hundreds of thousands. It's the same with AI. It was not so long ago, you had to be a super programmer to create some kind of AI algorithm that could either do something great or do something terrible. Now, a whole lot of people have those kinds of capabilities. Our species is taking on

God-like powers. And the question for us and for our future is whether we can teach ourselves to use those powers wisely. Futurist Jamie Metzl, thank you very much for your time. Thank you.

And now, some good news with Tanya J. Powers. A recent pet adoption event in Virginia was the site of something extraordinary. It happened at the Friends of Campbell County Animal Control of Virginia's Meet and Greet when an untrained shelter dog detected the medical emergency of a man who had attended the event.

The dog, named Sienna, was four or five years old, was making the rounds when she broke away and walked over to the man on the edge of the crowd. She sat down, looked at him, put her paw on his leg, and refused to leave his side. Shelter officials said in a Facebook post that Sienna, unprompted, started pawing at his leg. Despite never receiving training to detect medical emergencies, she knew something was wrong.

She was right. A short time later, the man's wife walked up and gasped when she saw what was going on and said that her husband was either having a seizure or about to have one. In the comments section of the Facebook post by the shelter, Kristen Davis, the man's wife, wrote that her husband had suffered from several seizures that very morning, and after resting, he seemed to have recovered.

She says later that day, the seizures did return, just as Sienna had predicted. While many responded to the post saying they hoped Davis and her husband could adopt Sienna, she said they already have three dogs and didn't have the room or resources for a fourth. The shelter says that supporters have covered the cost of a surgery that Sienna needed, as well as her adoption fees. An update on the Friends of Campbell County Animal Control website says Sienna has now found her forever home. Tonya J. Powers, Fox News.

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Crack down on the middlemen. End the free writing. Lower drug prices. Go to balancethescales.org to learn more. Paid for by Pharma. I'm Emily Campagno. This week on the Fox True Crime Podcast, I speak with Enrico County attorneys Matthew Ackley and Susan Parrish to discuss their prosecutorial work in the murder case of John Rafter Jr. Listen and follow now at foxtruecrime.com. Subscribe to this podcast at foxnewspodcasts.com.

It's time for your Fox News commentary. Brian Kilmeade.

What's on your mind? I don't know why I'm surprised I really shouldn't be, but I am. I am after a devastating bold decision by the president of the United States to join Israel and taking down our number one nemesis for the last 40 plus years is so ridiculed and looked to be minimized. So when you have an operation like we had an operation over the weekend that directly hit three nuclear sites with the biggest non-nuclear bombs man has ever known that the earth has ever experienced.

We have people from the Pentagon come forward and say, well, the damage is not that great. I got news from you. They don't know. These are satellite images. And why the rush to get out information that you say is of low confidence?

You know why? Because Donald Trump did it and Donald Trump's in NATO. Donald Trump riding high after taking control and setting up foreign policy in a new direction has a chance to go and rally our allies against our nemesis, Russia and Iran. But

to take him down to size to allow the press to get a distraction. They debate on the wisdom and the leak of information of one of 17 intel agencies, which they say is of low confidence. I urge you, America and around the world, to keep your eye on the ball. This is a brand new bold move.

And you don't have to compliment everything he does, but you also don't have to find fault in everything he does, especially when it becomes abundantly obvious this is in America's best interest and in Israel's best interest. Israel's worst day, October 7th, resulted in the Ayatollah's worst two years. He has lost his surrogates. He's lost his army. He's lost his scientists. He's lost his commanders. And he might even lose his throne. That's because...

The bad guys don't win. The good guys do. And at one point, the media, the mass media, has got to give President Trump credit and Israel credit for doing what's necessary for them to survive and have a chance to thrive. I'm Brian Kilmeade for the Fox News Rundown.

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Hey, I'm Trey Gowdy, host of the Trey Gowdy Podcast. I hope you will join me every Tuesday and Thursday as we navigate life together and hopefully find ourselves a little bit better on the other side. Listen and follow now at foxnewspodcast.com.