Shownotes Transcript
I'm Mark Thiessen. I'm Kat Timpf. I'm Will Kane. And this is the Fox News Rundown. Tuesday, June 24th, 2025. I'm Jessica Rosenthal. Members of Congress expect a briefing today on the U.S. strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities. So I believe that he has taken the necessary steps to ensure that Iran and its proxies don't obtain a nuclear weapon. I'm Dave Anthony.
There is still concern Iran could keep waging cyber warfare like they have for years with the focus on social media. If they can divide the U.S. population, if they can keep us at each other's throats, then they're in really good shape. And if we're united, then they're in really bad shape. So disinformation will be the number one and the most pervasive thing they do. And I'm Greg Jarrett. I've got the final word on the Fox News Rundown.
After the U.S. strike on Iran's nuclear facilities over the weekend, the discussion turned to how Iran would respond as officials promised to retaliate. Monday it began with several missiles launched against the U.S. Al-Yudeen military base in Qatar. Officials said they were intercepted.
Later Monday evening, President Trump announced on Truth Social that both Iran and Israel had agreed to a ceasefire. Iran's Minister of Foreign Affairs said if Israel stopped its attacks as of Tuesday morning Tehran time, then Iran had no intention of continuing its hostilities.
Now, members of Congress are being briefed about the strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities and more today, as some members question the strikes. Democratic Representative Ro Khanna and Republican Thomas Massey introduced a resolution that tried to block U.S. military action in Iran unless explicitly authorized by Congress. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Monday, This is a dangerous moment that we're in.
And we've got to get through what's in front of us. And what's in front of us right now is the Trump administration has a responsibility to come to Congress, justify its actions for which we've seen no evidence to justify its offensive strike in Iran. And we also don't even know how effective the strike has been. There's zero evidence that I've seen that the nuclear program
was completely and totally obliterated. Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat, introduced a resolution in the Senate insisting the strikes on Iran were unconstitutional. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo. This is not a war against Iran. The president told them if we don't get a deal, which is what he wanted, then I'll have to handle it differently. And that's what he did last night. He handled it differently. But that was an Iranian choice. We didn't make that choice. They did.
North Carolina Republican Congressman Pat Harrigan also told Bartiromo that while the constitutional power to declare war belongs to Congress, I think the president is very clearly compliant with the War Powers Act here. The Supreme Court has never weighed in on the ongoing constitutional crisis that we have.
with Article 1, Section 8. The War Powers Resolution from 1973 says the president has to notify Congress within two days of using military force on another country and says that force cannot be involved for more than 60 days without congressional authorization. Well, obviously, Congress has a role in the process here going through it. But I'd like to begin at the beginning with the president's action. He is commander in chief, and we all need to remember that, recognize that.
Nebraska Republican Senator Deb Fischer. And his main constitutional duty is to protect this nation. So I believe that he has taken the necessary steps to ensure that Iran and its proxies don't obtain a nuclear weapon. We're going to be looking at a resolution. I believe Senator Kaine may be tweaking his, but we'll be looking at this this week, most likely.
I don't know for sure what his resolution will end up saying, but I think we have to keep in mind the president does have the authority. Under the War Powers Resolution that was passed, I think in reaction to the Vietnam War, there are certain timelines that the president has to make and notify Congress.
We do know that congressional leadership was contacted by the administration, that leadership in the...
I would say key national security roles. It sounds like they received a heads up. And I know that within Congress, we're going to have a, I would say, robust debate as we continue on this. And it will be especially after we have a briefing, which will be Tuesday late afternoon.
Okay, very good. And having the assets in the region that we do have helping Israel intercept missiles, defending our troops in the region, the thousands of troops we have stationed across the region, that means we're in more of a defensive posture, right? Does that does that matter here?
Well, I think we always have to make sure that we defend the people who are defending us. And we have, I think it's over 40,000 troops in the area. So obviously, when we're seeing tensions rise because of the actions taken the other evening to take out the nuclear capabilities of Iran, tensions have risen. We
We've heard comments made from the government in Iran saying that our bases in the area are vulnerable.
to attacks from them so of course we need to be very aware of that the administration is the military is that show of force in the region is hopefully going to discourage iran and any of their cohorts and proxies to stop them from doing anything
Using the munitions we used over the weekend, the bombs, the assets we have in the region, this all costs money. The request is in for a more than 13% increase for the military budget for the next fiscal year. Is that going to be enough? Are we going to be talking about more money? I think we're over the trillion dollar mark for a military budget in terms of what we're talking about, right, for 2026? Yeah.
Well, that's up for debate, too. You know, I'm on the Armed Services Committee. I'm second in seniority. I'm also on Appropriations Committee. And when I look at that trillion dollar figure, in my mind, that does not include the money under reconciliation. So there are many of us.
who are on those committees that want to make sure that, again, our first priority is, as members of Congress, is to defend this nation, is national security. And so we want to be able to continue with a number of programs that are going to be especially important to this country. Our nuclear modernization, that's a bedrock of our national security. That and
underpins every single decision made by the Department of Defense. So as we look at expending munitions now in Iran, that's just going to be another layer of cost that needs to be taken under consideration. You know, Jessica, we live in an increasingly
hostile world. We have peer competitors in China and Russia when it comes to nuclear weapons, when it comes to cyber activity. So we need to make sure that across our military and defense of this country, that all of those assets are not just improved, but we have to look at war in the future and what that means.
When you hear this talk about this debate about regime change, like the president's administration has said, we're not that was not the point. We're not doing regime change. But the president has posted, you know, while that term is politically incorrect, he wrote, I think we could pronounce it, my God, make Iran great again. And we've learned a lot of lessons about regime change in the past 20 years. Israel's prime minister had said, you know, that would have to come from within, right?
What do we know about the Iranian people and what they would want or need here and what our role is moving forward? Well, our goal, our purpose of these strikes and moving ahead now is to prevent Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon. This administration's been clear about it. I've been clear about it. I think the majority has been very clear about that. As for regime change, I
I would say that is up to the Iranian people. They will have to make that decision and determine what type of government and who would govern their country in the future. You know, when you hear on the political side of this, not just Democrats, but people within the president's base say, you know, we should not be involved here at all. We should not have been involved here at all. We should not have done what happened over the weekend. You know, what is...
What is your response? Like, are we safer today or are the detractors? What do you make of what the detractors say that we are not safer today? You know, when I hear death to America for decades and decades from a country.
I believe them. When we hear Iran say death to America, we should all believe them. The president, I think, exhibited strength and leadership, and the people around the world know that America means what it says.
We've gone through many, many administrations previously that have always said, you know, Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon. But we never really saw much action there.
And I can tell you just from watching how the Iranians continue to move forward with enriching uranium, first of all, and I think Secretary Rubio had a good discussion on a Sunday show about that 60% enrichment and what that means. It means it jumps to 90% pretty quickly. But to see that and also the Iranians talking about
developing a space program. And that's why they have ICBMs and are investing in building ICBMs? I don't think so. You know, we need to take our foreign adversaries at their word when they pledge they're going to destroy us.
Speaking of adversaries, the reaction of Chinese and Russian leaders has been very much in defense of Iran. Russian officials saying Iran has the right to defend itself. Chinese officials have been calling for de-escalation but pointing the finger at Israel. I think Iran's foreign minister is in Moscow. What do you make of the adversary's reaction in siding with Iran? I suppose it's not much of a surprise, but what do you make of it?
Well, again, it's not much of a surprise, not much of a surprise at all. These two countries have, I guess, made comments towards our country that I would say we all realize they're our adversaries as well. I think we see...
Any type, any type of retaliation from Iran against America. The president has said it's going to be met with even far greater force than the initial strikes. Senator Deb Fischer of Nebraska, thank you so much for your time. Appreciate you. Thank you.
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.
As America prepares for its 249th birthday on July 4th, Fox News Podcast celebrates great Americans, highlighting well-known and everyday folks who've made their mark on the country in their own special way. Listen and follow now at foxnewspodcasts.com. This is Greg Jarrett with your Fox News commentary coming up. Before President Trump announced an Iran-Israel ceasefire,
The Iranians had threatened to retaliate after the American airstrikes over the weekend that hit three nuclear facilities. Iran reaffirms its inherent right to self-defense and will strongly defend its great nation, its sovereignty, and its supreme national interest by all necessary means.
The era of unchecked impunity has come to an end. That's Reza Najafi, Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Republican Congressman Rick Crawford, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, told the Fox News rundown here just yesterday he worries about Iran waging cyber warfare, which...
Iran has already been doing for years, well before this conflict. Iranians have a history of cyber attacks and they're pretty good at it. So that's a concern. We know that there are cells in various countries around the world, if not directly Iranian, certainly sympathetic to the Iranians. And that includes some very big allies who also don't like the U.S. The Russians want us distracted. The Chinese want us distracted.
The Iranians want us to not bomb them further. And that delta is really important. John Cofrancesco is a cybersecurity expert, CEO of American AI Logistics, and we talked to him Monday afternoon. I think that's the real story. And the foreign minister being in Moscow just kind of reads this trouble to me. And I believe if they haven't already, Iran will in short order have representatives in China. And it is likely that we'll see some sort of response there as well.
So obviously, when you're dealing with Iran, Russia and China, you have probably the three biggest cyber attack activist countries in the world, right? For sure. And then you can throw in their little brother, North Korea, who I'm sure at some point will have a hand in this. There is no doubt that the Iranians are reaching out to their allies right now to see who's going to support them and to see how that support is going to manifest.
So when you see Iran and Russia together and think about China, they have different operations for cyber attacks and hacking around the world, and they have for years. Do they coordinate? It is absolutely certain that they coordinate, but they do it in a loose way. You know, the United States tends to work very close with its allies. Just recently, we saw that with Israel.
You know, the Chinese, the Russians, the Iranians, the North Koreans, they're a trust but distrust relationship. And I actually think that's the most likely outcome is what we'll see is disruptive behavior coming from the group of them loosely coordinated, you know, along the lines of business attacks, DDoS attacks, things that are really not directly disruptive, but indirectly disruptive. What would you think would be their number one target? Disinformation.
The number one thing we are going to see, and this is going to be driven by AI, is going to be disinformation. Every YouTube video is going to have comments. Every Facebook post, don't trust them. It is going to be a slew of disinformation. And that is because Russia, Iran, North Korea, China, they have aligned interests there. If they can divide the U.S. population, if they can keep us at each other's throats, then they're in really good shape. And if we're united...
then they're in really bad shape. So disinformation will be the number one and the most pervasive thing they do. And with the advent of the large language model, chat GPT and other tools, they can now do this at a scale that they really couldn't do a couple of years ago. Yeah, you mentioned artificial intelligence. How much of a role does it play nowadays when it comes to cyber hacks and all that?
Oh, a ton. And, you know, there is really pervasive in a few different ways. The first is on what we call phishing or spear phishing. So it used to be it had to have somebody on the other end of the line trying to hack you, trying to get you to give up that information. Now you can just have a bot do that. So we're going to see a lot of that. The second thing we see in this quite frequently is particularly with the advent of some of the voice to text capability, text to voice capability,
People are getting phone calls from bots that sound a lot like humans, sound a lot like famous people even. And we may see an increase of that. But certainly the bots are going to be used for disinformation campaigns. Now, we know Russia's been great at that. I mean, they certainly were involved in the 2016 presidential election here and other elections. Is Russia better at that than anybody else? Could they help Iran with disinformation? Absolutely. Because if you're the Russians, this is not good for you.
If the Iranian regime stumbles and falls and we end up with a Western positive regime in Iran, that is a huge problem for Russia. They will have lost access to a huge area from which they do operations. People may not always realize, but Russia runs tons of operations in the Middle East and in Africa. Iran is a great pit stop for them when they're doing that. The Iranians obviously are allies on the international stage in all sorts of ways.
So Iran and their current regime being in trouble is not good for them. At the same time, they would like to see the United States dragged into something wider so we get distracted from Ukraine.
They have an interest in pushing disinformation, and they're going to utilize their really advanced capabilities to do that. All right. Let's get beyond disinformation. Let's get into other things that could be targeted. Certainly, you would want to think that the military, United States military, could be something that the Iranians want to attack somehow in a cyber way. You have contacts within the Pentagon. You were with them over the weekend in contact with...
What is the U.S. government doing to prevent and try to stop that?
Well, you know, we have an agency dedicated to this. Certainly the Pentagon and DHS have already put out notifications. And I have to be honest with you, it isn't impossible that they would try to do some sort of cyber attack against critical infrastructure or military targets. I happen to think it's more likely that they're going to do business attacks. You know, it's really not that disruptive to the average American if the Pentagon gets hacked. And frankly, the bad guys are trying to do that every day anyhow.
But if your bank goes down or your water goes down or oil and gas goes down, I mean, that is far more disruptive. So because of the kinetic environment, I think Iran will be relatively measured here, but proxy groups may not be so measured. And I think the biggest threat here is in private industry, critical private industry being attacked by Iranian proxies. And again, those proxies could be Russian based or Chinese based.
Now, banks also no stranger to cyber attacks and attempts to infiltrate their operations. What's different now? They already probably have very good cybersecurity. Well, they absolutely have superb cybersecurity. And I think over the last 10 years, billions and billions of dollars have been invested into this space. But with really sophisticated state backed cyber weapons, they're really used once weapons.
So, Iran, Russia, China, they will have built and certainly have already a stockpile of cyber weapons that they could unleash. And a lot of those just sit there dormant. So, Iran and its allies are now going to have to consider if they're going to unleash some of those. And those will be unique attacks. Those will be attacks that we might not have defenses for. I will say, to our credit, we are much better at response than we were a decade ago.
So from my perspective, obviously we're paying attention, obviously shields up, but it's not something I'm living in petrified fear about. I think it's something that we'll get a handle on quickly if it happens. You talk about water treatment facilities being targets and things like that.
Have they been, they've been trying to do that for a while, haven't they? And how well secured do you think that those places are across the country? Because it's not, sometimes it's, you know, small towns or there's a lot of different operators of those kinds of facilities.
Yeah, well, I think this is still an area where we're relatively weak. Unfortunately, there are, I think, 38,000 small and medium-sized water operators from production to cleaning in this country. So it's hard to put a shield around all of those. It's also very expensive. Some of those facilities are very rural. They don't have that type of budget. The Iranians and certainly other bad actors have the ability to attack those facilities. But here's what we have on our side. We have smart people who are aware of the threat.
And we now have procedures for defending against this. We also have agencies, CISA in particular, that are designed to help us defend this threat. And so if they wanted to strike there, they could. But what the Trump administration has demonstrated is that if you strike the United States or our interests, you're going to get a kinetic result.
And for years, folks in the cyberspace, cyber industry have said that if folks hack us, we respond with a kinetic result. There'll be a lot less hacking. And that's why I do think we need to be concerned here. We do need to pay attention, but I'm not overly concerned because we just demonstrated if you mess around, you're going to find out.
A couple of years ago, we did have a pipeline along the East Coast that was attacked, correct? Absolutely. And that was a commercial attack that was really about ransomware. And in fact, if we're talking about the nature of the attacks, we're likely to see that.
is much closer to what we're likely to see than some sort of TV movie scenario where they take everything out. I think disrupting our way of life, knocking out oil and gas, ransom wearing hospitals, that is the type of behavior we're likely to see increased. But even then, Iran and its proxies are going to have to be very measured in their response because when a cyber hack is met with
a kinetic response, you're going to be very wary of inviting the United States military to, if you're Iran, you just don't want to give the military a reason to strike back. And so what other things should people do? Like the average person, we know about fishing. We know about all the things that can be a problem for us. Should we be a little more vigilant? What should we be watching out for?
If I had to pick one thing, and I'm going to sound like a broken record here, it's the disinformation. You should not believe the things that are posted on Facebook. Do not believe the things you see on Instagram. Definitely not the stuff you see on TikTok.
That should be the first place. Use trusted news sources. Go to Fox News. Listen to your news anchors. Don't just listen to, you know, Uncle Jim who's reposting something from some strange website. Beyond that, the standard behaviors we advise all the time are the right behaviors. Change your passwords. Make sure you have your antivirus up to date. Make sure you have updates on the software on your, you know, your home laptop and your home devices. But like I said, the biggest thing is on the disinformation. How good has U.S. Cyber Command become, in your opinion?
At offense, they're the best in the world. You know, the only the only close competitor would be the Israelis. And even then, we're just second to none. So Cyber Command is very effective. They have offensive cyber capabilities that are just unmatched. You know, on the defensive side, America is always going to be a little bit more vulnerable than our peers and sometimes much more vulnerable than our peers because we're a free country.
And being free means that you have companies that run important parts of your life. I mean, think about Google and how many, you know, your GPS system. Think about, you know, your email is probably hosted through a private company. It's not in some publicly shared companies or state-owned companies environment. So our freedom makes us more vulnerable. Frankly, the quality of life and the amount of automation makes us more vulnerable.
It's something we have to pay attention to, but we have become very adept at responding. There was a time where if you had a bad enough hack, you could knock out a system for weeks or months. That does still exist.
But it's far fewer and much rarer than it was. Even if they got us good, I believe that for the most part, we would be able to respond and get ourselves back on our feet within a couple of days. John Cofrancesco, cybersecurity expert, founder and CEO of American AI Logistics. Great to have you on. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me back.
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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. Subscribe to this podcast at foxnewspodcast.com.
It's time for your Fox News commentary. Greg Jarrett. What's on your mind? Right on cue, liberal Senator Bernie Sanders declared that President Trump's successful military strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites were grossly unconstitutional. Along with other Democrats, he argued that only Congress can grant such approval.
What Sanders and his colleagues fail to recognize, or even remember, is that Congress already granted consent. Immediately after the 9-11 attacks, Congress passed a joint resolution known as the Authorization for Use of Military Force, or AUMF.
It granted the president extraordinary powers to target those groups and nations that he determines aided the terrorist attacks or harbored the perpetrators of 9-11. The stated goal of the resolution was to prevent any future attacks or international terrorism against the United States. One only needs to read the report of the 9-11 Commission to be reminded of Iran's complicity
For years, the government in Tehran actively aided and abetted attacks on America by giving al-Qaeda terrorists extensive training, intelligence, transit, logistics, weaponry, and even funding. Some of the terrorists that Iran supported were the very same future 9-11 attackers.
When the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, several al-Qaeda leaders fled to neighboring Iran, where they were given safe haven. It included Osama bin Laden. So on this basis alone, Trump's tactical military strikes were legally authorized and constitutionally justified.
Few Democrats complain when President Obama broadly utilized the AUMF on numerous occasions for military operations against Libya, Syria, Al Qaeda, the Taliban and ISIS. Now, only because it's Donald Trump, those same Democrats are howling in protest.
Their hypocrisy should be lost on no one. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that Trump committed a grave violation of the Constitution and congressional war powers. I presume she was referring to the 1973 War Powers Resolution. She doesn't realize it, but it's a notification requirement, not a prohibition on military action.
Indeed, Trump complied. He notified Congress. Under Article 2 of the Constitution, the president, as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, is empowered to direct military operations to deter foreign threats to our national security. Well, a nuclear-armed Iran controlled by a maniacal regime poses the ultimate peril. Trump had an affirmative duty to act preemptively.
Trump gave Iran every opportunity to peacefully forsake its nuclear ambitions. If Democrats want to impeach him, give it a whirl. But I tend to doubt that Americans will look favorably on yet another dubious impeachment. Doing what is right is not always the easiest thing to do. But doing nothing at all can be far worse. For Fox News, I'm Greg Jarrett.
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