PDB Afternoon Bulletin | June 26th, 2025: Ayatollah Khamenei Breaks His Silence & Trump Reunites With Zelensky
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It's Thursday, the 26th of June. Welcome to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. I'm Mike Baker. Your eyes and ears on the world stage. Let's get briefed. First up, following his country's 12-day beatdown at the hands of Israel and the U.S., Iraq

Iran's supreme leader has emerged from his bunker on Thursday like Puxatani Phil on Groundhog Day, but instead of claiming six more weeks of winter, Khamenei claimed victory over Jerusalem in the West. Later in the show, President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky met on the sidelines of the NATO summit on Wednesday to discuss the future of Russia's war on Ukraine. We'll have those details. But first, today's afternoon spotlight.

After disappearing from public view for more than a week, Iran's supreme leader has emerged from his underground bunker and broken his silence on the 12-day war that left his military and nuclear program reeling. And in a move that should shock a total of no one, he's spinning his country's resounding defeat as some sort of triumph for the Islamic regime.

In a video broadcast speech released on Thursday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei popped his head up to claim victory over the U.S. and Israel. Attempting to rewrite the scorecard of the conflict, he declared that the U.S., quote, achieved no gains from the war and only got involved because, quote, it felt that if it did not intervene, the Israeli regime would be utterly destroyed, end quote.

Now, as a reminder, the short-lived conflict saw Israel seriously decimate Iran's military leadership, terminate their leading nuclear scientists, and destroy perhaps up to 50% or more of the regime's missile stockpiles and launch capabilities. The U.S., of course, delivered the final blow over the weekend, striking Iran's three main nuclear sites and a series of precision bombing strikes using massive ordnance penetrators.

But Khamenei sought to reshape reality in the aftermath of the surprise ceasefire that the Trump administration brokered between Israel and Iran earlier this week. The Ayatollah said, "...the Islamic Republic was victorious and, in retaliation, delivered a handslap to America's face." I don't think that the word victorious means what Ayatollah Khamenei thinks it means.

The hand slap would be, of course, a reference to his regime's missile attack on U.S. forces stationed at an air base in Qatar on Monday. During that retaliatory strike, all of the regime's missiles were intercepted except for one that was allowed to fall in unoccupied territory. We should also note that Iran gave the U.S. in Qatar a heads up that the largely symbolic strike was inbound out of fear of provoking further U.S. military action.

Bukhamani continued in his video speech, saying, quote, the U.S. hit nuclear sites but couldn't achieve much. U.S. President Trump needed to do showmanship. The senior cleric added, quote, with all that commotion and all those claims, the Zionist regime was practically knocked out and crushed under the blows of the Islamic Republic. He then congratulated Iran for their, quote, victory over

over the US regime. Who knows, maybe he sat in that bunker for so long that he really wasn't fully briefed on what had actually happened. While his statements have no grounding in reality, the face-saving remarks should again come as no surprise. The mullahs and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, are desperately working to maintain a grip on power and to convince their population that they are still fully in control.

Meanwhile, we continue to hear more from the Trump administration about the US military operation that struck Iran's three main nuclear facilities over the weekend. During a press conference on Thursday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth strongly pushed back against a leaked Bomb Damage Assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency, which suggested that the strikes may have failed to completely destroy the regime's enrichment sites and uranium stores.

As we've been tracking here on the PDB, that assessment was labeled, quote, low confidence, meaning that analysts didn't have enough verified high-quality information at the time of writing it to reach a solid conclusion. It was a best guess, an educated but best guess. It was compiled based on just one day's worth of intelligence reporting, and more intelligence on the aftermath of the strikes has since been gathered.

Hegseth, who was joined on Thursday by Air Force General Dan Kaine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, doubled down on the administration's assessment that the bombing operation, codenamed Midnight Hammer, completely obliterated Iran's nuclear capabilities, calling it a, quote, historically successful attack. Now, he cited an assessment from Israel's Atomic Energy Commission that concluded the strikes, quote, rendered Iranian enrichment facilities inoperable and, quote,

said the CIA concurs that the sites were "severely damaged." Chairman Kaine noted that the U.S. bunker-busting bombs targeted ventilation shafts in Forto, suggesting the 30,000-pound explosives were in fact able to penetrate the deeply buried underground facility. He said the first bomb destroyed a concrete dome protecting the ventilation shafts, while the subsequent bombs "entered exactly where they needed to go."

As to reports that the mullahs were able to move their stockpiles of highly enriched uranium prior to the strikes, Hegseth said he had not seen any intelligence indicating that the material had been removed from the facilities. Later today, Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Secretary of State Marco Rubio will deliver their first classified briefing on the operation to congressional leaders.

As mentioned in yesterday's PDB, the Pentagon, CIA, and Israeli intelligence are currently working, of course, to gather relevant intel, and we likely won't know the full extent of the damage or the status of Iran's nuclear program for weeks or possibly even months. But for now, well, the U.S. administration appears confident that the Iranian nuclear threat has been successfully neutralized.

Look, there is undoubtedly damage to the program and the program has undoubtedly been set back, but it's unclear at this early stage just how successful the attacks were in meeting the primary objective of removing the Iranian nuclear threat. That will come in time once additional credible, verified, corroborated intelligence has been gathered, but again, it takes time.

Up next, President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky meet on the sidelines of the NATO summit to discuss the future of Russia's war. I'll be right back.

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Welcome back to the Afternoon Bulletin. I want to provide an update on the meeting between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky on the sidelines of the NATO summit, talks that both leaders described as productive. Speaking to reporters in The Hague, Trump said that Zelensky, quote, couldn't have been nicer and said their face-to-face conversation made clear that both men wanted the war to end soon.

Still, the President acknowledged no terms were discussed, only the quote "It's a great time to end it" meaning the war, of course. Well, if only Russian President Putin felt the same way. As we discussed in yesterday's afternoon bulletin, Trump has said he intends to call Putin to explore potential diplomatic off-ramps. Now, their last phone call was held just this past Tuesday. According to Trump, Putin in that call offered to help end the escalating Israel-Iran conflict

to which President Trump replied, quote, you can help me with Russia, end quote. Putin described the nearly hour-long discussion as, quote, substantive, posting on X that the two leaders talked about ways to shield civilians and laid out some early stage ideas for peace.

In his post, he thanked Trump and stated, quote, we appreciate the attention and the readiness to help bring peace closer, end quote. Well, Putin could obviously do that just by ending his invasion of Ukraine. Their meeting came as Russian missile and drone attacks intensified across Ukraine, hitting Kyiv and leaving dozens dead over the past week alone.

The surge in strikes has reinvigorated Zelensky's calls for additional air defense systems, and that's a request that Trump appeared open to. In a notable shift, Trump signaled a willingness to provide Ukraine with additional U.S.-made Patriot missile batteries, which are considered vital to intercepting Russian ballistic missiles.

He told a reporter, quote, we are going to see if we can make some of them available, though he noted that Patriots are, quote, very hard to get. Zelensky responded that Kiev is prepared to purchase more Patriot batteries outright if necessary. He posted, quote, Ukraine is ready to buy this equipment and support American weapons manufacturers. He also floated the idea of co-producing drones with U.S. partners. Now, this echoes Zelensky's comments from April when he told CBS News, quote,

that Kyiv was prepared to buy 10 Patriot systems for a staggering $15 billion price tag. But while Trump sounded receptive on air defenses, he remained noncommittal on renewing U.S. financial aid to Ukraine. Asked directly whether additional money was coming, he replied, quote, "As far as money goes, we'll see what happens," end quote.

Now, all of this unfolded against the backdrop of shifting NATO rhetoric. This year's summit declaration omitted any reference to Ukraine's potential membership in the alliance. That's a clear departure from last year. It did, however, label Moscow a, quote, long-term threat to European and transatlantic security.

For its part, the Kremlin continues to reject the Trump administration's offer of a 30-day ceasefire. And while Trump has voiced frustration with Putin, he's also placed blame on Ukraine for missing earlier opportunities to strike a deal.

Though he once signaled support for some of Moscow's red lines, chief among them, of course, barring Ukraine from NATO, Trump has since stepped back from active mediation. According to White House officials, the administration is now approaching negotiations more cautiously as the war grinds on.

While no breakthrough commitments to a ceasefire emerged from the meeting, Zelensky's outreach does underscore Kiev's effort to re-engage with an administration that continues to walk a tightrope between encouraging negotiated peace and maintaining pressure on Russia.

And that, my friends, is the PDB Afternoon Bulletin for Thursday, the 26th of June. Now, if you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at pdbatthefirsttv.com. And, of course, the rumors are true. If you want to listen to the show ad-free, just become a premium member of the President's Daily Brief by visiting pdbpremium.com. I'm Mike Baker, and I'll be back tomorrow. Until then, stay informed, stay safe, stay cool.