Hegseth Blasts Media, Diddy Closing Arguments Begin, Deep Dive on Zohran Mamdani: AM Update 6/27
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When a university is built on merit, problem solving and real world results, America leads. When it pioneers breakthroughs in national defense and supports American innovation, America wins. And when that same university ensures world class education is within reach for all families,

America prospers. This is MIT, a partner in building a stronger America. Learn more at understanding.mit.edu. Good morning, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. It's Friday, June 27th, 2025, and this is your AM Update. It's in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump.

because you want him not to be successful so bad. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth slamming the media in a press conference designed to dispel any notion that the U.S. strikes on key Iranian nuclear facilities were anything other than a stunning success.

The prosecution makes its closing argument in the Sean Diddy Combs criminal case. His policies were mad libs for the insane asylum. And a deep dive into how a 33-year-old Muslim Democratic socialist won the Democrat nomination for New York City mayor. All that and more coming up in just a moment on your AM Update.

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Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Raisin-Kane holding an extraordinary Thursday morning press conference, with Mr. Hegseth forcefully combating media reports claiming the Trump administration overstated the success of the strikes on three key Iranian nuclear facilities. The reporting, originating with CNN and then The New York Times,

based on anonymous sources familiar with an early low-confidence Intel assessment and not the assessment itself, suggesting the facilities were merely damaged rather than permanently disabled, downplaying the extent of said damage. In

In response to the leaks, the Trump administration planning to limit the sharing of classified information now with Congress. Axios reporting the initial assessment was uploaded late Monday to Capnet, a resource used to share classified information with Congress. The CNN and New York Times reporting on the assessment following the next day. The FBI is currently investigating the source of the leaks.

Secretary Hegseth slamming the media for relying on what he says is selective and biased information in order to satisfy their anti-Trump agenda. There was a great deal of irresponsible reporting based on leaks, preliminary information in low confidence. Again, when someone leaks something, they do it with an agenda.

And when you leak a portion of an intelligence assessment, but just a little portion, just a little portion that makes it seem like maybe the strike wasn't effective. Then you start a news cycle. You, the press corps, it's in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump because you want him not to be successful so bad. So let's take half truths, spun information, leaked information, and then spin it.

spin it in every way we can to try to cause doubt and manipulate the mind, the public mind over whether or not our brave pilots were successful. There are so many aspects of what our brave men and women did that because of the hatred of this press corps are undermined. Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt in a later Thursday briefing pointing to additional intelligence collected since the strike supporting the mission's success.

It was a total obliteration, as the president said. And not only does our own intelligence say that, but also the Iranian foreign minister has said that. We saw Israel conclude the same thing based on their own intelligence. We also had the United Nations say that as well. So I think the only other time the United Nations, Israel, Iran, and the United States has agreed on something is that the sky is blue. But they all agree that Iran's nuclear facilities were completely demolished.

General Kane Thursday morning reiterating the military's high confidence of success, describing how bunker buster bombs, which were developed specifically to take out Fordow, work. Unlike a normal surface bomb, you won't see an impact crater because they're designed to deeply bury and then function. I know there's been a lot of questions about that.

All six weapons at each vent at Fordow went exactly where they were intended to go. A bomb has three effects that causes damage, blast, fragmentation, and overpressure. In this case, the primary kill mechanism in the mission space was a mix of overpressure and blast ripping through the open tunnels and destroying critical hardware.

On Thursday, the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, from an undisclosed location looking very fragile, making his first appearance since last week, congratulating Iranians on their so-called victory over the U.S.

The Iranians launching a retaliation effort on Monday, firing 14 missiles toward Al-Yudid air base in Qatar. Every missile was intercepted by U.S. troops stationed at Al-Yudid, with the exception of one that was heading in a non-threatening direction.

General Kane describing the mission of the 44 soldiers responsible for defending U.S. interests there. Most folks had moved off the base except for a very few army soldiers at Al Udeid. Two Patriot batteries remained on base, roughly 44 American soldiers. The oldest soldier was a 28-year-old captain.

The youngest was a 21-year-old private. It's hot, you're getting nervous, and you expect an attack. You know that you're going to have approximately two minutes, 120 seconds to either succeed or fail. As the sun sets in the west,

Iran attacks. As the targets were detected, round after round of Patriot missiles are ejected from their canisters and round after round goes out and guides against those missiles coming inbound.

We believe that this is the largest single patriot engagement in U.S. military history. These awesome humans, along with their Qatari brothers and sisters in arms, stood between a salvo of Iranian missiles and the safety of value deed.

Coming up, prosecutors deliver closing arguments in the Sean Diddy Combs criminal trial and a deep dive into the 33-year-old Muslim democratic socialist poised to win the race for mayor of New York City.

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Closing arguments in the Sean Diddy Combs criminal trial beginning on Thursday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Christy Slavik addressing the jury, quote, Over the last several weeks, you've learned a lot about Sean Combs. He's the leader of a criminal enterprise. The defendant was a very powerful man, but he became more powerful and more dangerous because of the support of his inner circle and his businesses, the enterprise.

To secure a racketeering conviction, the government must prove Combs was the head of a criminal enterprise engaging in a pattern of two or more predicate crimes. Slavic summing up multiple examples of potential predicate acts, the prosecution says Combs carried out with the help of his staff.

The prosecutor pointing to distribution of drugs as one act. Alleged victims of Combs, star witness Cassie Ventura and Jane, testifying under a pseudonym describing heavy drug use provided by Combs throughout the freak-offs and hotel nights, the prolonged sexual escapades involving male escorts they say the mogul effectively forced them to participate in.

Slavik also pointing to arson, alleging Combs was responsible for the Molotov cocktail attack on musician Kid Cudi's car after Combs discovered Kid Cudi's relationship with Ventura. Slavik saying, quote, of course, the defendant was behind this. We're not suggesting the defendant personally cut the hole in Kid Cudi's Porsche. The defendant didn't even buy his own soup. The prosecutor reminding the jury of Ventura's testimony, saying Combs told her he was going to have Kid Cudi's car blown up.

Slavik questioning, quote, what are the odds that the car the defendant just said he was going to blow up got blown up? The defense set to present closing arguments later today. Depending on how long the defense takes, jury deliberations could start today. If the defense needs more time, the jury will begin deliberations on Monday.

On Tuesday, a 33-year-old Democratic Socialist Muslim born in Uganda who wants to defund the police, open the prisons and ban all guns, Zoran Mamdani, winning the Democrat primary for New York City mayor in an upset over disgraced former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

We spoke to Republican consultant and host of the A Numbers Game podcast, Ryan Gerduski, a New Yorker, about who Mamdani is and how this relatively unknown candidate was able to pull off a win. Mamdani was born in Uganda and lived until he was seven years old. He bounced between a lot of major cities as the father was a prominent academic and the mother was a prominent film producer and director. So, yeah, he came from an immense privileged background his entire life, which is why he

In his mid-20s, you saw Zoran trying to create a rap career for himself before he entered the world of politics in 2018. He didn't become a citizen until 2018, which, seven years ago, he worked as a counselor for low-income non-white homeowners trying to stop evictions. He won a seat in the New York State Assembly in 2020, and he was not in any leadership position.

Despite a limited professional resume, Gerduski explains how Mamdami was able to capture support.

His policies were mad libs for the insane asylum. His main things were he wanted to make every public building in New York City green energy, which would cost taxpayers $3.21 billion over a four-year period. He wanted to defund the police. He wanted to increase taxes on the wealthy. He want rent freezes across the board. He wanted government-controlled grocery stores was a big part of his initiative because that was his way of fighting inflation was have the government run everything.

He mostly ventured in, we need to have economic liberation theory in order to make life more affordable for working class New Yorkers. But ironically, he didn't get the vote of working class New Yorkers. Gerduski describing the key group driving Mamdami's success.

Zoran maxed out in these high college educated white progressive areas. They were his base. It was the transient white vote who are progressive, who have 36 genders, who don't know what sex they are, who don't believe biological sex exists. Those were Zoran's votes. Mamdami made so-called gender affirming care, meaning trans medical procedures, a crux of his campaign, promising $65 million of taxpayer money for it.

To fund all of these proposals, he promised to tax the rich, seemingly unconcerned about them leaving New York altogether. Mamdami generating recognition throughout the campaign with slick social media videos and stunts, including this moment in March when he confronted border czar Tom Homan in Albany. How many more New Yorkers will you contain? How many more New Yorkers will you not kill? Do you believe in the First Amendment? Do you believe in the First Amendment, Tom Homan?

Gerduski describing that moment as a calculated move meant to raise Mamdami's profile. Zoran sat there behind armed guards and screamed at Tom Holman when he was really nowhere near him and was never even close to it. And that absolutely made him look to the resistance group within New York City, left-wing politics, as the man who would go farther and further than anybody else would.

Many Jewish voters raising concerns about Mamdami's candidacy, citing his inability to condemn Hamas following the October 7th attack and his refusal to denounce the phrase globalize the Intifada as evidence of anti-Semitism. New York City is home to the world's second largest population of Jewish people behind only Israel. Gerduski says Mamdami's views are not born of his beliefs as a Muslim, but of his beliefs as a cultural Marxist.

Zoran is part of the global enfata. The far left is there and says this is not about anti-Semitism, this is anti-Zionism. At this point, there's really no difference. I think it's important that conservative audiences do not believe he is a jihadist because he is not a jihadist. He is a cultural Marxist. He is a neoliberal. He's talking about queer pride and defunding the police as part of queer liberation. That's not something that would be very positive in Gaza.

So it's not that he's an Orthodox Muslim, Sunni Muslim, and he's not that he is a jihadist necessarily, but he views anything as a resistance of Western civilization, of the state of Israel, of Christianity and Judaism as part of the same global effort to kind of fight against neocolonialism, Westernism, patriarchy and whiteness. That's kind of the worldview in which he comes out of.

Mamdami will be running against Republican Curtis Sliwa, incumbent Democrat Eric Adams, who is running as an independent, and potentially Andrew Cuomo on a third-party ballot in the general election. Some Republicans calling on Sliwa to drop out and endorse Mayor Adams. Gerduski says the odds of anyone beating Mamdami are not good.

He is absolutely the favorite to win. But as of right now, I've not seen a single poll where he pulls over 35 percent of New Yorkers and he only got nine percent of registered voters in the primary. It's possible to beat him. There's very much a possibility. But people need to sober up and let egos go. And I don't know. Politics has never been known as a game where people can let their ego step aside. Good luck, New York. You were fun while you lasted.

And that'll do it for your AM update. I'm Megyn Kelly. Join me back here for The Megyn Kelly Show, where my pal Maureen Callahan will swing by for the show. Live on SiriusXM Triumph Channel, 111 at noon east, on youtube.com slash Megyn Kelly, and on all podcast platforms.

When a university is built on merit, problem solving and real world results, America leads. When it pioneers breakthroughs in national defense and supports American innovation, America wins. And when that same university ensures world class education is within reach for all families,

America prospers. This is MIT, a partner in building a stronger America. Learn more at understanding.mit.edu.