NEWS THIS AFTERNOON © AP Photo/Alex Brandon Joint Chiefs chairman details strike on Iran Dan “Razin’” Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefed reporters Thursday on the U.S. strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, as the Trump administration continues to push back on media characterizations of a preliminary intelligence assessment that suggested the strike may not have been a total success. Caine said 15 years of planning by PhD-level military officials acting as the “biggest users of supercomputer hours” designed the strikes and that that the bunker-buster bombs dropped on Iran’s Fordow nuclear site “functioned as designed.” “The weapons all guided to their intended targets,” Caine said. Asked if he had been pressured or would bow to pressure from the White House to paint a rosier assessment of the strikes, Caine responded: “No, I have not. And I would not.” The White House embarked on a third day of battling with the media, after several news outlets reported on a preliminary assessment that said the strikes may have only set Iran’s nuclear program back by months. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday said information from that preliminary report was leaked to the media with “gaps of information.” He said the “low-confidence” report was not coordinated with the Intelligence Community, which will needs weeks to make a final assessment. He said the media did not report that the assessment also said “severe damage” was a possible outcome from the strikes. Hegseth blasted the press, including a reporter from Fox News, his old employer. “You, the press, you cheer against Trump so hard, it’s 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,” Hegseth said. “You have to hope maybe they weren’t effective.” Hegseth on Thursday cited new assessments from the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission, Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, all of whom reported that Iran’s nuclear facilities suffered major damage. Rafael Grossi, the director general of the IAEA, determined that the Fordow uranium enrichment plant is “no longer an operational facility.” Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), a close ally to Israel, posted on X: “To those who were ‘unimpressed’ or borderline gloating on a leak: Operation Midnight Hammer worked. I’ve been calling for and fully supported those strikes, and it made the world safer. It should transcend partisan politics.” MEANWHILE… The Trump administration, furious over the leak, will limit the amount of classified information it shares with Congress going forward. “This administration wants to be sure that classified information is not ending up in irresponsible hands and that people who have the privilege of viewing this top secret classified information are being responsible with it,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday. Rep. Jim Himes (Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, blasted both the leak and the clampdown on intelligence sharing. “The leak of classified information is unacceptable and should be fully investigated and those responsible held accountable,” Himes said. “It’s also unacceptable for the Administration to use unsubstantiated speculation about the source of a leak to justify cutting off Congress from classified intelligence reporting, particularly when over a million people within the Executive Branch have clearance to access classified top-secret reporting.” The FBI is investigating the leak, which Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff called “treasonous.” 💡Perspectives: • The Hill: Trump is a disruptor — but for good or for ill? • BBC: Iran’s supreme leader finds a very different nation. • The Nation: The math that gave us Trump. • Chronicles: Conservative media must engage with the culture. Read more: • Satellite images reveal new signs of damage at Iranian nuclear sites. • Rubio fleshes out Trump’s case that Iran nuclear capacity was eliminated. • Iranian ‘sleeper cells’: What to know about US warnings. • Unpacking the conflicting assessments on Iran strikes. • Questions around success of Iran strikes spark fears on Capitol Hill. IN OTHER NEWS

© PAP Photo/Heather Khalifa Dems wrestle with meaning of Mamdani’s victory

Democrats are wrestling with the meaning of Zoharan Mamdani’s shocking upset victory in the Democratic primary to be mayor of New York City, with progressives holding it up as evidence of how a populist left-wing message can resonate with voters during President Trump’s second term. Mamdani, a 33-year old democratic socialist, took down former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) in the primary, a sea change moment in New York politics. Progressives are suddenly feeling triumphant after a brutal 2024 cycle that saw them lose several members of Congress. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said former Vice President Harris would’ve defeated Trump in the 2024 presidential election if she’d used Mamdani’s playbook of focusing on the economic needs of the middle class. “Instead of taking money from billionaires and putting stupid ads on television… you mobilize thousands and thousands of people around the progressive agenda that speaks to the needs of working-class people and you go out and you knock on doors,” Sanders said. “And if somebody like a Kamala Harris had not listened to her consultants and done that, she would be president of the United States today.” Mamdani also benefitted from being a charismatic and social media-savvy candidate who resonated with young people agitating for generational and ideological change within the Democratic Party. However, centrist Democrats have expressed alarm, certain that Mamdani’s leftist agenda is a national loser for the party in the long-term. “The baggage and the danger of some of the ideas that he espouses and does so proudly, even in the final stretch of his campaign, is something that Democrats have to recognize is going to be deeply problematic in the places that we are going to need to win to take back the House,” Kate deGruyter, the senior director of communications for the center-left think tank Third Way, told The Hill. There’s also the matter of Mamdani’s anti-Israel activism — and his defense of the term “globalize the intifada” — which some Jewish Democrats see as antisemitic. Republicans see Mamdani as a gift and plan to highlight his progressive agenda, which includes city-run grocery stores and rent freezes. “It’s finally happened, the Democrats have crossed the line. Zohran Mamdani, a 100% Communist Lunatic, has just won the Dem Primary, and is on his way to becoming Mayor,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “We’ve had Radical Lefties before, but this is getting a little ridiculous.” Mamdani responded to Trump: “I encourage him — just like I encourage every New Yorker — to learn about my actual policies to make the city affordable,” Mamdani told ABC News’s Rachel Scott in an interview. Mamdani could face a crowded field in the general election, with Cuomo “assessing” a potential independent run, current New York City Mayor Eric Adams launching his independent reelection bid on Thursday, and Republican Curtis Sliwa all potentially in the race. Also on Thursday, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D), a potential 2028 Democratic presidential contender, launched his reelection bid for a third term. MEANWHILE… The Pew Research Center released its analysis of the 2024 election. The University of Virginia’s Center for Politics writes: “The biggest shifts to Donald Trump came among nonwhite voters and that men moved more toward Trump than women… One striking finding came among the roughly 10% of the electorate made up of naturalized citizens: They voted only narrowly for Kamala Harris after backing Joe Biden by about 20 points…The Democratic presidential coalition is still much more racially diverse than the Republican coalition, but the difference between the two has lessened over the course of Trump’s three elections.”

Why not tax the millionaires?

As Congress begins drafting a massive package for President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” with trillions of dollars in tax breaks and federal program cuts, it’s a question that won’t seem to go away.

Trump himself has mused he’d “love” to tax wealthier Americans a little bit more, but the Republican president has also repeatedly walked it back. This week, the president dismissed a tax hike as “disruptive” when asked about it at the White House.

But still it swirls.

And it’s setting up a potential showdown between the old guard of the Republican Party, which sees almost any tax hike as contrary to the GOP goal of slashing government, and its rising populist-nationalists, who view a millionaire’s tax as championing working-class voters who helped deliver the White House.

“Bring it, baby,” said former Trump strategist Stephen Bannon on his podcast.

Think of it as Bannon on the one side, versus Newt Gingrich, anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist and others on the other — a debate that once seemed unfathomable for Republicans who have spent generations working to lower taxes and reduce the scope of the federal government.

“I don’t think we’re raising taxes on anybody,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said this week on Fox News Channel.

Johnson said there have been lots of ideas thrown out but the Republicans are working against the idea of a tax on millionaires. “I’m not in favor of raising the tax rates because our party is the group that stands against that, traditionally,” he said.

This spring and summer, the Republican-led Congress is determined to make progress on the package, which is central to the party’s domestic policy agenda. It revolves around extending many of the GOP tax cuts that Congress approved in 2017, during Trump’s first term, but are expiring later this year.

As it stands, the top individual tax rate is now 37%, on annual incomes above $611,000 for single filers and $767,000 for married couples. If Congress fails to act, that rate is set to revert to what it was before the 2017 tax law, 39.6%, on top filers.

It seems impossible that Republicans in Congress will purposefully wade into the debate. They are striving to keep all the existing tax brackets in place, while adding new tax breaks the president campaigned on during the 2024 election — including no taxes on tips, Social Security income, overtime pay and others. It’s a potentially $5 trillion-plus package.

But the Bannon wing is working to force the issue, saying it’s time to raise that top rate on the wealthier households, at least $1 million and above.

Sounding at times more like progressive Democrats, Bannon’s flank sees a tax hike as a way not only to ensure wealthy Americans pay their fair share but to generate federal revenue. With federal debt at $36 trillion, they say it can help counter annual deficits that cannot be offset by budget cuts alone.

“The current system we have is not sustainable,” Bannon said at Semafor’s World Economy Summit on Wednesday in Washington. “You have to go to an alternative. I think the alternative is budget cuts. And … it has to be tax increases on the wealthy.”

That’s drawing fierce blowback from the traditional tax-cutters, who have gone into overdrive, warning of nothing short of a political shattering of GOP orthodoxy, and the party itself, if Republicans entertain the idea.

“Madness,” Gingrich, the former Republican House speaker, told Fox News’ Larry Kudlow.

Gingrich warns of a George Bush-style political implosion similar to his “Read my lips: No new taxes” pledge, which contributed to his failed 1992 presidential reelection bid.

“It would be a disaster,” Gingrich said.

Trump appears to be weighing the arguments, sending mixed messages about what he prefers.

“Newt is quite possibly right on this,” the president said in a note Gingrich said he received from the president and reposted Tuesday on social media.

“While I love the idea of a small increase,” Trump said in the note, “the Democrats would probably use it against us, and we would be, like Bush, helpless to do anything about it.”

Trump went on to counsel that if they can do without it, they’re probably better off. “We don’t need to be the ‘READ MY LIPS’ gang who lost an election,” he posted.

Asked about a tax hike on millionaires Wednesday in the Oval Office, Trump was more definitive.

“I think it would be very disruptive,” he said, suggesting wealthy Americans would simply leave the country, rather than pay the higher tax, and end up costing in lost revenues.

Yet in a Time magazine interview posted Friday, Trump said of a millionaires’ tax: “I actually love the concept, but I don’t want it to be used against me politically.”

As Republicans in Congress work behind the scenes crafting the tax bill — and at least $1.5 trillion in government spending cuts to help cover the lost revenues — it seems highly unlikely enough of them would agree to a tax hike.

Most of the congressional Republicans have signed a no-taxes pledge from Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform group, even as others signal some interest.

With Democrats prepared to oppose the package altogether because of its expected steep cuts to federal programs, the Republicans will need to keep all their lawmakers in line if they hope to pass the bill through the House and the Senate with their narrow majorities.

Yet, as Republicans are scrounging for ways to pay for their tax bill, they face potential resistance within their own ranks to reductions in Medicaid, food stamps or other federal programs.

Even an accounting measure preferred by the Senate Republicans, which would count the 2017 tax breaks as current policy rather than a new one requiring an offset, still comes up short for covering the full price tag of the new package, which could swell beyond $5 trillion over 10 years.

Setting the new top rate at about 40% for those earning $1 million or above would bring in some $300 billion in revenue over the decade, analysts have said.