New intel shows Iran’s nuclear capability is “severely damaged” – despite media reports and the Ayatollah’s claims. RFK Jr. pulls funding from a global vaccine group he says is ignoring the science. And New York is still reeling from a political earthquake after a self-styled socialist’s victory in the Democratic primary for mayor.

It’s Friday, June 27, and this is the news you need to know to start your day.

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Iran Intel & More Peace In Middle East

Topline: New details have emerged on the severity of U.S. airstrikes on Iran, as the White House hints at new peace deals with Middle Eastern adversaries.

Ayatollah Khamenei hadn’t been seen or heard from since before Saturday, as he refrained from any electronic communication for fear of being targeted himself. But on Thursday, he released a video where he struck a defiant tone, declaring victory over the U.S. and Israel and threatening to “take action again” if necessary. Khamenei assured his people that the American strikes “were unable to do anything important” and that President Trump had “exaggerated” their effectiveness — those claims have been mirrored by some elements of the legacy media.

The war in Iran might have ended, but the fighting is still going on in Washington, with the White House going to battle with the media over the state of Iran’s nuclear program. Knocking out Iran’s nuclear program could end up being one of the president’s signature accomplishments, and he wants credit. Almost immediately after the strikes, which the president said totally obliterated the Iranian nuclear program, the media began reporting otherwise, saying the program had only been set back a few months. A leaked damage assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency reportedly claimed Iran could have their nuclear program up and running by the new year and that the three nuclear sites struck by the United States had potentially sustained only “moderate” damage. Democrats and the legacy media jumped on that report, saying it was proof the strike was actually a failure and that Trump was lying to the public.

The White House is disputing this, saying the assessment in question was one of multiple preliminary estimates and that newer intelligence from the CIA and others has revealed the damage to be significantly more severe. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the press failed to report that the leaked document reported “low confidence” in its own assessment and had not been coordinated with the intelligence community more broadly.

“For people with common sense, everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000-pound bombs perfectly on their targets,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said. “Complete and total destruction and obliteration.”

On Thursday, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog, seemed to agree with the White House, saying Iran’s nuclear program “suffered enormous damage.” According to the agency’s director, “there’s a lot of debate about the degree of annihilation, total destruction, and so on. What I can tell you, and I think everyone agrees on this, is that very considerable damage has been done.”

The president has also suggested that other Middle Eastern countries might join the Abraham Accords and normalize relations with Israel in the coming days.

RFK Withdraws Funding For International Vaccine Organization

Topline: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the United States is withdrawing funding for an international vaccine organization that he says has lost the public’s trust.

Gavi is a global vaccine alliance that works to provide vaccinations to low-income people worldwide. It was founded by Bill Gates, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the World Bank back in 2000. Gavi has received more than $8 billion from the U.S. government since 2001 and claims to have vaccinated more than one billion children, saving millions of lives. 

RFK Jr.’s assessment of the group was not entirely negative: he commended Gavi for some of its work – particularly for keeping medicine affordable – when he announced that the United States would halt its financial contributions until Gavi could prove itself to be science-focused and transparent. Kennedy also stated that Gavi helped censor dissenting voices during the COVID pandemic and “ignored the science.”

“The World Health Organization and Gavi partnered together during the COVID-19 pandemic to recommend best practices for social media companies to silence dissenting views, to stifle free speech and legitimate questions during that period,” Kennedy said. “When vaccine safety issues have come before Gavi, Gavi has treated them not as a patient health problem, but as a public relations problem.”

Kennedy said Gavi must re-earn the public’s trust before the U.S. financial contribution continues. He advised Gavi to “consider the best science available, even when the science contradicts established paradigms.”

The Gates Foundation, in reaction to RFK Jr.’s remarks, has already pledged to give $1.6 billion over the next five years to support Gavi.

New York City’s New Frontrunner

Topline: Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani shocked New York – and many in the Democratic Party – by rising out of seemingly nowhere to win the city’s Democratic primary for mayor.

A left-wing New York assemblyman, Zohran Mamdani, 33, won an upset victory in the NYC Democratic primary against former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, 67. Despite recent polling suggesting it would be a close race, Mamdani overperformed in the early returns with a decisive enough lead that Cuomo conceded within hours.

“Mamdani pulled it off by increasing the turnout among mostly white progressives,” Ryan Girdusky, host of the “It’s a Numbers Game” podcast, told The Daily Wire. “Cuomo’s turnout was not high enough among black voters. And at the same exact time, Mamdani’s voter turnout was absolutely like general election turnout. And that, along with being able to siphon off support from the Asian community — he had an immense amount of Asian outreach despite being against SATs. And the growing Muslim population certainly helped him. And then his last part of his coalition was he was able to splinter a sizable chunk of the Hispanic vote who do not live in the Bronx. He lost the Bronx terribly. But among other Hispanic communities, he did very, very well.”

Mamdani is a self-described socialist who has campaigned on rent control, government-owned grocery stores, raising taxes on the top 1% of New Yorkers, and offering sanctuary to illegal aliens. He has also been highly critical of the state of Israel, which he has described as “an apartheid state” that committed “genocide” in the Gaza Strip.

While many prominent New Yorkers, from billionaire Bill Ackman to rapper 50 Cent, have come out against Mamdani since his victory, he remains the favorite to win the general election. While he is not likely to win a majority of voters, Mamdani will likely face off against three other candidates who are likely to split much of the conservative-to-moderate electorate: incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who chose to run as an independent this election after previously being elected as a Democrat, Cuomo, who despite losing the Democratic primary is also registered to run as a third-party candidate, and Republican Curtis Silwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels crime prevention group.

All three other candidates have their own baggage – Governor Cuomo resigned in disgrace after a sexual harassment scandal, Adams was accused of accepting bribes in a federal investigation that has since been dropped, and Silwa, a former radio host and eccentric conservative, faces an uphill battle in a city that favored Democrats over Republicans by more than 2:1 in the last presidential election. Adams and Silwa are currently set on staying in the race, while Cuomo is presently “weighing his options.”

Girdusky told The Daily Wire that if one or more of the other candidates dropped out and allowed their supporters to coalesce, “they could probably beat him. I don’t know if anyone’s ego is small enough to allow that to happen.”