Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Briefs Members of the Media, June 26, 2025

June 26, 2025 · The White House · 0:31:48

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt briefed members of the media on June 26, 2025, carried on the White House channel, leading with the strikes on Iran. “Following President Trump’s command, the most powerful military in the history of the world executed massive precision strikes on three of the Iranian regime’s key nuclear facilities. The objective of Operation Midnight Hammer was to destroy the regime’s nuclear enrichment capacity and stop the grave nuclear threat,” she said, calling the mission, as she characterized it, an overwhelming success and pointing to that morning’s Pentagon briefing by Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs for detail.

Leavitt said that within 48 hours of the strike the President and his team had brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Iran that officially ended, as she put it, the 12-day war, and she stated the administration’s position that there was broad consensus — the United States, Israel, the United Nations, and, as she put it, even Iran — that Iran’s nuclear capabilities had been destroyed, rejecting contrary leaked assessments. She then turned to the NATO summit, saying allies had agreed to invest 5 percent of GDP annually in defense “because President Trump demanded it,” as she stated the commitment.

Why it matters

This briefing is the White House’s consolidated account, five days after the strikes, of Operation Midnight Hammer, the ceasefire, and the NATO spending commitment — the three claims the administration carried into the summer, stated in the Press Secretary’s own presentation.

Scoreboard watch

This briefing is a scoreboard reference point: the Press Secretary’s June 26, 2025 account of the destruction of Iran’s nuclear capabilities and of the NATO 5-percent commitment, each as she stated it, to be checked against the published assessments and alliance record.

Sources: The White House, “Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Briefs Members of the Media, June 26, 2025” (official upload, embedded above). All characterizations as stated by the Press Secretary.