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Welcome to The Hill’s Defense & NatSec newsletter

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Defense &
National Security

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The Big Story

New developments as Israel-Iran ceasefire hits a week

As the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran hits one week, there’s little clarity on what comes next in U.S.-Iran relations and whether Iran remains a near-term nuclear threat.

President Trump and Iran’s leaders have sent mixed signals on resuming nuclear talks, while new evidence called into further question Trump’s claims that U.S. strikes obliterated Iran’s nuclear threat.

Trump denied reports Monday that he is weighing a $30 billion deal with Iran that would allow for the development of civilian nuclear facilities.

The ceasefire came after a 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran, which started when Israel launched an attack on Tehran in June that it said was meant to prevent the country from developing a nuclear bomb. Iran has maintained its nuclear program is not intended to produce a weapon.

Among the most headline-grabbing developments this week was the intercepted communication between senior Iranian government officials commenting that June’s U.S. strikes on Tehran’s nuclear sites were less devastating than expected.

The Iranian officials in a phone call said the U.S. bombing of three nuclear facilities was not as damaging or extensive as had been expected, challenging Trump’s repeated assertions that the sites and Tehran’s nuclear program were “completely and totally obliterated.”

The call, first reported by The Washington Post, follows debate among the intelligence community as to how damaged the Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites were after the strikes.

While Trump continues to insist the bombings destroyed all they targeted and sent Iran’s nuclear program back by years, a leaked summary from the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency found that structures underneath Fordow and Natanz were still intact and Tehran was only set back by months, as it had likely moved a significant portion of enriched uranium prior to the strikes.

After classified briefings last week at the Capitol, Republican lawmakers have conceded that the strikes may not have wiped out all of Iran’s nuclear materials.

Trump administration officials have not denied the Iran call’s existence but have attacked the Post’s reporting.

Further contradicting Trump’s claims, the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said Sunday Iran could restart enriching uranium “in a matter of months.”

Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that “one cannot claim that everything has disappeared and there is nothing there” when it comes to Iran’s capabilities.

“The capacities they have are there. They can have, you know, in a matter of months, I would say, a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium, or less than that,” Grossi said on CBS’s “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”

Read the full report at TheHill.com.

Welcome to The Hill’s Defense & National Security newsletter, I’m Ellen Mitchell — your guide to the latest developments at the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill and beyond.

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Essential Reads

How policy will affect defense and national security now and in
the future:

FBI determines headquarters will remain in DC

The FBI announced Tuesday it would not be moving its headquarters outside of D.C., abandoning plans hatched under the Biden administration to move the bureau to the Maryland suburbs. The bureau will leave the crumbling Hoover Building and instead occupy space at the Ronald Reagan Building — space that was recently occupied by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Full Story

EU’s top diplomat urges Iran to resume nuclear talks

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas urged Iran to resume talks on ending the country’s nuclear program while speaking with Tehran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. “Negotiations on ending Iran’s nuclear programme should restart as soon as possible. Cooperation with @iaeaorg must resume. The EU is ready to facilitate this. Any threats to pull out of the non-proliferation treaty don’t help to lower tensions,” Kallas said in a Tuesday post on social platform X.

Full Story

Iran-linked hackers threaten to release Trump aides’ emails: Report

A hacking group linked to Iran is threatening to release emails from the accounts of several top aides to President Trump, according to Reuters. The hackers told the news agency they had about 100 gigabytes of emails from Trump officials, including White House chief of staff Susie Wiles. Emails from Trump lawyer Lindsey Halligan, adviser Roger Stone and adult film actor Stormy Daniels, who was a key figure in the Manhattan hush money trial against Trump, were also reportedly accessed.

Full Story

On Our Radar

Upcoming things we’re watching on our beat:

The Navy and Marine Corps’ Large-Scale Exercise 2025, a global training drill, is set to begin in August and take place across 22 time zones, involve 10 operation centers, be run by about 900 people.

In Other News

Branch out with a different read from The Hill:

DOJ memo pushes for broader effort to revoke naturalized US citizenship

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has laid out new guidelines encouraging its attorneys to seek to strip U.S. citizenship from those who have naturalized if they have committed various crimes. The June 11 memo tells attorneys in the Civil Division to move to strip citizenship from immigrants if they …

Full Story

On Tap Tomorrow

Events in and around the defense world:

The Center for Strategic and International Studies will discuss the key challenges and opportunities across various sectors that will shape the future of trilateral relations among U.S. allies in the Indo-Pacific with Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) at 11 a.m.

What We’re Reading

News we’ve flagged from other outlets:

Senate passes Trump’s major policy bill with $150 billion for the DOD (Military Times)
Army secretary fires entire corps of civilian advisers from communities across US (Military.com)
Satellite imagery shows Iran at work at Fordo nuclear site (The New York Times)

Trending Today

Two key stories on The Hill right now:

Senate passes big changes to student loans in reconciliation bill

The Senate’s version of President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” passed Tuesday would make significant changes to student loan programs, worrying … Read more

House conservatives threaten floor revolt over Trump megabill

A handful of hard-line House conservatives are threatening to tank a Wednesday procedural vote for the party’s reconciliation bill, a revolt that would … Read more

Opinions in The Hill

Op-eds related to defense & national security submitted to The Hill:

A World War II Allied bombing raid holds lessons for the B-2 attacks on Iran
Trump’s bombs won’t solve the nuclear proliferation problem
CNN has no one to blame but itself