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(WASHINGTON) — “We didn’t do it for recognition. We did it out of duty to one another and to our country.”

Those are the humble words of Pfc. John Wardell, 99, as he and U.S. Army Ranger veterans from World War II were honored with the Congressional Gold Medal on Thursday.

“To be a Ranger is to live by a code: Courage. Sacrifice. Resolve,” Wardell said. “That legacy lives on in every Ranger who follows. Our motto has stood the test of time, and it always will. Rangers lead the way!”

Wardell, who served in E Company, 2nd Ranger Battalion, joined Sgt. Joe Drake as two of five surviving Army Rangers — among more than 6,500 who served in WWII — for a patriotic ceremony in Emancipation Hall at the U.S. Capitol.

“On behalf of all the Rangers, I accept this special award,” Drake, 100, said. “I’d like to thank each member of this Congress for giving me and every Ranger this extraordinary award.”

The Congressional Gold Medal, which is struck from 24-karat gold, is the highest civilian award given by Congress to people who have made a major and long-standing impact on American history and culture.

“This band of brothers is so deserving, and this day, to be frank, is long overdue,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said. “They formed the spearhead of American special operations in the Second World War, and today, we express our most profound gratitude for their courageous contributions with the highest honor that this body can bestow, and that is the Congressional Gold Medal.”

Today marked the 159th time that Congress has awarded the medal. Ranging from its first recipient George Washington to Robert Frost, Walt Disney, Rosa Parks and the Tuskegee Airmen, Speaker Johnson remarked the U.S. Army Rangers who served in World War II came from “every corner of American life,” from welders and waiters to factory hands and musicians.

“There were ordinary men called to extraordinary valor, who stared death in the face and by the grace of God, achieved the incredible and defended freedom,” Johnson said. “They were America’s best.”

That sentiment was bipartisan, as congressional leaders and military officials honored the Rangers.

“What the Army Rangers achieved in Normandy, they did again and again and again throughout the war, across every theater, against overwhelming odds,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said. “With the fate of the free world on the line, Army Rangers led the way.”

It was during the D-Day invasion on the beaches of Normandy in France that the Rangers gained their motto.

Following the United States’ strikes against Iran’s nuclear sites last weekend and a trip with President Donald Trump to a NATO summit at The Hague earlier this week, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth appeared at the ceremony, as did Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“Today we celebrate real heroes,” Hegseth said. “We point the spotlight exactly where it deserves to go.”

“It is altogether fitting and proper that we are here today honoring these two men and the other three at home, and all the Army Rangers of World War Two and all generations who’ve been willing to put it all on the line for the rest of us,” Hegseth said. “There are heroes among us, ordinary people who did extraordinary things.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday said the U.S. military bomb strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities had “significantly damaged [Iran’s] nuclear program” and “set it back by years” in a confrontational news conference called to counter an early intelligence assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency that said Iran’s program had been set back only by months.

Hegseth described news reports about the leaked DIA report as “half-truths” intended “to cause doubt and manipulate” and instead said he would focus on what he called the “bottom line” of Saturday’s strikes involving seven B-2 stealth bombers that dropped 14 massive ordnance penetrators on two of the three Iranian sites.

“President Trump directed the most complex and secretive military operation in history, and it was a resounding success, resulting in a ceasefire agreement and the end of the 12-day war” in Iran, Hegseth said.

“Because of decisive military action, President Trump created the conditions to end the war, decimating – choose your word – obliterating, destroying Iran’s nuclear capabilities.”

Asked twice during the briefing about enriched uranium that may have been moved from nuclear sites before the attack — a key outstanding question as the intelligence community assesses post-strike realities — Hegseth said the Pentagon was “watching every aspect” and did not say the U.S. believed it was under rubble at the sites.

But he said he hasn’t reviewed any intelligence “that says things were not where they were supposed to be,” whether “moved or otherwise.”

The director general of the UN’s nuclear oversight agency, Rafael Grossi, has said he believes the material was moved from the sites before the attacks.

Hegseth lashed out against news media reporting about the early DIA assessment and said it was a “re-strike report” intended to gauge whether a site would need to be hit again.

Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, standing next Hegseth, referred questions about damage assessments to the intelligence community.

Hegseth said Caine told him in the White House Situation Room “that the first reports are almost always wrong.”

“They’re almost always incomplete,” he said Caine told him.

The defense secretary appeared to read from the preliminary DIA assessment that he said “admits itself, in writing, that it requires weeks to accumulate the necessary data to make” the assessment it made.

That assessment was made with “low confidence,” according to Hegseth, and was not coordinated with the broader intelligence community.

Hegseth said the DIA report was based on a “linchpin assumption,” which, he said, means “your entire premise is predicated on a linchpin” and “if you’re wrong, everything else is wrong.”

Caine, who had noticeably refrained from repeat Presdient Trump’s “obliterated” claim at a Sunday news conference the morning after the strikes, told reporters Thursday that “the Joint Force does not do [battle damage assessments] … the intelligence community does.”

Instead, he focused on tactical details and seemingly described a mission that unfolded without a hitch.

Describing “what we know,” Caine said “the weapons functioned as designed, meaning they exploded.” Planners “accounted for everything,” the chairman said.

“We know that the trailing jets saw the first weapons function and the pilots stated, quote, ‘This was the brightest explosion that I’ve ever seen. It literally looked like daylight.'”

Hegseth told reporters it was “my lane” as the top civilian leader at the Defense Department, to “do politics.” He said it was part of his job to “translate and talk about those types of things.”

“So, I can use the word ‘obliterated.’ He could use ‘defeat, destroyed,’ [and] assess all of those things.”

When asked, “Have you been pressured to change your assessment or give a more rosy intelligence assessment to us by any political factors, whether it’s the president or the secretary? And if you were, would you do that?” Caine said that was an “easy” question to answer.

“I’ve never been pressured by the president or the secretary, to do anything other than tell them exactly what I’m thinking,” he said. “And that’s exactly what I’ve done.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Many Republican senators dismissed the idea of overruling the Senate parliamentarian after she rejected key Medicaid provisions in Trump’s tax and immigration bill Thursday, which dealt a blow to Republicans’ plan to slash costs in the budget package.

This sentiment comes as Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said for months that he was opposed to going against the Senate’s rule enforcer.

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough on Thursday denied the GOP plan to cap states’ ability to collect more federal Medicaid funding through health care care provider taxes — a controversial provision that would have funded much of the bill’s tax cuts. Most of the savings in the bill came from the changes in Medicaid.

MacDonough’s ruling means that Senate Republicans will need to retool the provision or scrap it entirely if they want to move forward with attempting to pass the bill using only GOP votes.

The ruling is a major setback for Republican leadership, who are under pressure to expeditiously move it to the Senate floor to meet Trump’s Fourth of July deadline for passage. This ruling will require potentially major reworks of the bill with relatively little time to accomplish them. And no matter how they change it, leaders are likely to frustrate some faction of the Republican conference, which could imperil the bill’s passage.

A number of Republicans said on Thursday morning that they’d work to tweak language in the bill and send it back to MacDonough for review — but would not overrule her. It’s also unlikely that the Senate would move forward with the bill without the provider tax provisions, some said.

The Senate has “no intention of overruling her,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said of MacDonough. “But I think we’ll take another shot.”

Other Republican senators said that this will delay the timeline for passing the bill, which was set to move through the chamber this weekend.

“I think we’ll make another run at it … my guess is that they’ll continue to work,” Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt said.

“Yeah, could push [the timeline] back,” Schmitt said about MacDonough’s ruling. “We’ll see. But we’re committed to being here through the weekend, so I don’t think it changes that overall time frame.”

Republican Sen. Rick Scott said MacDonough’s ruling is “pretty frustrating,” but rejected the idea that the Senate would overrule the parliamentarian.

“What we’ve got to do is work through this process and come up with something that fulfills the Trump agenda — also has fiscal sanity. So I’m going to keep working hard to do that,” Scott said, adding he’s “optimistic” it can be accomplished.

Republican Sen. John Kennedy stated clearly that “we would never overrule the parliamentarian.”

Other Republicans, however, fumed over the parliamentarian and her ruling.

Republican Sen. Tommy Tubberville came out brashly against MacDonough — calling for Thune to fire her “ASAP” and accused her of being partisan. He did not mention overruling her, however.

“The WOKE Senate Parliamentarian, who was appointed by Harry Reid and advised Al Gore, just STRUCK DOWN a provision BANNING illegals from stealing Medicaid from American citizens. This is a perfect example of why Americans hate THE SWAMP,” Tubberville said in a post on X.

“Unelected bureaucrats think they know better than U.S. Congressmen who are elected BY THE PEOPLE. Her job is not to push a woke agenda. THE SENATE PARLIAMENTARIAN SHOULD BE FIRED ASAP,” he added.

Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin suggested that MacDonough made her rulings as part of a “political decision.”

“I’m concerned about the parliamentarian’s ability to make these decisions,” Mullin said.

He later added, “If it’s a political decision on [her] part, then that’s not OK.”

The provider tax credit provisions had been emerging as a thorn in leadership’s side even before MacDonough’s ruling.

For days, a small but critical faction of the Senate GOP conference has been raising major flags about the way this cut to states’ Medicaid revenue might kneecap rural hospitals in their states. A number of Republicans in the Senate were threatening to withhold their votes for the package because of these changes to the provider tax, so for that group, MacDonough’s ruling is likely a welcome one.

If changes are made to the Medicaid provision to accommodate MacDonough’s ruling, all eyes will be on a handful of Senate Republicans. Some changes could be deal breakers for those whose vote is critical to moving the bill over the finish line.

Last weekend, MacDonough carefully scrutinized the House-passed bill for possible violations of the Senate’s rules. She has already issued a number of decisions that Democrats are touting as major victories.

This review, called the Byrd Bath — named after the late Sen. Robert Byrd, who helped institute the rules governing budget reconciliation packages, is still underway in the Senate.

Any provision that MacDonough rules out of order with the Senate’s rules will have to be stripped or else the legislation will be subject to the 60-vote threshold in the Senate. Republicans need to avoid this, or they won’t be able to pass the bill.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Thursday offered enthusiastic praise of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s briefing at the Pentagon, where he provided more information about the U.S. strikes on Iran and defended the president.

“One of the greatest, most professional, and most ‘confirming’ News Conferences I have ever seen! The Fake News should fire everyone involved in this Witch Hunt, and apologize to our great warriors, and everyone else!” Trump wrote on his conservative social media platform, where earlier he had encouraged followers to tune in.

Hegseth’s news conference came amid a full-court press from Trump’s top officials dispute a preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment that said the bombings may have only set it back by a few months.

“You want to call it destroyed. You want to call it defeated. You want to call it obliterated. Choose your word. This was an historically successful attack and we should celebrate as Americans,” a defiant Hegseth said from the podium as he railed against the news media coverage of the events and the leaked initial intelligence assessment.

“This is preliminary but leaked because someone had an agenda to try to muddy the waters and make it look like this historic strike wasn’t successful,” he said.

“Classified information is leaked or peddled for political purposes to try to make the president look bad,” he added.

The day prior, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard posted statements saying their intelligence supported Trump’s description of the damage inflicted by the U.S. military operation.

“CIA can confirm that a body of credible intelligence indicates Iran’s Nuclear Program has been severely damaged by the recent, targeted strikes,” Ratcliffe wrote in a statement.

Gabbard wrote on X: “New intelligence confirms what @POTUS has stated numerous times: Iran’s nuclear facilities have been destroyed. If the Iranians chose to rebuild, they would have to rebuild all three facilities (Natanz, Fordow, Esfahan) entirely, which would likely take years to do.”

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, who on Sunday had said it was “way too early” to make complete damage assessments, at Thursday’s news conference declined to give a detailed assessment.

“By design, we don’t grade our own homework. The intelligence community does,” Caine said.

“But here’s what we know following the attacks and the strikes on Fordo,” Caine continued. “First, that the weapons were built, tested and loaded properly. Two, the weapons were released on speed and on parameters. Three, the weapons all guided to their intended targets and to their intended aim points. Four, the weapons functioned as designed, meaning they exploded.”

“We know this through other means, intelligence means that we have that we were visibly able to see them,” Caine added. “And we know that the trailing jets saw the first weapons function and the pilots stated quote this was the brightest explosion that I’ve ever seen. It literally looked like daylight.'”

Caine was asked if he felt any political pressure on how to describe the strikes or their impact. “No, I have not, and no, I would not,” Caine responded.

Hegseth momentarily interrupted the questioning.

“The chairman here, who’s not involved in politics, he doesn’t do politics. That’s my lane — to understand and translate and talk about those types of things. So, I can use the word ‘obliterated,'” Hegseth said, the term Trump has used repeatedly.

Still, several questions remain not fully answered, particularly how far exactly the strikes set back Iran’s nuclear capabilities and whether Iran was able to move uranium away from the Fordo site before the bombings.

Hegseth and Caine were asked about the uranium during their 45-minute news conference. Neither provided a clear answer.

Hegseth first attacked the news reporter who asked the question, before saying: “We’re looking at all aspects of intelligence and making sure we have a sense of what was where.”

President Trump, who was watching the news conference, took to his social media account to weigh in on speculation that Iran may have moved uranium because of satellite images showing trucks lined up at Fordo in the days leading up to the attack.

“The cars and small trucks at the site were those of concrete workers trying to cover up the top of the shafts. Nothing was taken out of facility. Would take too long, too dangerous, and very heavy and hard to move!” Trump wrote on his social media site.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Thursday said individual Medicaid recipients do not have a right to sue over their state’s decision to cut off Planned Parenthood from the government-funded health insurance program for low-income residents.

The 6-3 decision, which broke along ideological lines, was a significant victory for conservative efforts to defund the private health clinic network, clearing the way for other states to follow suit.

“The Supreme Court rightly restored the ability of states like South Carolina to steward limited public resources to best serve their citizens,” said John Bursch, the attorney who defended South Carolina before the high court.

Planned Parenthood draws more than a third of its revenue from government grants, contracts and Medicaid reimbursements for non-abortion care, like cancer screenings and contraception treatments.

“Today’s decision is a grave injustice that strikes at the very bedrock of American freedom and promises to send South Carolina deeper into a health care crisis,” Planned Parenthood South Atlantic president Paige Johnson said in a statement.

The organization, which said it has served more than 50,000 state Medicaid beneficiaries so far this year, vowed to continue operations at its two South Carolina clinics.

At issue in the case was whether the Medicaid Act — which guarantees a “free choice of provider” that is willing and qualified — allows beneficiaries to sue their state if the government infringes on the ability see a preferred provider.

In 2018, South Carolina’s Republican Gov. Henry McMaster issued executive orders disqualifying Planned Parenthood from participation in the state’s Medicaid program, which is a jointly funded federal-state initiative.

Julie Edwards, a Medicaid beneficiary and type-1 diabetic who sought medical care at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Columbia, South Carolina, sued the state alleging a violation of the law.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the court’s majority, said that Congress never intended to allow individual recipients to sue states to enforce terms of the Medicaid Act and that it retains the sole responsibility through power of the purse.

“It generally belongs to the federal government to supervise compliance with its own spending programs,” Gorsuch wrote.

In dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, said that the decision thwarted the will of lawmakers and undermined a key civil rights law.

“Today’s decision is likely to result in tangible harm to real people,” she wrote. “At a minimum, it will deprive Medicaid recipients in South Carolina of their only meaningful way of enforcing a right that Congress has expressly granted to them. And, more concretely, it will strip those South Carolinians — and countless other Medicaid recipients around the country — of a deeply personal freedom: the ability to decide who treats us at our most vulnerable.”

South Carolina’s two Planned Parenthood clinics have served mostly low-income, minority women for more than 40 years.

“By denying Medicaid enrollees the ability to enforce their right to choose among qualified providers, the Court has effectively closed the courthouse doors to those seeking to protect their access to care,” said Jane Perkins, legal director at the National Health Law Program, a nonprofit advoacy group. “This decision disproportionately impacts low-income individuals who rely on Medicaid for essential health services.”

Anti-abortion groups, which have long targeted Planned Parenthood as the nation’s largest provider of abortion services, hailed the Supreme Court decision.

“Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer-funded gravy train is swiftly coming to an end,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA Pro-Life America.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Senate’s rule enforcer dealt a major blow to Senate Republicans Thursday morning by ruling a key Medicaid provision in the megabill that advances President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda is out of order.

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough found that a provision that cracks down on states’ use of health care provider taxes to help collect additional Medicaid funding is not in keeping with the rules governing a package like the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which senators are making changes to as Republicans work to meet Trump’s Fourth of July deadline for passage.

MacDonough’s ruling means that Senate Republicans will need to retool the provision or scrap it entirely if they want to move forward with attempting to pass the bill using only GOP votes.

The ruling is a major setback for Republican leadership, who are under pressure to expeditiously move it to the Senate floor to meet the July deadline. This ruling will require potentially major reworks of the bill with relatively little time to accomplish them. And no matter how they change it, leaders are likely to frustrate some faction of the Republican conference, which could imperil the bill’s passage.

The provider tax credit provisions had been emerging as a thorn in leadership’s side even before MacDonough’s ruling.

For days, a small but critical faction of the Senate GOP conference has been raising major flags about the way this cut to states’ Medicaid revenue might kneecap rural hospitals in their states. A number of Republicans in the Senate were threatening to withhold their votes for the package because of these changes to the provider tax, so for that group, MacDonough’s ruling is likely a welcome one.

But changes to the provider tax rate was one of the major ways that Republicans planned to reform Medicaid and cut costs. Getting rid of this provision will either raise the cost of the package and risk rankling a number of conservative Republicans, or force Senate Republicans back to the drawing board to find another way to cut costs.

If changes are made, all eyes will be on a handful of Senate Republicans. Some changes could be deal breakers for those whose vote is critical to moving the bill over the finish line.

Last weekend, MacDonough carefully scrutinized the House-passed bill for possible violations of the Senate’s rules. She has already issued a number of decisions that Democrats are touting as major victories.

This review, called the Byrd Bath — named after the late Sen. Robert Byrd, who helped institute the rules governing budget reconciliation packages, is still underway in the Senate.

Any provision that MacDonough rules out of order with the Senate’s rules will have to be stripped or else the legislation will be subject to the 60-vote threshold in the Senate. Republicans need to avoid this, or they won’t be able to pass the bill.

There are already cries from some Republicans for Majority Leader John Thune to lead the Senate in a vote to overrule the parliamentarian. The Senate technically can overrule MacDonough with a simple majority of votes. But Thune has long said he won’t overrule her because he has vowed not to touch the Senate’s filibuster rules.

It’s not yet clear whether this ruling will force a further delay in efforts by leadership to get the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to the Senate floor late this week or over the weekend.

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(NEW YORK) — Zohran Mamdani, the presumptive Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, told ABC News in a wide-ranging interview aired Wednesday that he plans to win over moderate voters — even as a self-identified Democratic socialist — as he runs in the general election.

He said he also believes the Democratic Party needs to refocus on what working-class Americans are going through.

“I think that the Democratic Party must always remember what made so many proud to be Democrats, which is a focus on the struggles of working class Americans across this country,” Mamdani told ABC News Senior Political Correspondent Rachel Scott.

“And I think that there is a need for a new generation of leadership,” he added.

The 33-year-old State Assembly member, who campaigned on a progressive economic platform, declared victory over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo as results in Tuesday’s closely watched primary rolled in.

Asked how he’d respond to voters who are nervous about his age and relative inexperience, Mamdani pointed to his campaign fundraising and sheer number of volunteers, as well as meetings he said he’s had with deputy mayors and commissioners from many mayoral administrations, “all as part of my commitment to building a team that is united, not by ideology, not by past relationship or knowledge, but frankly, by excellence.”

Mamdani also spoke with Scott about addressing concerns from Democrats about the “Democratic socialist” label, when he would be open to collaborating with President Donald Trump and reaching out to Jewish New Yorkers.

Embracing the Democratic socialist label – and winning over moderates

Mamdani has proudly identified as a Democratic socialist — a label that some Democrats have expressed concerns about, especially as some Republicans have seized on the label to claim that all Democrats are socialists or far-left.

“What do you say to those Democrats who have concerns about that term, Democratic socialist, that you so proudly claim you are?” Scott asked.

“I would say that I hear them, because there’s room to have disagreement and tension in any one party. And for too long, we’ve thought of politics as an act of purity, where you only work with those that you agree with on every issue… And there are going to be many Democrats, both here in this city and across the country, who have a different lens of what it is that they see us needing in this moment,” Mamdani said.

“But ultimately, we agree on the importance of addressing affordability, and that’s at the core of our campaign.”

How would he win back voters who may think the policies Mamdani ran on are too far to the left of where they think the Democratic Party should be?

“I would tell them to look at the results of last night,” he said, referring to the primary on Tuesday. He called the results a “clear reflection of a mandate to make this city affordable” and one that showed Democrats united in support of his economic proposals.

“And it shows that for a long time, what we’ve heard in terms of the analysis of this city and its politics is actually out of step with where people are.”

He added later that he hopes to win the support of people who would otherwise vote for incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, who he criticized as “the original architect of this affordability crisis over the last few years.”

As to why voters should support him over Adams, he said, “I’m someone who will make the city more affordable, and because what we’ve seen is that this present has been delivered to us by the policies and the politics and even the politicians of the past. It’s time for a new generation of leadership. It’s time for a politics of the future.”

Adams, speaking on Fox News on Wednesday, criticized Mamdani as a “snake oil salesman,” saying, “I delivered for the city and we’re not going backwards.”

Working with, or opposing, Trump

When asked about comments from President Donald Trump on social media calling him a “Communist Lunatic,” Mamdani shrugged off the epithet, saying he’d encourage Trump to learn about his policies, and that he’d work with Trump on affordability but would resist the president’s deportation plans.

“The next mayor of New York City will have to work with the Trump administration. Are you willing to do that? Will you do that?” Scott asked.

“I will work with the Trump administration when it is to the benefit of New Yorkers,” Mamdani said. “My approach will never be reflexive, whether in agreement or opposition, but if it comes at the expense of the New Yorkers that I’m running to serve, then, no, I will not be working with the administration on harming the people that I look to represent.”

Asked by Scott how he’d manage that relationship, Mamdani reiterated wanting to collaborate with Trump on lowering the price of groceries – pointing to his campaign plan to open “a network of municipal-owned stores” – but also reiterated not wanting to assist the president with immigrant detentions.

Outreach to the Jewish community

Mamdani has faced some pushback, given New York’s large Jewish population, over his history of comments and activism opposing Israel, including his criticism of Israel over the war in Gaza. In response, he has emphasized policies to combat antisemitism and said that he wants to focus on city issues.

“How do you gain the trust of Jewish voters in New York City?” Scott asked.

Mamdani brought up his campaign plan to increase funding for anti-hate crime programming, but acknowledged a divide between his views on Israel and those of many in the Jewish community.

“Ultimately, my comments have been on critiques of the Israeli government’s policies, and I know that there are many New Yorkers who may disagree with me on those same critiques,” Mamdani said. “And yet that disagreement is still rooted in the shared sense of humanity.”

As for his strategy to reach out to Jewish voters, Mamdani said he was ready to “to introduce myself again and again” to every New Yorker, including Jewish New Yorkers, given the low name recognition he started out with in the race.

ABC News’ Brittany Shepherd contributed to this report.

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