A new poll reveals Americans’ early feelings about U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. A recording appears to show the DOJ coordinated with Texas’ attorney general to kill a state law. And Jim Obergefell reflects on the fight LGBTQ rights 10 years after the landmark Supreme Court decision bearing his name.
Here’s what to know today.
More Americans oppose than support U.S. airstrikes on Iran, poll finds
A new NBC News Decision Desk Poll powered by SurveyMonkey found that Donald Trump’s call to launch airstrikes last weekend on several nuclear facilities in Iran has more opposition than support. According to the survey, 45% of U.S. adults oppose the airstrikes, versus 38% who support them. Another 18% of respondents said they neither support nor oppose the strikes.
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A closer look at the answers given by Republicans versus Democrats, however, shows less division. Among Republicans, 78% support the airstrikes, with 60% strongly supporting them. In a near-mirror image, 77% of Democrats oppose the airstrikes, with 61% strongly opposed.
There’s a starker division among independents: 45% oppose the U.S. airstrikes, 21% support and 34% neither support nor oppose them.
The survey ran from Monday through Wednesday, after Trump had made the decision to launch the airstrikes on Saturday. But in the time the survey was in the field, Iran launched a retaliatory strike at a U.S. military site in Qatar, Trump announced a ceasefire and chastised both countries for appearing to break the terms. It’s still unknown exactly what damage the strikes did to the Iranian nuclear program.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe said yesterday that new intelligence “from a historically reliable and accurate source/method” indicated that Iran’s nuclear program was “severely damaged” in recent U.S. airstrikes. A day earlier, a leaked Defense Intelligence Agency initial assessment found the strikes set back Iran’s program only by several months.
More coverage of Middle East conflicts:
- Trump’s diplomacy by social media has garnered renewed attention. His supporters are fine with his method for communicating with the world, but it carries a big risk.
- Iran’s exiled crown prince, Reza Pahlavi, is promoting a vision for a new Iran that prioritizes individual liberties, equality of “all citizens” and the separation of religion and state. He’s making his pitch for a regime change not from the streets of Tehran, but from a conference room in Paris.
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DOJ and Texas AG coordinated to kill the Texas Dream Act
A Texas law that gave undocumented immigrants in-state tuition was killed “in six hours” after the Justice Department coordinated with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, according to a recording obtained by NBC News. In the recording, Deputy Associate Attorney General Abhishek Kambli seemed to boast at a private Republican gathering earlier this month of the Trump administration’s actions.
On June 4, the Justice Department sued Texas over the Texas Dream Act, then quickly filed a joint motion with Texas asking a judge to declare the law unconstitutional and permanently enjoin Texas from enforcing the law. The same day, the judge did.
A Justice Department spokesperson did not dispute Kambli made the statements and said it was “pretty standard” for DOJ lawyers to notify state attorneys general of federal lawsuits ahead of time. Outside organizations, including Democracy Forward, the ACLU Foundation of Texas and the National Immigration Law Center, filed a motion this week arguing “the United States and the Texas Attorney General colluded to predetermine the outcome of the case.” Read the full story here.
More politics news:
- NATO members voted to more than double their defense spending targets to 5% of GDP, acceding to a previous demand from Trump. Still, the president’s unpredictability has caused anxiety among European leaders.
- The bill for Trump’s agenda proposes a crackdown on Medicaid reimbursements to health care providers, which could cost rural hospitals billions of dollars in funding. For people like Missouri resident Cierra Matthews, who credits Medicaid with saving her life, the cuts feel unfair.
- Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s stance on vaccines loomed over a Senate confirmation hearing for Susan Monarez, Kennedy’s pick to lead the CDC.
- A federal vaccine panel newly appointed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said it plans to review the childhood vaccination schedule and scrutinize vaccines that have been approved for decades.
- Some former employees of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who were fired, rehired and fired again said they have received debt notices to pay the government back for health care coverage they never had.
Democrats’ New York state of mind
A 33-year-old progressive overtook a former governor and scion of a New York political dynasty. And it has put the Democratic Party on notice. Zohran Mamdani’s ascension in the primary election for New York City mayor over Andrew Cuomo was a massive shot in the arm for progressives and other Democrats who have been imploring their party’s elder statesmen to step aside for a new generation of leaders.
The full results of the ranked choice election will not be known until next week, but early data shows Mamdani defied polling expectations and appealed to a unique coalition of voters through a combination of his on-the-ground campaigning and social media presence.
Democratic congressional leaders Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, both from New York, put out statements congratulating Mamdani, but they didn’t explicitly call for the party to fall in line behind him. Other New York Democrats put out statements saying he’s too extreme. Meanwhile, David Hogg, a former Democratic National Committee official who has supported primary challengers against long-serving Democrats, said in a statement: “The people have spoken — and they’re saying that the establishment is cooked.”
Mamdani still has a general election to win, but as far as many progressives are concerned, his primary feat was itself a major victory. Read the full story here.
More coverage of the New York City election:
- Supporters of ranked choice voting say the system incentivizes candidates to throw their support behind one another. Critics say it’s confusing, time consuming and will sow more confusion in elections. Nonetheless, its use in this week’s election has reopened a national debate.
Read All About It
- Several Iranian asylum-seekers in Los Angeles have been arrested recently by immigration officials, and one woman experienced a severe panic attack after she witnessed her husband’s arrest.
- Cooper Flagg was taken No. 1 in the NBA Draft by the Dallas Mavericks. Beyond that, here are the biggest surprises and other takeaways from the first day of the draft.
- An attorney representing rapper Fat Joe’s former hype man was accused of hitting a process server with his car in New York City amid an ongoing legal battle.
- A social media fitness influencer known as the “Liver King” was arrested in Texas after posting messages online “picking a fight” with podcaster Joe Rogan.
Staff Pick: 10 years later, Jim Obergefell says the same-sex marriage fight isn’t over
A year ago, recognizing the approaching 10th anniversary of the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, I decided to try to speak with Jim Obergefell, the lead plaintiff. I was aiming to gather his reflections on a decade of nationwide same-sex marriage rights. By October, I had secured a tentative interview with him.
However, as the actual anniversary neared, neither Jim nor I anticipated the palpable fear that would grip the LGBTQ community. What began as a retrospective on marriage equality evolved to include efforts in several states to overturn those rights. It became clear that the story was no longer just about Jim celebrating a past victory. It grew to include his ongoing fight to honor his late husband by trying to secure for the country the rights they so desperately wanted for themselves. — Steven Romo, correspondent
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