Trump disputes Iran attack plan report; TikTok deadline extended

Happy Thursday — It's Juneteenth! It's a fairly quiet day in Washington for the federal holiday, but it's a workday at the White House. Oh, and today is the last full day of spring! 🌷
In today's issue:
🌍 IRAN LATEST
President Trump pushed back on The Wall Street Journal's reporting that he has OKed an attack plan against Iran.
'The Wall Street Journal has No Idea what my thoughts are concerning Iran!' Trump posted on Truth Social this morning.
The gist of that WSJ report: Trump reportedly told senior aides he approved an attack plan for Iran but is holding off on giving the final 'OK' in order to give Iran one last chance to abandon its nuclear program.
What do we know about Trump's thinking?: He is keeping his strategy under wraps while Israel and Iran exchange missile barrages. 'Nobody knows what I'm going to do,' Trump stressed to reporters on Wednesday.
The latest in the Middle East: Israel has vowed to intensify its attacks after Iran targeted a civilian hospital in southern Israel on Thursday. Dozens of people were left with minor injuries, but the strike caused 'extensive' damage. 📸 Photos of the hospital
Israel revealed today that it has also targeted 'key sites' related to Iran's nuclear capabilities.
And Israel's military has ramped up its rhetoric against Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, days after Trump threatened to target him.
Happening on Friday: Iranian officials will meet with foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, Germany and France, plus the European Union foreign policy chief.
🗨️ Follow today's live blog
The U.S. has begun Israel evacuations: The State Department has begun evacuating nonessential government diplomats and their families from Israel, according to The Associated Press.
This comes days after Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) announced he would no longer travel to Israel for a planned address.
How do lawmakers feel about potential U.S. involvement?: Senators in both parties are nervous about the possibility of Trump inserting the U.S. in the Israel-Iran conflict. There is broad support for Israel on Capitol Hill, but the fear of a broader war in the Middle East has lawmakers on edge. Read Al Weaver's reporting
📱️NEW THIS MORNING
President Trump has extended the deadline for TikTok's parent company to divest from the app in order to avoid a U.S. ban.
The new deadline: Sept. 17
Trump posted on Truth Social: 'I've just signed the Executive Order extending the Deadline for the TikTok closing for 90 days (September 17, 2025). Thank you for your attention to this matter!' 📸 Screenshot of the executive order
Keep in mind: This is the *third* extension Trump took office in January.
⏱️ ON CAPITOL HILL
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) is aggressively trying to woo the Senate Republicans who are uncomfortable with the tax and spending bill's proposed Medicaid cuts.
Thune's goal is to bring the Senate's version of the 'big, beautiful bill' to the floor next week, which is becoming an ambitious timeline considering the obstacles.
What's happening behind the scenes?: Thune and Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) are having discussions about the specifics of the Medicaid cuts.
GOP holdouts' concerns: They're concerned that Medicaid's costs would shift too much to the states and onto lower-income Americans. There are also concerns about the Medicaid work and eligibility requirements.
How these negotiations may play out: 'Republican sources familiar with the negotiations say they expect Senate GOP leaders and the holdouts to work out some sort of deal to provide direct financial assistance to rural hospitals that would be in danger of closing if the Senate bill passes in its current form.' Read the reporting from The Hill's Alexander Bolton
Keep in mind, they're getting pressure from the top: White House chief of staff Susie Wiles attended Republicans' lunch on Wednesday, where she said Trump expects the bill to be on his desk by July 4.
➤ CAUGHT IN THE CROSSHAIRS — FOOD STAMPS:
For food stamp recipients, Congress may soon end the work requirement exemptions for veterans, homeless people and youth who were in foster care.
The gist: House Republicans kept those exemptions in their bill, but Senate Republicans removed that language in their version. Read more
Media personality Tucker Carlson published his fiery nearly two-hour interview with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) where the two high-profile conservatives sparred over the U.S.'s Iran policy.
The Hill's Dominick Mastrangelo pulled together five takeaways from the contentious discussion:
Keep in mind: On Cruz's 'Verdict' podcast, he argues that Carlson 'has gone bat-crap crazy [on foreign policy]. He's gone off the rails. He is suddenly a hardcore isolationist.'
💻 Watch the full interview
And if you missed 📹 the viral preview of the interview, it's worth watching.
COMING UP
The House and Senate are out. President Trump is in Washington. (All times EST):
📰 ️OTHER NEWS
The State Department says it will restart the student visa application process. However, applicants will be asked to make their social media profiles public for vetting.
The State Department plans to look for those 'who pose a threat to U.S. national security,' which The Hill's Lexi Lonas Cochran notes is the same phrase it has applied to pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses.
Read more: What we know about the new student visa interview process
🐝 INTERNET BUZZ
🍸 Celebrate: Today is National Martini Day!
🧯 A SpaceX rocket exploded: A SpaceX rocket exploded during a static fire test late Wednesday. The Wall Street Journal obtained wild footage of the explosion. 📹 Watch
🫗 Cannabis-infused drinks are having a moment: 'States are rushing to ban or restrict sales of intoxicating cannabis drinks that have exploded in popularity in a market lacking many of the regulations imposed on marijuana,' reports The Washington Post's Shannon Najmabadi.
👋 AND FINALLY…
To focus your attention on something light, watch these turtles patiently wait in a queue.
📺 Miss yesterday's newsletter? Catch up with a 1-minute video. And check out more newsletters from The Hill here. See you tomorrow!

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But Congress hasn't technically declared war since World War II and the US has been involved in a quite a few conflicts in the intervening generations. Presidents from both parties have argued they don't need congressional approval to launch military strikes. But longer-scale wars have been authorized through a series of joint resolutions, including the 2001 authorization for the use of military force against any country, person or group associated with the 9/11 terror attacks or future attacks. There's no indication Iran was involved with 9/11, so it would be a stretch to argue that vote, taken nearly a quarter of a century ago, would justify a strike against Iran today. But that vote has been used to justify scores of US military actions in at least 15 countries across the world. The Trump administration has said recent assessments by US intelligence agencies from earlier this year that Iran is not close to a nuclear weapon are outdated and that Iran's close proximity to developing a nuclear weapon justifies a quicker effort to denude its capability, perhaps with US bunker-busting bombs. Israel apparently lacks the ability to penetrate Iran's Fordow nuclear site, which is buried in a mountain. Prev Next Kaine, on the other hand, wants to hear more, and requiring a vote in Congress would force Trump to justify an attack. 'The last thing we need is to be buffaloed into a war in the Middle East based on facts that prove not to be true,' Kaine said. 'We've been down that path to great cost, and I deeply worry that it may happen again.' In 1973, responding to the disastrous war in Vietnam, Congress overrode President Richard Nixon's veto to pass an important piece of legislation, the War Powers Resolution, that sought to rein in presidents regarding the use of military force. The War Powers Resolution seeks to limit the president's ability to deploy the military to three types of situations: a declaration of war, specific statutory authorization, or a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces. An effort to end Iran's nuclear program would not seem to fall into any of those buckets, but Trump has plenty of lawyers at the Department of Justice and the Pentagon who will find a way to justify his actions. The law also requires Trump to 'consult' with Congress, but that could be interpreted in multiple ways. The law does clearly require the president to issue a report to Congress within 48 hours of using military force. It also seeks to limit the time he has to use force before asking Congress for permission. The Reiss Center at New York University has a database of more than 100 such reports presidents from both parties have sent to Congress over the past half-century after calling up the US military. Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, and Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, cite the War Powers Resolution in their proposal to bar Trump from using the US military against Iran without congressional approval or to respond to an attack. 'This is not our war,' Massie said in a post on X. 'Even if it were, Congress must decide such matters according to our Constitution.' Nixon clearly disagreed with the War Powers Resolution, and subsequent presidents from both parties have also questioned it. For instance, when Trump ordered the killing of a top Iranian general who was visiting Iraq in 2020, lawyers for the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice, in what we know from a heavily redacted legal opinion, argued the president inherently had authority to order the strike under the Constitution if he determined that doing so was in the national interest. A similar memo sought to justifying US airstrikes in Syria during Trump's first term. That 'national interest' test is all but a blank check, which seems on its face to be inconsistent with the idea in the Constitution that Congress is supposed to declare war, as the former government lawyers and law professors Jack Goldsmith and Curtis Bradley argue at Lawfare. The OLC memo that justified the killing of the Iranian general suggests Congress can control the president by cutting off funding for operations and also that the president must seek congressional approval before 'the kind of protracted conflict that would rise to the level of war.' Presidents have frequently carried out air strikes, rather than the commitment of ground forces, without congressional approval. The OLC memo that justified the strike against the Iranian general in Iraq also argued Trump could rely on a 2002 vote by which Congress authorized the use of military force in Iraq. That 2002 authorization for use of military force (AUMF) was actually repealed in 2023, with help from then-Sen. JD Vance. OLC memos have tried to define war as 'prolonged and substantial military engagements, typically involving exposure of U.S. military personnel to significant risk over a substantial period.' Air strikes, one could imagine OLC lawyers arguing, would not rise to that level. 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Kurilla warfare: Meet the general leading US military forces in the Middle East amid Iran conflict

Army Gen. Michael "Erik" Kurilla is no stranger to conflict, especially in the Middle East. Two decades ago as a lieutenant colonel, he was at the front lines of combat fighting off insurgents in Mosul, Iraq, while leading the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment. The battalion's mission was to conduct security patrols and coordinate offensive attacks against anti-Iraqi insurgents targeting Iraqi security forces and Iraqi police stations. During Kurilla's tenure leading the battalion, more than 150 soldiers earned the Purple Heart for injuries, and the battalion lost at least a dozen soldiers, The New York Times reported in August 2005. "There will always be somebody willing (to) pick up an AK-47 and shoot Americans," Kurilla told The New York Times in August 2005. Kurilla did not complete that deployment unscathed. Later, in August 2005, Kurilla found himself caught in a Mosul, Iraq, firefight, where he sustained multiple gunshot wounds, earning him a Bronze Star with valor and one of his two Purple Heart awards. Now, Kurilla is facing another battle as the commander of U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM, serving as the top military officer overseeing U.S. military forces based in the Middle East. That means Kurilla, who attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, is at the forefront of military operations as President Donald Trump contemplates whether to engage in military strikes against Iran's nuclear sites. CENTCOM is one of the U.S. military's 11 combatant commands and encompasses 21 nations in the Middle East in its area of operations, including Iraq and Afghanistan. Those familiar with Kurilla claim he's the perfect person for the job. Retired Army Gen. 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Additionally, Kurilla has served in key CENTCOM staff and leadership positions, including serving as the command's chief of staff from August 2018 to September 2019. Prior to leading CENTCOM, the general also commanded the 2nd Ranger Battalion, the 75th Ranger Regiment, the 82nd Airborne Division and the XVIII Airborne Corps, according to his official bio. In addition to deploying to Iraq as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Inherent Resolve, he deployed to Afghanistan with Operation Enduring Freedom. Other awards he's earned include the Combat Infantryman Badge, awarded to Army infantry or special forces officers who've encountered active ground combat. Kurilla, who the Senate confirmed to lead CENTCOM in February 2022 and will exit the role later in 2025, told lawmakers on the House Armed Services Committee June 10 that, since October 2023, when Hamas first attacked Israel, American service members have faced increased threats in the region. Specifically, he said, U.S. troops have come under direct fire by nearly 400 unmanned aerial systems, 350 rockets, 50 ballistic missiles and 30 cruise missiles launched by Iranian-backed groups. He said CENTCOM has encountered the "most highly kinetic period than at any other time in the past decade." "We have been at the brink of regional war several times with the first state-on-state attacks between Iran and Israel in their history," Kurilla told lawmakers. "In the Red Sea, Houthi attempts to kill Americans operating in the Red Sea necessitated an aggressive response to protect our sailors and mariners and restore freedom of navigation. This is while Tehran is continuing to progress towards a nuclear weapons program — threatening catastrophic ramifications across the region and beyond." As a result, Kurilla said CENTCOM is prepared to use military force to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear-armed state. 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