What to know
- Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said the Iranian regime was “largely degraded” but “intact” during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Wednesday. President Donald Trump said Monday that Iranian forces have been “literally obliterated.”
- FBI Director Kash Patel and CIA Director John Ratcliffe also testified in the Intelligence Committee’s annual hearing on global threats.
- Once vocally anti-war, Gabbard broke her silence on the war with Iran, now in its 19th day, in a social media post yesterday in which she offered an explanation — but did not endorse — the U.S.-Israel military campaign. Earlier in the day, Joe Kent, a top U.S. counterterrorism official and close aide to Gabbard, resigned in protest of the war.
- In the Middle East, Israel claimed responsibility for the death of another Iranian leader: Iran’s intelligence minister, Esmail Khatib. Over 2,100 people across the region have been reportedly killed since the war broke out.