Trump at NATO: King of the World. Just Kidding. Not Kidding: Socialist Mamdani Wallops Cuomo. Medicine & Trans ‘Treatments.’ And More

As President Trump moved on to the NATO summit at the Hague, where he was lavishly praised by Secretary General Mark Rutte for ruthlessly shaming member nations into paying their (how to put this?) fair share for defense, CNN had words of comfort for its several viewers.

Citing a leaked report from the Defense Intelligence Agency, CNN essentially said don’t bother your pretty little heads because Trump’s daring strikes on Iran’s nuclear program were a bust. Whew! From CNN:

The US military strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities last weekend did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, according to an early US intelligence assessment that was described by seven people briefed on it. …

But the early findings are at odds with President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that the strikes “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. 

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called the CNN story “completely preposterous“:

“This alleged ‘assessment’ is flat-out wrong and was classified as ‘top secret’ but was still leaked to CNN by an anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote on X. 

“The leaking of this alleged assessment is a clear attempt to demean President Trump, and discredit the brave fighter pilots who conducted a perfectly executed mission to obliterate Iran’s nuclear program,” she added. 

A top Trump official called the leaking of the apparent DIA report to CNN the work of the deep state. Quoting the UN’s top nuclear watchdog, Adam Kredo of the Free Beacon writes that there are now two Irans—before the U.S. strikes and after. The Free Beacon’s editors thank President Trump for delivering victory in the 12-day war. The Wall Street Journal’s Karen Elliott House writes that the Iran strikes restored U.S. credibility in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, satellite images of Iran’s nuke sites reveal precision bombing. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the FBI is conducting an investigation into the leak. The matter became so heated that President Trump referred to CNN’s Anderson Cooper as Allison Cooper, an especially grievous sin during Pride Month.

Fearing sleeper cells, ICE has been arresting Iranians who came to the U.S. illegally under the “Biden” administration’s open-door policy. Sounds like a wise precaution, given some of the characters being taken into custody:

ICE agents arrested former Iranian army sniper Ribvar Karimi in Alabama on June 22. Karimi possessed an Iran army identification card upon his arrest and is currently being held in ICE custody. He entered the U.S. in October 2024 under a K-1 marriage visa but never updated his immigration status.

New York, New York. It’s a Socialist Town. Socialist Zohran Mamdani’s cruise to victory in New York’s mayoral primary is “a political earthquake for the Democratic Party.” Former Governor Andrew Cuomo, considered the front runner, has conceded already. Tentative results show an eight-point spread between Mamdani and Cuomo—43.5 to 36.4.

An editorial in the New York Post says that the Mamdani stunner “leaves New York staring at the curse of ‘interesting times,’” but gamely proposes that Mamdani is not “the prohibitive favorite”:

We remain convinced that a Mayor Mamdani would be a disaster for New York City, and believe a majority of voters will agree … if he faces a credible opponent in November.

This is certainly an opportunity for Mayor Eric Adams, who’s right now low in the polls thanks to his uneven first-term performance and a taint of corruption mainly created at the behest of a White House furious that he called out some obvious failings of a president who the nation now knows was unfit for the office.

Not really a ringing endorsement of Adams’ chances, is it?

The Free Press’ Olivia Reingold explores how a 33-year-old socialist, with “pie-in-the-sky” proposals, “blindsided” Cuomo. Government-run grocery stores are one of Mamdani’s ideas, and City Journal explains that this would likely harm small business owners without lowering the cost of groceries.

An Understanding Man: Townhall notes that Mamdani, who has said he “understands” how 9/11 could happen, carried the mostly white precincts, while Cuomo won the black and Hispanic ones. “A lot of far-left clowns whose rent is paid by their parents, who’ve taken over Brooklyn, can be thanked for the city’s destruction,” is how Townhall’s Matt Vespa characterizes Mamdani’s big win. Cuomo tells Maria Bartiromo that he is not ruling out running against Mamdani in the general election.

As you may have read, Fred Smith, the founder of FedEx, has died. Jason Riley writes this morning about “what public schools could learn from Fred Smith.” Smith gave the U.S. Postal Service the competition it needed to become better at its job, Riley observes:

The U.S. Postal Service had a monopoly on certain types of mail delivery. The result, as ever, was bureaucratic inertia and mismanagement. Customers suffered because they could be taken for granted. Smith came up with a way to deliver documents faster and more reliably. He was so successful that the company’s name eventually became a verb—“I’ll FedEx you the package overnight”—and it changed forever the way billions of people in hundreds of countries send and receive parcels.

The Postal Service had no choice but to respond to the challenge. It invested in technological upgrades—including, eventually, online tracking and mobile apps—and improved on-time delivery rates and customer satisfaction. More mailing options led to more and better services to meet market demand….

The goal of school reformers isn’t simply to create more alternatives for parents but also to provide incentives for underperforming schools to improve or risk losing students to better schools. The most efficient way to improve K-12 education is to make schools compete for students. As Fred Smith and so many other successful entrepreneurs well-understood, more competition makes organizations strive to do better. Less competition breeds complacency.

First Do No Harm: How many times have you heard this summary of the Hippocratic Oath that is supposed to guide members of the medical profession? Farr Curlin, physician and Duke University professor, writes in the Wall Street Journal about how transgender “treatments” distort the purposes of the medical profession:

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in U.S. v. Skrmetti, upholding Tennessee’s ban on medical gender interventions for children, reflects a split in the Justices’ views of medicine: Is it about restoring patients’ health or satisfying their wants?…

Behind the justices’ rift is a fundamental question: What is medicine for? In the traditional view, the purpose of treatment is the patient’s health—the well-working of the body. We don’t decide what health is. We observe health, recognize its goodness, and protect it.

Yet the rise of the “patient autonomy” model in the 1960s and ’70s directed physicians to administer treatment at their patients’ behest. This model led to a consumerist approach to medicine, which sees physicians as “providers” instead of healers. Providers of services fulfill customers’ wishes, regardless of whether doing so restores or compromises patient health.

Also probing gender-ideology distortions, Chris Rufo writes a provocative City Journal piece headlined “The Ocean Is Queer.” Rufo says that even science is being distorted. The intrepid Rufo visits a drag event for children:

Then came the science segment. The next presentation, titled “The Ocean is Queer,” attempted to ground transgender ideology in nature. A docent explained that the ocean serves as a metaphor for the “queer community.” She highlighted how male seahorses can become pregnant, clownfish live in matriarchal groups and can change sex, and bottlenose dolphins sometimes form gay male “throuples.” These examples, she told the children, are part of “queer ecology” and show that heterosexuality is not the only pattern found in nature.

The good news? The kids seemed bored. This stuff is getting to be old hat.