It's Thursday, the 26th of June, welcome to the PDB afternoon

I'm Mike Baker.

Your eyes and ears on the world stage.

Let's get briefed. First up, following his country's 12-day beatdown at the hands of Israel and the U.S.,

Iran's supreme leader has emerged from his bunker on Thursday like Paxatani Phil on Ground

Hall Day, but instead of claiming six more weeks of winter, Harmony claimed

victory over Jerusalem in the West. Later in the show, President Trump and Ukrainian President

Zelensky met on the sidelines of the NATO summit on Wednesday to discuss the future

of Russia's war on Ukraine. We'll have those details. But first, today's afternoon spotlight. After

disappearing from public view for more than a week, Iran's supreme leader has emerged from his

underground bunker and broken his silence on the 12-day war that left his military and nuclear

program reeling. And in a move that should shock a total of no one,

he's spinning his country's resounding defeat as some sort of triumph for the Islamic regime.

In a video broadcast speech released on Thursday, Ayatollah Ali Khomeini popped his head up to

claim victory over the U.S. and Israel. Attempting to rewrite the scorecard of the conflict, claim victory over the U.S. and Israel.

Attempting to rewrite the scorecard of the conflict, he declared that the U.S., quote,

achieved no gains from the war and only got involved because, quote, it felt that if it did not intervene, the Israeli regime would be utterly destroyed, end quote.

Now, as a reminder, the short-lived conflict

saw Israel seriously decimate Iran's military leadership, terminate their leading nuclear

scientists, and destroy perhaps up to 50 percent or more of the regime's missile stockpiles

and launch capabilities. The U.S., of course, delivered the final blow over the weekend,

striking Iran's three main nuclear sites and a series of precision bombing strikes

...