The MAGA Fight Over Iran, and a Critical Ruling on Transgender Youth Care

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From the New York Times, it's the headlines.

I'm Michael Simon Johnson.

Today's Thursday, June 19th.

Here's what we're covering.

As the war between Israel and Iran forges ahead, Iranians have essentially been cut off from the outside world.

For more than 12 hours, people there have experienced a near-total internet blackout, according to an independent monitor.

An Iranian state news outlet said this was a deliberate decision by the country's own government, as it hoped to prevent Israel from using its networks for intelligence and military operations.

Israeli airstrikes have hit Iranian nuclear facilities and killed key military commanders and scientists throughout the country.

They've also destroyed residential and high-rise buildings, killing scores of civilians, according to Iran's health ministry.

This morning, an Iranian missile struck a hospital in southern Israel, causing serious damage.

Rescue teams searched for people trapped and injured, and the hospital said its emergency department was treating several patients with mild injuries.

The fighting continues as uncertainty over possible U.S.

involvement hangs over the region.

A senior Iranian official told the Times that Iran would still be open to meeting with U.S.

negotiators to discuss a ceasefire with Israel and the future of Iran's nuclear program.

President Trump, meanwhile, has still not said whether he would send American aircraft and weapons to support Israel.

He told reporters on Wednesday, quote, nobody knows what I'm going to do.

Does that mean you haven't made a decision yet on what to do?

I have ideas as to what to do, but I haven't made a final decision.

I like to make the final decision one second before it's due, you know, because things change.

And that stance is getting pushback from his own base.

Let's be honest, this is not MAGA at all.

I think that we should be very careful about entering into more foreign wars that don't help us when our country is dying.

Right-wing media personalities like Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson have argued, as Trump had for years, that the U.S.

should not get involved in another foreign war.

Outside the White House on Wednesday, the president was asked about criticism from his own supporters.

So I may have some people that are a little bit unhappy now,

but I have some people that are very happy and I have people outside of the base that can't believe that this is happening, this alpha.

Trump has long had the support of the kind of isolationists who deeply, deeply oppose this kind of intervention.

But over the past decade, his tent has expanded to include some of the more traditional, hawkish members of the Republican Party who he once came to power challenging.

My colleague Jess Bidgood covers politics for the Times.

Now, both wings of the party here are fighting about what the Make America Great Again movement really is.

There's the purists, the isolationists who were there from the start, and and who are in this moment pretty openly criticizing Trump just for his openness to consider helping Israel by intervening directly in Iran.

The conservatives defending Trump in this moment say, sure, he has said that he didn't want to start any new wars, but he's also said for a long time that he didn't want Iran to get a nuclear weapon.

And they see his openness to consider intervening here as evidence of him trying to keep that promise.

So, all of this raises the question of whether Trump's own base can actually outmagga him.

Steve Bannon, who was once Trump's chief strategist during his first term, has already given some indications that eventually he thinks the base will go along with what Trump decides.

And that at the end of the day, the base's allegiance to Trump is always going to be stronger than its allegiance to certain ideas or principles that they think he represents.

The Supreme Court has voted 6-3 to uphold a Tennessee law banning some transition treatments for transgender youth.

That ban includes puberty blockers and hormone therapies.

Many clinicians who provide these treatments say they can be beneficial and even life-saving for children who receive them.

The doctor and three families who sued to challenge the state law said it discriminated on the basis of both sex and transgender status, violating the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause.

They noted that the law allowed for the prohibited treatments to be undertaken for reasons other than gender transition, making it inherently discriminatory.

But Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion, argued that while there was, quote, fierce scientific and policy debate about the medical treatments, these questions should be left to the states.

More than two dozen states have restricted gender transition treatments for minors, which which could result in a patchwork of laws around the country, leaving care options dependent on where one lives.

My colleague Abby Van Sickle says the decision could signal other rulings to come.

The court's ruling was a narrow one, and that it specifically focused on transgender youths and access to medical care.

However, the decision could help get a glimpse of how the court might analyze ongoing legal fights on transgender rights more broadly, including issues like bathroom access, sports participation, and military service.

The court ruling comes as the Trump administration is seeking to reduce services and legal recognition for transgender people more broadly.

On Wednesday, the administration confirmed that it has ordered the National Suicide Prevention Hotline to stop offering specialized support for LGBTQ callers starting next month.

That specialized support on the 988 hotline was established in 2022 and is run by the nonprofit group the Trevor Project.

It was born out of a recognition that gay and transgender people often face unique mental health challenges and have disproportionately high suicide rates.

But the agency that oversees the hotline said the decision was made to, quote, focus on serving all help seekers.

The administration had previously characterized the Trevor Project's work as a, quote, chat service where children are encouraged to embrace radical gender ideology.

The Trevor Project estimates this decision could cut the number of people it serves in half, but the organization said it will continue to provide crisis services through its own hotline.

The Times has learned that the Trump administration is planning to weaken enforcement of gun control measures.

According to budget documents, the Justice Department plans to cut down its monitoring of federally licensed gun dealers dealers by slashing the number of inspectors by two-thirds at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, or ATF.

That would sharply limit the federal government's ability to track which businesses sell guns to criminals, traffickers, and people with severe mental illness.

The inspection program is already woefully understaffed.

Some gun licensees can go nearly a decade without facing routine regulatory scrutiny.

The plans are also part of a broader effort to defang ATF, as the White House considers merging the Bureau and the Drug Enforcement Administration into one agency.

Meanwhile, in Austria, the government there is now moving to tighten restrictions around private gun ownership after a gunman carried out the deadliest school shooting in the country's history last week.

On Wednesday, the Austrian government proposed a bundle of new measures, including raising the minimum age of handgun ownership, strengthening the mandatory psychological test to buy a gun, and instituting a four-week waiting period between the purchase and delivery of a buyer's first weapon.

The government also wants to double the number of psychologists working in schools.

Austria has some of the most lax gun ownership laws in Europe and has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the world.

But lawmakers there are expected to approve the new rules by a large majority.

Austria's chancellor said,

We will learn from this tragedy.

And finally, if you're you're just popping in and joining us, welcome.

We are making sure that we are fully scaled because we have had immense interest in this auction.

Unsurprisingly, months after the death of legendary filmmaker David Lynch, hundreds of his personal items were auctioned off on Wednesday in Los Angeles.

David Lynch personal 35-millimeter print of eraser head.

$40,000 is bid, $45,000 is the ask.

The auction included memorabilia from his films and unfinished screenplays.

Lynch's red personalized director chair went for $70,000.

And there were old film prints, cameras, and props from movies like Mulholland Drive and his TV show Twin Peaks.

Lot number 138, a large orange nylon rug from the home of David Lynch.

But the director of the auction company in charge of the event said much of the sale was just regular stuff.

$3,000.

It's a large and vast collection of tools and accessories from his personal home wood shop.

Bidders bought personal items like books, coffee mugs, and furniture.

Even the filmmaker's espresso machine had a winning bid of $35,000.

One of Lynch's biographers, Dennis Lim, has been following the auction and said the whole thing felt almost, well, Lynchian.

His films often imbued objects like a telephone or a key with mysterious power.

As Lim told The Times, quote, I think the very idea of this auction acknowledges that.

Those are the headlines.

Today Today, on the daily, an interview with White House border czar Tom Homan on the administration's immigration crackdown, including the ICE raids that spurred protests in Los Angeles and across the country.

If people don't like what ICE is doing, then call your senator.

Call your congressman.

ICE isn't making this up.

We're enforcing the laws enacted by Congress and signed by the president.

That's next in the New York Times audio app, or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Michael Simon Johnson.

We'll be back tomorrow.