President Donald Trump is repeatedly criticizing CNN and The New York Times over reports questioning the impact of last weekend’s U.S. strikes on Iran, while also undermining his own intelligence analysts.
Trump on Wednesday urged CNN to dismiss “like a dog” a reporter involved in the story and accused Times reporters of being “bad and sick people” for allegedly trying to disparage American pilots who took part in the strikes.
Both news outlets defended their reporting.
The president is upset by reports that suggest a preliminary assessment from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that Saturday’s strikes on three nuclear sites merely set back Iran’s nuclear program by a few months. The assessment “indicates that President Trump’s assertion that Iran’s nuclear facilities were ‘obliterated’ was an exaggeration,” reported The Times in a six-author story on Tuesday night.
Shortly after the reports began circulating, Trump disputed them, saying in a social media post that the nuclear sites were completely destroyed, and he doubled down on Wednesday.
“They tried to demean the great works our B-2 pilots did, and they were wrong in doing so,” Trump wrote. “These reporters are just BAD AND SICK PEOPLE. You would think they would be proud of the great success we had, instead of trying to make our Country look bad.”
Newspaper says Trump’s criticism was fake news
The Times noted that Trump had initially called the report fake news, but he and his national security team subsequently confirmed that the report was produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency.
“So their statement was fake, not the Times’s reporting,” Times spokesman Charles Stadtlander said. “We’ll continue to report fully on the administration’s decision-making, including the president’s dispute with the Defense Intelligence Agency, as we did this morning.”
Trump specifically singled out CNN reporter Natasha Bertrand and called for her firing. “I watched her for three days doing Fake News,” the president wrote. “She should be immediately reprimanded, then thrown out ‘like a dog.’”
CNN said that it stood by Bertrand and the network’s reporting. The network has made clear that it was an initial finding that could change with additional intelligence, and reported the president’s own skepticism about what his experts had found.
“We do not believe it is reasonable to criticize CNN reporters for accurately reporting the existence of the assessment and accurately characterizing its findings, which are in the public interest,” the network said in a statement.
Trump amplifies his certainty about Iran strikes
The White House, in its own statement criticizing CNN, called parts of the early defense agency report an “inconclusive, low-confidence intelligence assessment” that was leaked to undermine Trump and pilots who conducted the mission.
“Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000-pound bombs perfectly on their targets: Total Obliteration,” the White House said, repeating the phrase Trump has used repeatedly to describe the mission. The release quoted assessments from different agencies on bomb damage.
In calling patriotism into question, the president and his allies also attempted a strategy used in the past to demean reporters and create doubts about their work. In an interview with CNN’s Kaitlin Collins on Tuesday night, GOP Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullins pushed back against questions on the strike, saying it should be celebrated and not be “something we are bringing division on.”
Collins replied that it’s her job to ask questions, not to celebrate.
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David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.
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