After returning from a NATO summit in The Hague, President Donald Trump stayed up all night lashing out at the media in a furious all-caps meltdown over reports that the recent U.S. airstrike on Iran didn’t do the damage he claimed.
His first target: CNN.
“FAKE NEWS CNN IS SO DISGUSTING AND INCOMPETENT. SOME OF THE DUMBEST ANCHORS IN THE BUSINESS!” Trump posted on Truth Social late Wednesday, furious over a CNN report citing a Defense Intelligence Agency assessment. The report said the U.S. bombing run only set Iran’s nuclear program back by months—not the total destruction Trump had promised.
He didn’t stop there. Trump demanded CNN reporter Natasha Bertrand be fired, claiming she had lied about the Iran strike and, before that, Hunter Biden’s laptop.
“She should be IMMEDIATELY reprimanded, and then thrown out ‘like a dog,’” he wrote. “She lied on the Laptop from Hell Story, and now she lied on the Nuclear Sites Story, attempting to destroy our Patriot Pilots by making them look bad when, in fact, they did a GREAT job and hit ‘pay dirt’ — TOTAL OBLITERATION!”
In another angry post, Trump ranted, “She should not be allowed to work at Fake News CNN. It’s people like her who destroyed the reputation of a once great Network… FIRE NATASHA!”
CNN stood by Bertrand, issuing a statement of full support: “We do not believe it is reasonable to criticize CNN reporters for accurately reporting the existence of the assessment and accurately characterizing its findings.”
The New York Times, which also reported on the preliminary findings, backed its story as well: “President Trump called this ‘fake news.’ But he and his entire national security team subsequently confirmed that the Defense Intelligence Agency did in fact produce the preliminary assessment… So their statement was fake, not the Times’ reporting.”
Trump, still fired up, promised a press conference at the Pentagon the next morning “to fight for the Dignity of our Great American Pilots.”
“After 36 hours of dangerously flying through Enemy Territory, they landed… and then, two days later, they started reading Fake News by CNN and The Failing New York Times. They felt terribly!” Trump claimed.
He ended by accusing the media of attacking him just to make him look bad: “…solely for the purpose of demeaning PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP… the News Conference will prove both interesting and irrefutable. Enjoy!”
As of now, the Pentagon has not confirmed whether the strike had any long-term impact on Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
