President Donald Trump said that the news media had been “caught cheating again” when it reported on claims the president had overstated the success of his strikes on Iran this weekend.
Trump called out the New York Times and CNN by name in a Wednesday post to his social media platform Truth Social.
“We just caught the Failing New York Times, working with Fake News CNN, cheating again! They tried to demean the great work our B-2 pilots did, and they were wrong in doing so. 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 always make our Country look bad. TOTAL OBLITERATION!” Trump wrote.
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Trump’s post refers to reporting by the two outlets that early U.S. military intelligence reports showed that the strikes on the three nuclear sites in Iran had merely set the country’s nuclear progress back months, rather than years. The New York Times cited anonymous officials while CNN said it had heard from seven people briefed on the Defense Intelligence Agency report.
While Trump had said the strikes “completely and totally obliterated” the uranium enrichment facilities, the initial report said that the entrances had been destroyed but not the underground structures. Both CNN and the Times did mention that further reports could prove the initial findings incorrect.
A report from the Israel Atomic Energy Commission on Wednesday said that the strike on the Fordo site rendered it “inoperable,” according to the BBC.
“We assess that the American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, combined with Israeli strikes on other elements of Iran’s military nuclear program, has set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years,” the report said.
Rafael Grossi, the head of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, cast doubt on the IAEC’s report, telling reporters that “no one … is in a position to have fully assessed the underground damage” at the site. He also said it’s possible that Iran’s enriched uranium still exists, suggesting it had been moved following Israel’s June 13 strike on Iran. Grossi added that it was unclear how much of the infrastructure to enrich uranium had been damaged.
“When you look at the … reconstruction of the infrastructure, it’s not impossible. First, there has been some that survived the attacks, and then this is work that Iran knows how to do. It would take some time,” he told Reuters.
The Trump administration has not just railed against the news media over reporting on Iran. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff called for an investigation on who specifically leaked the information to CNN and the Times, suggesting that the leakers may be guilty of treason.
“Well, it goes without saying that leaking that type of information—whatever the information, whatever side it comes out on—is outrageous. It’s treasonous,” Witkoff said during a Tuesday appearance on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle. “So, it ought to be investigated, and whoever did it—whoever’s responsible for it—should be held accountable. It could hurt lives in the future. Leaking is a completely unacceptable thing.”
Image via Reuters
