President Donald Trump is accusing CNN and The New York Times of joining forces to "demean" the Operation Midnight Hammer strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities, insisting that the sites were destroyed in last weekend's actions.
The president, in an all-capital-letters post on his Truth Social page Tuesday night, insisted that "FAKE NEWS CNN, TOGETHER WITH THE FAILING NEW YORK TIMES, HAVE TEAMED UP IN AN ATTEMPT TO DEMEAN ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL MILITARY STRIKES IN HISTORY. THE NUCLEAR SITES IN IRAN ARE COMPLETELY DESTROYED! BOTH THE TIMES AND CNN ARE GETTING SLAMMED BY THE PUBLIC!"
Multiple outlets, including The New York Times and CNN, reported sources briefed on an U.S. intelligence assessment that the strikes targeting the nuclear facilities in Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan, largely hit aboveground targets, not facilities deep below ground.
The reports indicated that the airstrikes were not as effective as the Trump administration has claimed, leading the president and high-ranking officials to insist that the reports are not true.
CNN reported that the assessment was produced by the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, and that the early assessment found that the strikes only set the Iranian nuclear program back by months.
Trump, along with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and others in the administration, however, insisted that the attacks "obliterated" the nuclear sites.
CNN, quoting unnamed sources, said the intelligence report was based on a battle damage assessment carried out by U.S. Central Command.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also on Tuesday insisted that the assessment was "flat-out wrong," but leaked to CNN by an "anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community."
"The leaking of this alleged assessment is a clear attempt to demean President [Donald] Trump and discredit the brave fighter pilots who conducted a perfectly executed mission to obliterate Iran's nuclear program," she told reporters. "Everyone knows what happens when you drop 14 30,000-pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration."
Trump, speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One on the way to this week's NATO summit at The Hague, also referred to CNN's report and called it "fake news."
"It was perfect," he said of the airstrikes. "Every one hit and it's very disrespectful [to] those great geniuses and patriots that flew those planes through tremendous danger. CNN and MSDNC [MSNBC] are a disgrace, and so are the others. They're pretty much all a disgrace."
Trump also shared clips from administration officials debunking the reports, including one from Steve Witkoff, the special envoy to the Middle East, saying in an interview that "We put 12 bunker buster bombs on Fordo. There's no doubt that it breached the canopy... and there's no doubt that it was OBLITERATED. So, the reporting out there that in some way suggests that we did not achieve the objective is just completely preposterous!"
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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