‘FIRE NATASHA!’ Trump Launches Scathing Attack on CNN Reporter, Demands She Be ‘Thrown Out Like a Dog’
President Donald Trump demanded that CNN fire Natasha Bertrand, the reporter responsible for a story about how a preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment suggested the American attack on three Iranian facilities did not destroy the country’s nuclear program, in a fiery Truth Social post demanding that she be “thrown out ‘like a dog'” on Wednesday.
“Natasha Bertrand should be FIRED from CNN! I watched her for three days doing Fake News. She should be IMMEDIATELY reprimanded, and then thrown out ‘like a dog,'” wrote Trump. “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!”
“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,” he continued. “Her slant was so obviously negative, besides, she doesn’t have what it takes to be an on camera correspondent, not even close. FIRE NATASHA!”
A CNN spokesperson issued the following statement about Trump’s demand for Bertrand’s ouster:
We stand 100% behind Natasha Bertrand’s journalism and specifically her and her colleagues’ reporting of the early intelligence assessment of the U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. CNN’s reporting made clear that this was an initial finding that could change with additional intelligence. We have extensively covered President Trump’s own deep skepticism about it. However, 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.
In her report — coauthored with Katie Bo Lillis and Zachary Cohen — Bertrand revealed that the assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency suggested that the strikes ordered by Trump set the Iranian nuclear program back by only a few months.
However, the DIA assessment was presented with low confidence and further investigation into the success of the U.S. operation is expected.
Trump, meanwhile, has claimed that the operation yielded the “TOTAL OBLITERATION” of the Iranian nuclear program, and repeatedly excoriated both CNN and The New York Times for reporting on the DIA assessment.
“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,” declared Trump in another Truth Social post on Wednesday. “You would think they would be proud of the great success we had, instead of trying to always make our Country look bad.”
On Wednesday, Israel announced that its initial intelligence assessment meshed with Trump’s evaluation, rather than the DIA’s, asserting that the U.S. had set the Iranian program back by “many years.”
