‘Petty, Personal Attacks’: Karoline Leavitt’s Briefing Room Screed Against Natasha Bertrand Prompts Swift Rebuke From Her CNN Colleagues
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s attack on CNN’s Natasha Bertrand Thursday prompted an immediate rebuke from Bertrand’s colleagues.
In the middle of Thursday afternoon’s press briefing — which was being carried live on CNN — Leavitt launched into a two-minute screed denouncing Bertrand for her reporting on a preliminary intelligence assessment which found the U.S. military strikes on Iran did not “obliterate” the regime’s nuclear program — as President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed. Bertrand and two CNN colleagues published a report Tuesday which relayed the preliminary findings of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) — which said that the Iranian nuclear program had been set back by months, not years.
Leavitt, on Thursday, trashed Bertrand’s past work — along with her current reporting.
“This is a reporter who has been unfortunately used by people who dislike Donald Trump in this government to push fake and false narratives,” Leavitt said. “She should be ashamed of herself.”
A few minutes after those comments, CNN cut away from the still in-progress briefing and threw back to the studio — where anchor Brianna Keilar promptly defended Bertrand.
“Our colleague Natasha Bertrand, who was singled out there repeatedly, is an excellent reporter,” Keilar sid. “And she and our colleagues who broke this story — as they did on this DIA intelligence report — they made very clear that this was a preliminary report. That it is low confidence because it is preliminary. And we should also note it’s a preliminary report that comes from the Trump administration.”
Keilar proceeded to call out what she believes to be a double standard from the White House — as Leavitt attacked Bertrand for writing that the intelligence community had ruled out the lab leak theory on the origin of Covid-19.
“She’s singled out reporting on the lab leak,” Keilar said. “And the Trump White House has asserted that Covid was originated because of a lab leak. They assert this because of a CIA report that said a lab leak was likely. I do want to note that CIA report actually found that with “low confidence” in their conclusion. Low confidence [is] very clearly fine for them if it is fitting their narrative, not when it doesn’t.”
CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter was brought in — and he too denounced the press secretary’s rant about Bertrand.
“I think those petty personal attacks from the White House podium, they reveal more about the White house than they do about CNN or any other news outlet in this case,” Stelter said. “That story on Tuesday was not supposed to be the final word. In some ways, it was just the first word — as more and more reporting is done about this topic. But because President Trump used the word ‘obliterated’ instantly on Saturday night, and has insisted on it ever since, this is now a muddy issue.”
Watch above, via CNN.
