Trump Claims Pete Hegseth Will Show ‘Irrefutable’ Proof the NYT and CNN ‘Lied’ About Impact of Iran Strikes at 8AM Presser
AP Photo/Markus Schreiber
President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth would hold a press conference to show “irrefutable” proof that CNN and the New York Times “lied” after they spoke to several anonymous sources who claimed Trump’s Iran strikes had failed to destroy the country’s nuclear facilities.
“Secretary of Defense (War!) Pete Hegseth, together with Military Representatives, will be holding a Major News Conference tomorrow morning at 8 A.M. EST at The Pentagon, in order to fight for the Dignity of our Great American Pilots,” wrote Trump in a Truth Social post:
These Patriots were very upset! After 36 hours of dangerously flying through Enemy Territory, they landed, they knew the Success was LEGENDARY, and then, two days later, they started reading Fake News by CNN and The Failing New York Times. They felt terribly! Fortunately for them and, as usual, solely for the purpose of demeaning PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP, the Fake News (Times and CNN) lied and totally misrepresented the Facts, none of which they had (because it was too soon, there were no Facts out there yet!). The News Conference will prove both interesting and irrefutable. Enjoy!
CNN spoke to seven anonymous sources in total on Tuesday, who described the Defense Intelligence Agency’s (DIA) secret assessment of the Trump administration’s strikes against Iran.
Two sources “said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed,” according to CNN, while “one of the people said the centrifuges are largely ‘intact.'”
“Another source said that the intelligence assessed enriched uranium was moved out of the sites prior to the US strikes,” the report continued, contradicting Trump’s claim that the facilities had been “completely and totally obliterated.”
While the Trump administration lashed out against the report – with White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt calling it “flat-out wrong” and U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff accusing the leakers of “treason” – CNN stood by its report.
“CNN stands by our thorough reporting on an early intelligence assessment of the recent strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, which has since been confirmed by other news organizations,” a CNN spokesperson told Mediaite. “The White House has acknowledged the existence of the assessment, and their statement is included in our story.”
The New York Times issued a similar statement standing by its reporting.
“Yesterday, President Trump called this ‘fake news,’” the Times communications account posted on X. “But he and his entire national security team subsequently confirmed that the Defense Intelligence Agency did in fact produce the preliminary assessment described in a report by The Times and others. So their statement was fake, not The Times’s reporting. We’ll continue to report fully on the administration’s decision-making, including the president’s dispute with the Defense Intelligence Agency, as we did this morning.”
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