Trump Threatens to Sue The NY Times and CNN Over ‘Unpatriotic’ Reporting On U.S. Military Intel
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
The New York Times struck a defiant tone in a Thursday letter in response to a personal lawyer for President Donald Trump demanding the paper “retract and apologize” or be sued over a report on the state of Iranian nuclear sites following Trump’s bombings.
The Times reported on the letter sent by Alejandro Brito, which threatened to sue the paper and CNN for publishing reports on a leaked Pentagon assessment that said Trump’s bombings only set Iran’s nuclear program back a few months. The assessment was labeled as an initial intelligence finding, but contradicted Trump’s public claims that Iran’s nuclear sites had been totally “obliterated.” Trump’s lawyer called the article “false,” “defamatory,” and “unpatriotic” while demanding it be retracted.
David McCraw, the Times’s deputy general counsel, replied to Brito, saying, “No retraction is needed. No apology will be forthcoming. We told the truth to the best of our ability. We will continue to do so.”
Trump has publicly raged against both the Times and CNN in recent days. On Thursday, he took to his Truth Social platform and wrote, “FAKE NEWS REPORTERS FROM CNN & THE NEW YORK TIMES SHOULD BE FIRED, IMMEDIATELY!!! BAD PEOPLE WITH EVIL INTENTIONS!!!”
On Wednesday, Trump called for CNN’s lead reporter on the story to be fired, writing, “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.’” CNN released a statement in response, saying:
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.
Trump cast doubt on the U.S. assessment when asked by reporters about it during the Q&A at Wednesday’s NATO summit, saying, “The intelligence was very inconclusive. The intelligence says we don’t know. It could’ve been very severe. That’s what the intelligence suggests.”
The validity of the Pentagon assessment, which CNN first reported on, has not been doubted by the White House, which appeared to confirm its authenticity by saying, “We are declaring a war on leakers. The FBI is investigating the leak. The intelligence community is figuring out how to tighten up their processes so we don’t have ‘Deep State’ actors leaking parts of intel analysis that have ‘low confidence’ to the media.”
