CNN Misconstruing Intelligence, President Donald Trump’s administration is pushing back against what it calls a coordinated media effort to downplay the success of the recent U.S. airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. According to senior officials, outlets like CNN and The New York Times are selectively using incomplete intelligence to undermine the operation’s results and diminish Trump’s foreign policy success at the NATO summit.
Leaked Intelligence Sparks Media Firestorm
On Wednesday, CNN and The New York Times published reports citing a leaked Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessment which claimed that the recent U.S. military strikes on Iran had only temporarily set back the country’s nuclear program by a few months. The reports suggested that President Trump’s declaration of “obliteration” was exaggerated and politically motivated.
The New York Times specifically argued that this initial intelligence contradicted the narrative the Trump administration was promoting during the NATO summit in the Netherlands, where the president was lauding the operation as a strategic and military success.
Trump Administration Pushes Back
CNN Misconstruing Intelligence, Top Trump officials swiftly condemned the media coverage as misleading, politically motivated, and based on incomplete information. Speaking from the NATO summit, President Trump dismissed the reports as “fake news,” reiterating that the airstrikes “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump doubled down:
“Israel just stated that the Nuclear Sites were OBLITERATED! Thank you to our great B-2 pilots, and all others involved!”
The White House cited Israeli intelligence and even comments from Iran’s own Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei, who acknowledged that Iran’s nuclear installations had been “badly damaged.”
Alleged Political Spin and Media Bias
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN in a statement that the leaked assessment was:
“Flat-out wrong and was classified as ‘top secret’ but was still leaked to CNN by an anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community.”
She added that the leak was a clear attempt to discredit both the president and the U.S. military, which carried out the high-stakes operation with precision:
“Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000-pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration.”
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth echoed that sentiment, criticizing CNN and The New York Times for being agenda-driven:
“The instinct of CNN and The New York Times is to spin it for their own political reasons to try to hurt President Trump and our country.”
Intelligence Report Under Scrutiny
Trump officials emphasized that the leaked DIA report was based on intelligence from just one day — June 22 — and had been labeled “low confidence” internally. A senior Defense Intelligence Agency official confirmed to The Daily Wire:
“This is a preliminary, low-confidence report and will continue to be refined as additional intelligence becomes available.”
Importantly, the initial assessment was reportedly not coordinated with the broader U.S. intelligence community. One administration official called it:
“A snapshot in time, incomplete, and intentionally leaked to the press to create a political narrative.”
The FBI is now investigating the leak, with administration sources warning of serious legal consequences for whoever released the classified information to the media.
Legacy of Media Skepticism
The Trump administration also noted that the CNN reporter who broke the story, Natasha Bertrand, had previously reported on the Hunter Biden laptop story as “Russian disinformation”—a narrative that has since been disproven. The connection, they argue, suggests a pattern of partisan bias by both journalists and the intelligence sources they rely on.
One senior official told The Daily Wire:
“Parts of this inconclusive, low-confidence intelligence assessment were leaked from deep state intel analysis to deep state news.”
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