US President Donald Trump has slammed CNN and The New York Times media outlets for what he called an attempt to “demean one of the most successful military strikes in history.”
In a post on Truth Social, Trump dismissed a CNN report citing US intelligence officials who said the recent strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities only set the program back by months.
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He insisted the sites were “completely destroyed” and accused both media outlets of spreading “fake news.”
“Fake News CNN, together with the failing New York Times, have teamed up in an attempt to demean one of the most successful military strikes in history,” he wrote. “The nuclear sites in Iran are completely destroyed! Both the Times and CNN are getting slammed by the public!”
It is worth noting that Trump’s original post was written using capital letters.
Recent US intelligence assessments shared by CNN indicate that the strikes on Iran’s Fordow and Natanz uranium enrichment facilities delayed, but did not destroy, Iran’s nuclear weapons program - contradicting Trump’s claims of “complete and total obliteration.”
Two US intelligence officials told CNN that the strikes may have set Iran’s program back only “by months.” The analysis remains ongoing and could evolve with new intelligence, but the early assessment challenges both Trump’s public statements and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s claim that Iran’s ambitions “have been obliterated.”
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The White House lashed out at the report, with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt calling the assessment “flat-out wrong.” She described the source as “an anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community” and added: “Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000-pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration.”
Weapons expert Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute said the strikes failed to destroy key underground facilities near Natanz, Isfahan, and Parchin.
“These facilities could serve as the basis for rapid reconstitution of Iran’s nuclear program,” he said.
Meanwhile, a classified House briefing on the operation was abruptly canceled, while the Senate briefing was rescheduled for Thursday.
Vice President JD Vance, speaking to Fox News, acknowledged that the US does not currently know the location of Iran’s 400-kilogram stockpile of enriched uranium but argued the real issue is whether Iran can still weaponize it: “The question before us is: Can Iran enrich to weapons-grade and convert that into a nuclear weapon?”
The uranium, enriched to U-235, was believed to have been stored primarily at Isfahan.
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