On Tuesday, three days after the U.S. launched an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, CNN was the first to report on the existence of a defense intelligence assessment that found that the attack “did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months.” The Defense Intelligence Agency produced the report, which cited “seven people briefed on it,” and was later reported on by other media outlets.
The White House had claimed, since shortly after the attacks on Saturday night, that Iran’s nuclear facilities were “obliterated.” Even before the CNN report, President Trump had become angry at any media outlet that reported it was too early to tell whether the information was accurate, considering it an insult to the pilots who had flown the mission. Trump then got even more critical of CNN, once the report arrived about the DIA assessment.
“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,” Trump said on Truth Social on Tuesday.
The White House had not denied that the DIA assessment is real; press secretary Karoline Leavitt bashed the “low-level loser” who was responsible for leaking it.
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On Wednesday, on Truth Social, he called for Natasha Bertrand, one of the reporters who covered the story, to be fired from CNN:
On Tuesday, CNN anchor and White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins defended her network.
The exchange came at the NATO summit in the Netherlands, when Trump once again claimed that any reporting that says the sites weren’t entirely destroyed is a direct insult to the pilots who flew the mission.
“Fake news, CNN. Here we go,” Trump said. “Wait until you hear this question. You should really say how great our soldiers and our warriors are.”
Trump preemptively roasts Fake News Kaitlan Collins before answering her question:
“Oh, fake news CNN. Here we go. Wait til you hear this question.”
“The document said it could be very severe damage, but they (CNN) didn’t take that.”
“Since then we’ve collected additional… pic.twitter.com/Y84sxsndLT
— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) June 25, 2025
“I think everyone appreciates our soldiers and our warriors,” Collins replied, before asking a question about whether Trump had depended on Israeli intelligence to assess that the attack had successfully “obliterated” the nuclear sites. Collins was not one of the reporters who authored the report based on the DIA report.
Photo courtesy of the Political Tribune media library.
