Trump, Hegseth seethe at ‘fake news’ media for doubting US strikes obliterated Iranian nuclear sites: ‘Scum’
President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegeth railed against the “fake news” media during a NATO summit press conference for casting doubt that the U.S. strikes on Iran obliterated the country’s nuclear program.
“A statement came in from the Atomic Energy Commission of Israel,” Trump said during a Wednesday press conference from The Hague as he wrapped up his NATO summit trip in the Netherlands. “They’re very serious people, as you know.”
“‘The devastating U.S. strike on Fordow destroyed the site’s critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility totally inoperable,'” Trump read from the letter. “‘It was devastated. We assessed that the American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities had set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons for many years to come. This achievement can continue indefinitely if Iran does not get access to nuclear material.'”
Trump took aim at U.S. media outlets for initially casting doubt that the strikes he ordered on Iran Saturday evening were not as devastating as the administration initially reported, calling outlets such as CNN “fake news” and slamming them for “maligning” the U.S. military by doubting the ferocity of the strikes.
TRUMP THRASHES CNN AS ‘GUTLESS LOSERS’ FOR COVERAGE OF US STRIKES ON IRAN
“I just want to thank our pilots,” Trump said. “You know, they were maligned and treated very bad, demeaned by fake news CNN, which is back there, believe it or not, wasting time, wasting time. Nobody’s watching them. So they just wasted a lot of time. wasting my time. And the New York Times, they put out a story that, ‘well, maybe they were hit, but it wasn’t so bad that they ended the war.'”
The president added that he received a call that the pilots who deployed from Missouri to Iran for the strikes were “devastated” due to certain media outlets attempting to downplay the success of the mission.
“Do you know, I got a call from Missouri? Great state that I won three times by a lot. And I got a call that the pilots and people on the plane were devastated because (the media) were trying to minimize the attack. And they all said it was hit, ’but oh, but we don’t think it was really maybe hit that badly.’ And they were devastated,” he said.
“They put their lives on the line and then they have, and I’m not referring to you, but real scum. Real scum come out and write reports that are as negative as they could possibly be,” Trump continued.
TRUMP ADDRESSES NATION ON ‘SPECTACULAR MILITARY SUCCESS’ OF US STRIKES ON IRANIAN NUCLEAR FACILITIES
Hegseth, who joined Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the summit, also slammed CNN and the New York Times during the press conference. Hegseth argued that such media outlets work “to find a way to spin” the news.
“There’s a reason the president calls out fake news for what it is. These pilots, these refuelers, these fighters, these air defenders. The skill and the courage it took to go into enemy territory flying 36 hours on behalf of the American people and the world to take out a nuclear program is beyond what anyone in this audience can fathom,” Hegseth said.
“And then the instinct, the instinct of CNN, the instinct of the New York Times, is to try to find a way to spin it for their own political reasons, to try to hurt President Trump or our country. They don’t care what the troops think. They don’t care what the world thinks. They want to spin it to try to make him look bad based on a leak. Of course, we’ve all seen plenty of leakers and what a leakers do? They have agendas. And what do they do? Do they share the whole information or just the part that they want to introduce?”
Trump announced Saturday evening in a surprise Truth Social post that the U.S. military had successfully executed strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities, saying in an address to the nation later that night that the facilities were “completely and totally obliterated.”
“For 40 years, Iran has been saying, ‘Death to America. Death to Israel.’ They have been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their legs with roadside bombs,” Trump said in his address Saturday with the trio standing behind him. “That was their specialty. We lost over a thousand people, and hundreds of thousands throughout the Middle East and around the world have died as a direct result of their hate, in particular.”
MISDIRECTION AND ‘DECEPTION’ LIKELY KEY IN TRUMP ADMIN’S SURPRISE IRAN STRIKE
“Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,” Trump said. “And Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier.”
A handful of legacy and liberal media outlets attempted to cast doubt that the strikes truly devastated the Iranian facilities, including CNN publishing an exclusive Tuesday claiming “US strikes on Iran did not destroy nuclear sites,” while the New York Times reported the Fordow nuclear facility was “severely damaged” but not “destroyed.”
White House officials, including Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, have slammed such reports as “fake news.”
“This alleged ‘assessment’ is 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,” Leavitt posted to X on Tuesday of the CNN report. “The leaking of this alleged assessment is a clear attempt to demean President Trump, and discredit the brave fighter pilots who conducted a perfectly executed mission to obliterate Iran’s nuclear program. Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration.”
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