US President refutes CNN and NYT reports claiming US strikes failed to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities: An attempt to demean one of the most successful military strikes in history.
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday night rejected reports in CNN and The New York Times,which cited US intelligence assessments suggesting that the US military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities did not obliterate those facilities.
“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. The nuclear sites in Iran are completely destroyed! Both the Times and CNN are getting slammed by the public!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Trump also shared Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s statement responding to the reports, which said, “Based on everything we have seen — and I’ve seen it all — our bombing campaign obliterated Iran’s ability to create nuclear weapons.”
“Our massive bombs hit exactly the right spot at each target—and worked perfectly. The impact of those bombs is buried under a mountain of rubble in Iran; so anyone who says the bombs were not devastating is just trying to undermine the President and the successful mission,” added Hegseth.
The two reports said that core components of Iran’s nuclear program remain largely intact after the US strikes, with the strikes likely setting back the country’s nuclear ambitions by only a few months.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt strongly rejected the CNN report.
“FAKE NEWS CNN STRIKES AGAIN: 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,” she wrote in a post on X.
“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,” Leavitt stated.
