Donald Trump is now targeting journalists by name as he spirals about the leaked Pentagon report undermining his claims about the U.S. military strikes in Iran.
Trump called out CNN’s national security correspondent Natasha Bertrand in a post on Truth Social Wednesday, after she reported on an “early assessment” that found that the American military strike on three Iranian nuclear facilities had only set the country’s capabilities back by months—not years.
“Natasha Bertrand should be FIRED from CNN! I watched her for three days doing Fake News. She should be IMMEDIATELY reprimanded, and then thrown out ‘like a dog,’” Trump railed.
In his post, the president claimed Bertrand had “lied” in her reporting about Iran because she had also lied in her reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop.
In 2020, Bertrand had reported on a letter signed by more than 50 former senior intelligence officials who said that the allegedly leaked emails from Biden’s computer had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
Since it was first reported on, the laptop has proved to be authentic, but many of Republicans’ allegations that it tied the Bidens to corrupt foreign business dealings have not been proven. But Bertrand wasn’t lying. She accurately and dispassionately reported on an official document—it just happened to say something with which Trump disagreed.
Now Trump claimed that Betrand was “attempting to destroy our Patriot Pilots by making them look bad when, in fact, they did a GREAT job and hit ‘pay dirt’—TOTAL OBLITERATION!
“She should not be allowed to work at Fake News CNN. It’s people like her who destroyed the reputation of a once great Network. Her slant was so obviously negative, besides, she doesn’t have what it takes to be an on camera correspondent, not even close. FIRE NATASHA!” Trump wrote.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also took a swipe at Bertrand in a post on X. “This CNN story was written by the same ‘reporter’ who wrote the very first FAKE NEWS story claiming the Hunter Biden laptop was disinformation,” wrote the preternaturally antagonistic Leavitt.
CNN released a statement Wednesday defending Bertrand and her reporting. “We stand 100% behind Natasha Bertrand’s journalism and specifically her and her colleagues’ reporting of the early intelligence assessment of the U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities,” the statement said. “CNN’s reporting made clear that this was an initial finding that could change with additional intelligence. We have extensively covered President Trump’s own deep skepticism about it.”
The president, who was quick to claim that the mission was a complete success, had been fuming about the report all day at a NATO summit, claiming that the intelligence had been “very inconclusive.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dismissed the report as “low assessment,” meaning there was low confidence in the data. Hegseth, who oversaw the agency where the leak originated, was also quick to blame the media who reported on it.