Obliterating the truth

It’s welcome news that so many news reporters are digging for answers on the Iran bombing and refusing to stick to Trump’s script

Photo Credit: Beata Zawrzel—NurPhoto/Getty Images

This is what we have come to expect from Trump:

“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.”

This, from CNN, was a happy surprise:

“...we do not believe it is reasonable to criticize CNN reporters for accurately reporting the existence of the assessment and accurately characterizing its findings, which are in the public interest.”

We are now on Day 4 of a Trump temper tantrum about the status of Iran’s nuclear facilities after a U.S bomber attack. Forget important questions like whether Iran was actually weeks away from building a nuclear weapon as Trump claimed or whether the bunker bombing attack means that the U.S. will be embroiled in yet another lengthy Mideast conflict.

No, the biggest issue, per Trump and his administration, is whether or not the entire press corps is falling in line behind the president’s yet-unverified claims that three Iranian nuclear sites weren’t just damaged but ‘obliterated,’ destroying Iran’s uranium stockpile in the process. Trump is even threatening to sue news outlets that don’t stick to his script. So far, none have caved to the pressure. In fact, a growing number of reporters and news organizations are now openly pushing back on the Trump narrative in a way we haven’t often seen since he returned to the White House for a second term.

Trump’s strongman storyline began last Saturday night with his White House announcement that “the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.” For days, Trump repeatedly insisted that the nuclear facilities have been obliterated, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and right wing media joining in the propaganda effort. But news reporters from mainstream media -especially those with experience covering national security matters- had lots of questions about the bombing effort especially after some solid reporting from CNN called into question Trump’s early victory lap.

Longtime national security reporter Natasha Bertrand and two other CNN journalists broke the news that that leaked information from an initial U.S. government intelligence analysis found that “the US military strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities last weekend did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months.” Their story made a point of saying that “the analysis of the damage to the sites and the impact of the strikes on Iran’s nuclear ambitions is ongoing, and could change as more intelligence becomes available.”

The New York Times quickly matched CNN’s reporting. Soon word that Trump’s rosy assessment might very well be wrong made headlines nationwide and around the world. Funny how good old fashioned, fact-based news reporting can not only get at the truth of things but perhaps even help nervous journalists and their bosses find some much needed courage.

Cue the White House and MAGA outrage machine. How dare anything or anyone contradict Trump’s made-for-TV storyline? Plus, Republicans had already taken to the airwaves to gush about Trump being a shoe-in for the next Nobel Peace Prize so this new reality resulted in quite a backlash.

The entire Trump administration (minus the masked, heavily armed thugs beating people in Walmart and IHOP parking lots), is now laser focused on waging a full scale propaganda campaign to prop up the president’s very specific claims about Iran, defend the air strikes at all costs, and denigrate any journalists who report anything that contradicts Trump’s version of events.

It’s a complete meltdown with Trump leading the charge. As Rolling Stone reports, Trump’s Truth Social posts have been “rife with all-caps attacks against CNN and the Times, as well as calls for everyone involved to be fired. “FAKE NEWS REPORTERS FROM CNN & THE NEW YORK TIMES SHOULD BE FIRED, IMMEDIATELY!!! BAD PEOPLE WITH EVIL INTENTIONS!!!”

The angry posts include specific attacks on CNN’s Natasha Bertrand with Trump saying she should be fired and ‘thrown out like a dog.’ CNN, to its credit, is fighting back including a tough statement of support that reads in part: “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.”

At a press availability after the NATO conference at The Hague, CNN’s Kaitlin Collins rebuked Trump’s attempt to paint CNN’s reporting as anti-American: Collins said “I think everyone appreciates our soldiers and our warriors” and then quickly pivoted to specific questions about the intelligence assessments. The entire cable channel network seemed to join the push back including anchor Pamela Brown who also took issue with Trump calling CNN unpatriotic. She said:

“That is false. That is absolutely false, and that is a straw-man argument. These nuclear sites are very deep. So both can be true, right, that these troops execute on the mission and they are brave, and I say this as a veteran‘s wife, but also that the initial intel assessment showed that it didn‘t fully obliterate the sites.”

Trump also went after the New York Times for its reporting that found “preliminary classified findings indicate that the attack sealed off the entrances to two facilities but did not collapse their underground buildings.” The newspaper’s response to Trump noted:

“Yesterday President Trump called this ‘fake news.’ But he and his entire national security team subsequently confirmed that the Defense Intelligence Agency did in fact produce the preliminary assessment described in a report by The Times and others. So their statement was fake, not The Times’s reporting.”

That was one of two fiery responses from the Times. The second came Thursday after Trump’s personal lawyer threatened to sue for “unpatriotic reporting” and demanded the Times retract and apologize for its story on the initial bombing assessment. CNN says it got a similar demand. The Times response? “No apology will be forthcoming. We told the truth to the best of our ability. We will continue to do so.” It’s not everyday that a legacy news outlet like the Times calls out a U.S. President but it’s a welcome response to see this strong stand for journalism and against government censorship.

Another shocker came Thursday during a Pete Hegseth briefing seemingly designed to shore up Trump’s storyline and attack journalists who failed to play along. It included a direct attack on one of Hegseth’s former colleagues, Fox National Security reporter, Jennifer Griffin, over a question about “whether Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was destroyed in Saturday’s strike on Iran as President Donald Trump has claimed.” Griffin, clearly surprised by the attack, defended her work. Longtime Fox talent Brit Hume also defended Griffin on air saying it was “an attack she did not deserve” and that “her professionalism, her knowledge and her experience are unmatched.”

I don’t expect Fox will make a habit of calling BS when they see it. After all, it was Fox’s non-stop coverage of Israel’s initial attacks on Iran that pushed Trump to do some bombing of his own.

But now that so many mainstream news organizations have found some spine and are fighting Trump’s propaganda, they must also continue to unapologetically stand up for solid fact-based news reporting. If billionaire media moguls and corporate owners don’t like it, they can always sell.

Jennifer Schulze is a longtime Chicago journalist. She’s on Bluesky @newsjennifer.bsky.social and Substack at “Indistinct Chatter.”