Trump Administration Officials Bash CNN, New York Times Reports Claiming Attacks Did Not Destroy Iran’s Nuclear Sites

The Trump administration is railing against press reports that claim military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities last weekend did not destroy the country’s nuclear program.President Trump has said the attacks on three sites within Iran’s borders “completely and totally obliterated” the country’s ability to pursue a nuclear weapon — but on Tuesday, CNN and the New York Times reported that classified findings indicate the attacks sealed off the entrances to two facilities but did not collapse their underground buildings. The reports also claim the Defense Intelligence Agency assessment finds evidence Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed and centrifuges are believed to be largely intact.The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, posted a link to a CNN article on X Tuesday afternoon and wrote: “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.”Ms. Leavitt went on to say that the leak was a “clear attempt” to demean Mr. Trump. “Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration,” she wrote.Secretary Hegseth released his own statement saying the bombings “obliterated” Iran’s ability to create nuclear weapons. “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,” Mr. Hegseth said.The statements from Ms. Leavitt and Mr. Hegseth came hours after Mr. Trump lashed out at CNN and MSNBC’s reporting on the strikes. “CNN is scum, and so is MSDNC,” he said, apparently linking the network to the Democratic National Committee. “They’re all, and frankly, the networks aren’t much better. It’s all fake news. They should not have done that. These pilots hit their targets, those targets were obliterated, and the pilots should be given credit,” Mr. Trump told reporters on the White House lawn.He added, “They’re not after the pilots, they’re after me, they want to try and demean.”Israeli leadership is also disputing reporting on the effectiveness of the attacks. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a Hebrew-language televised speech that Israeli and American actions destroyed the Iranian nuclear project. “And If someone in Iran will try to reconstruct this project,” he added, “we will act with the same determination, with the same might, to undermine any such attempt.”The chief of the general staff of the IDF, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, added, “We’ve set Iran’s nuclear project back by years, and the same applies to its missile program.”The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency also hinted at mass destruction and said the attacks had a profound impact on Iran’s nuclear program.“It is clear that there is one Iran before June 13, a nuclear Iran, and one now, and it’s night and day,” the director general of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, told Fox News.While a cease-fire with Iran appears to be holding, the IDF says the Israeli air force intercepted and shot down two drones that had been launched from Iran. They were shot down outside of Israeli’s borders and were believed to have been launched before the cease-fire took hold, the Times of Israel reported.

Trump Administration Officials Bash CNN, New York Times Reports Claiming Attacks Did Not Destroy Iran’s Nuclear Sites

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