President Trump went nuclear on CNN and MSNBC, saying the networks hurt American pilots by questioning the effectiveness of their airstrikes on Iran.

His comments were made to a gaggle of reporters on the White House lawn on Tuesday as he boarded Marine One. He was foaming over coverage from the two cable news networks, saying, “They’re really hurting great pilots who put their lives on the line.”

“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.”

He added: “They’re not after the pilots, they’re after me, they want to try and demean.”

Asked by a reporter whether Iran could rebuild its nuclear program, the president began to answer but quickly pivoted back to railing against CNN, accusing it of saying the three nuclear facilities targeted by American aircraft were not destroyed as previously reported. He said that CNN and “MSNDC” should apologize to the pilots.

“I think that these guys, and these cable networks, are real losers. You really are,” he told the reporters. “I say that to CNN because I watch it, I have no choice. I’ve got to watch this garbage. It’s all garbage. It’s all fake news. But I think CNN is a gutless group of people.”

He also railed against the CEO, Brian Roberts, of MSNBC’s parent company, Comcast.

“He’s a disgrace. He’s a weak, pathetic disgrace,” Mr. Trump said.

The president’s comments followed reports that a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Iran had been violated just hours after going into effect.

“We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f— they’re doing,” he said.

Mr. Trump’s comments followed an earlier social media diatribe against cable news in which he referred to Anderson Cooper as “Allison” after the CNN anchor suggested that the target sites were not destroyed.

“The sites that we hit in Iran were totally destroyed, and everyone knows it. Only the Fake News would say anything different in order to try and demean, as much as possible — And even they say they were ‘pretty well destroyed,'” he said in a post on Truth Social. “It never ends with the sleazebags in the Media, and that’s why their Ratings are at an ALL TIME LOW — ZERO CREDIBILITY!”

Scrutiny has been placed on CNN after a report in Puck News said Mr. Cooper is one of the highest-paid anchors on the channel, earning $18 million per year. Other anchors, such as Kaitlan Collins, earn a fifth of his salary despite drawing the same ratings.