Donald Trump has blasted CNN and the New York Times, claiming they have teamed up to “demean one of the most successful military strikes in history”, and has declared Iran’s nuclear sites are “completely destroyed”.
The US president also claimed in the post on his Truth Social platform that the two media organizations are “getting slammed by the public”.
Trump’s statement came after reporting of an initial classified US assessment of his strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities over the weekend said they did not destroy two of the sites and likely only set back the nuclear program by a few months, according to two people familiar with the report.
The report produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s intelligence arm, is based on a battle damage assessment conducted by US Central Command in the aftermath of the US strikes.
It concluded that key components of the nuclear program, including centrifuges, were capable of being restarted within months. The report also found that much of Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium that could be put to use for a possible nuclear weapon was moved before the strikes and may have been moved to other secret nuclear sites maintained by Iran.
The White House said the intelligence report was “flat-out wrong”.
Here is Trump’s Truth Social post on Wednesday in full:
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’s envoy says US-Iran talks “promising”
Trump’s Middle East envoy has said talks between the US and Iran are “promising” and that Washington is hopeful for a long-term peace deal.
“We are already talking to each other, not just directly but also through interlocutors,” Steve Witkoff said on Tuesday. “I think that the conversations are promising. We are hopeful that we can have a long-term peace agreement that resurrects Iran,” he told a Fox News show.
Now it’s for us to sit down with the Iranians and get to a comprehensive peace agreement, and I am very confident that we are going to achieve that.
Reuters also reports that since April, Iran and the US have held indirect talks aimed at finding a new diplomatic solution over Iran’s nuclear program. Israel is the only country in the Middle East widely believed to have nuclear weapons. Iran is a party to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty while Israel is not.