Defense chief Pete Hegseth and Dan Caine, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, held a rare Pentagon news conference on Thursday to discuss and praise the airstrikes on Iran, and they had one particularly influential viewer—their boss:
- "One of the greatest, most professional, and most 'confirming' News Conferences I have ever seen!" wrote President Trump on Truth Social. "The Fake News should fire everyone involved in this Witch Hunt, and apologize to our great warriors, and everyone else!"
Trump's reference is to news stories, based on a leaked preliminary intelligence assessment, that the strikes on Iran weren't as devastating to Iran's nuclear program as the president has said. At the news conference, Hegseth even called out former Fox News colleague Jennifer Griffin as being among "the worst" in what he views as false reporting. Trump, for his part, singled out two other outlets in an all-caps post: "Fake news reporters from CNN & The New York Times should be fired, immediately!!!" he wrote. "Bad people with evil intentions!!!" It was CNN that first reported on the leaked intel report.
The ranking member of the House Armed Services panel offered a counter to the White House view of things on Wednesday, reports Politico:
- "This is part of the Trump reality distortion field," said Rep. Adam Smith. "He says, look, it's all done, we dropped one bomb, and in one day, peace in the Middle East has been achieved, all good. ... But the facts aren't really that hard to suss out here. It is pretty clear that one bombing campaign was not going to obliterate or destroy Iran's nuclear weapons program."
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