CNN criticizes Trump over insult to its reporter

According to USA Today, on Wednesday, Trump wrote on the social media platform Truth Social: “Natasha Bertrand should be fired from CNN! I’ve been watching her spread fake news for three days. She should be immediately reprimanded and then ‘thrown out like a dog.’”

Trump added in the same post: “She lied about the laptop story, and now she’s lying about the attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities. She’s trying to make our patriotic pilots look bad, while they did a fantastic job and hit their targets — total destruction!”

The president’s remarks came after Natasha Bertrand and CNN reported that the U.S. strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities did not destroy Iran’s nuclear program, emphasizing that the attacks only set back Iran’s capabilities by a few months.

CNN rejected Trump’s claims and defended Bertrand, her reporting, and the network’s broader news coverage. In a public statement, CNN’s communications team wrote: “We stand 100% behind Natasha Bertrand’s journalism and especially her and her colleagues’ reporting on the U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.”

The network concluded its response by addressing Trump’s criticism directly: “We believe that attacking journalists for accurately reporting the existence of such assessments — and clearly presenting the findings in a way that informs the public — is entirely unjustified.”