{"id":17184,"date":"2025-06-26T20:21:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T20:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/17184\/"},"modified":"2025-06-26T20:21:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T20:21:10","slug":"trump-hegseth-melt-down-over-leaked-iran-strike-intel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/17184\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump, Hegseth Melt Down Over Leaked Iran Strike Intel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tDonald Trump<\/a> is not happy<\/a> over the leaked Pentagon intelligence that found the strikes against Iran<\/a> over the weekend were not as damaging as the president and his administration have been claiming. CNN and The New York Times both reported on the government\u2019s preliminary information about the efficacy of the attacks on Tuesday, and Trump has spent the past few days incessantly attacking the outlets while repeatedly insisting that strikes \u201cobliterated\u201d Iran\u2019s nuclear capabilities.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe details of the intelligence report<\/a> \u2014 which found that the strikes only partially damaged their targets and likely only set back Iran\u2019s nuclear program a few months \u2014 went public as Trump was attending a NATO summit in the Netherlands, and his comments at the meeting of the allied nations largely revolved around the Iran strikes and how \u201cdisgusting\u201d and \u201chorrible\u201d the media is for reporting on the government\u2019s early findings about what happened. Trump\u2019s Truth Social account has meanwhile been rife with all-caps attacks against CNN and the Times, as well as calls for everyone involved to be fired. \u201cFAKE NEWS REPORTERS FROM CNN & THE NEW YORK TIMES SHOULD BE FIRED, IMMEDIATELY!!! BAD PEOPLE WITH EVIL INTENTIONS!!!\u201d he wrote this morning.<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump also used Truth Social to tease an early-morning press conference from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth<\/a>, who berated the media today alongside Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine. \u201cHow many stories have been written about how hard it is to fly a plane for 36 hours?\u201d a visibly enraged Hegseth asked<\/a> the congregated press, referring to the mission to bomb the Iranian nuclear sites, which he described as \u201cthe most complex and secretive military operation in history.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHow about we celebrate that?\u201d Hegseth continued in his screed about the media\u2019s coverage of the strikes. \u201cHow about we talk about how successful America is, that only we have these capabilities? I think it\u2019s too much to ask, unfortunately, for the fake news.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tHegseth even went after one of his former colleagues, Jennifer Griffin of Fox News, who asked about the administration\u2019s confidence that Iran did not preemptively move uranium from the sites of the strikes, which the Pentagon\u2019s preliminary report indicated was likely. \u201cJennifer, you\u2019ve been about the worst, the one who misrepresents the most, intentionally, what the president said,\u201d he said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe chaotic scene today at the Pentagon, and on Trump\u2019s Truth Social feed, is part of an administration-wide effort to defend the strikes, discredit the leaked intelligence report, and inflate the president\u2019s ego<\/a> while chastising or threatening those casting the strikes as anything short of a historic success.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe president has been especially sensitive about the prospect of Iran having moved uranium ahead of the strikes. In recent days, a person with direct knowledge of the situation tells Rolling Stone that the president has been sensitive about any reporting suggesting stockpiles had been moved, in part because Trump essentially tipped off the Iranians by teasing that the U.S. could take action. \u201cIt really pisses him off when people say that,\u201d this source says, noting that would undermine Trump\u2019s assertion of how \u201cperfectly\u201d this operation was conducted.<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump claimed<\/a> on Truth Social as Hegseth berated the media today that \u201cnothing was taken out of the facility\u201d and that the trucks appearing on satellite imaging ahead of the strikes \u201cwere those of concrete workers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSecretary of State Marco Rubio, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, and other top officials have leapt to Trump\u2019s defense in response to the leaked report \u2014 but Hegseth may be the tip of the spear.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOne Trump adviser tells Rolling Stone that they chuckled at the former Fox News host\u2019s seemingly prepared line about how Trump\u2019s bombing operation was \u201cthe most complex and secretive military operation\u201d ever \u2014 or, in this source\u2019s paraphrase, even \u201cbetter than D-Day.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\tThis adviser says it immediately reminded them of former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer\u2019s much-ridiculed declaration that Trump\u2019s first 2017 inauguration had \u201cthe largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump has joined Hegseth in pushing absurd exaggerations about the efficacy of the strikes, and, not surprisingly given that the intelligence report did not parrot the president\u2019s talking points, the current propaganda blitz is accompanied by yet another one of Trump\u2019s sprawling leak crackdowns<\/a>. As Rolling Stone first reported<\/a>, the leak of classified material to outlets such as CNN and The New York Times quickly triggered a particularly aggressive investigation, with Trump and other senior administration officials fuming that this could have happened.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe leak hunt was launched concurrently with the Trump team\u2019s broader clampdown on intelligence and sensitive information. Staff at the Pentagon and elsewhere in the federal government were personally warned by superiors that if they had anything to do with this disclosure to the media, they could be facing serious prison time, two sources with knowledge of the matter say.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAdditionally, Trump lieutenants moved to put an even tighter stranglehold on the amount of classified information it shares with Congress. \u201cWe are declaring a war on leakers,\u201d one senior White House official told Axios<\/a>. Leavitt said Wednesday that \u201cthe FBI is investigating who was the source of that leak because it\u2019s an illegal leak to CNN.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s still too soon to know the reality of the operation\u2019s effectiveness. Caine was asked about this uncertainty during the press conference with Hegseth today. \u201cGeneral, on Sunday you said final battle damage will take some time \u2026 and it would be way too early for me to comment on what may or may not still be there,\u201d a reporter began<\/a> before asking Caine, \u201cWhat has changed? Would you use the term \u2018obliterated,\u2019 as well?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCaine began to answer before Hegseth cut in and started attacking the media\u2019s \u201cirresponsible\u201d coverage of the operation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump is not happy over the leaked Pentagon intelligence that found the strikes against Iran over the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17185,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[69,83,50,6986,103],"class_list":{"0":"post-17184","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-iran","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-pete-hegseth","12":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114751529791381651","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}