CNN star Jake Tapper fired back at President Donald Trump’s criticism of the network over its coverage of the Iran strikes, saying it’s not the journalists’ job to “protect his feelings.”
The network was the first to report that despite the president’s announcement that American warplanes had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program when they dropped massive “bunker-buster” bombs on the Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan sites, an initial intelligence assessment from the Pentagon said the program had only been set back by a few months.
Trump has lashed out at CNN and other outlets that confirmed its reporting—including The New York Times—as “scum” and called for the journalist who broke the story, Natasha Bertrand, to be fired. The network has said it stands behind Bertrand and her reporting.
“Today, President Trump and his administration are shooting the messengers in an increasingly ugly way,” Tapper said during the opening segment of his show Wednesday. “They’re calling journalists ‘fake news’ for true stories.”
A leaked initial report by the Defense Intelligence Agency, an arm of the Pentagon, found that Iran’s uranium stockpile was not destroyed during Saturday’s attack and that its centrifuges were left largely intact.
Trump has acknowledged the report exists and that it says what CNN reported, but has said the assessment was wrong. Tapper stressed during his show Wednesday that it was right to report on the Pentagon’s preliminary findings, even if the intelligence assessment later evolves.
“Our obligation as journalists is not to praise President Trump, or protect his feelings, or to disparage him… Our obligation is to report facts,” Tapper said. “In this case, the fact is that an initial DIA intel assessment out of Secretary Pete Hegseth’s own Pentagon exists. And that’s not going to change, no matter how many insults Trump levels.”
The administration has repeatedly accused CNN journalists reporting on the leaked intel of “demeaning” the pilots who carried out the difficult mission—a claim other CNN journalists have refuted and that Tapper flat-out denied.
“No one is questioning whether this was a heroic and valiant effort on behalf of the United States,” he said.
He said the key questions for the American people were the degree of success of the operation and the current state of Iran’s nuclear program, and pointed to the Iraq war and the Pentagon Papers as examples of the need for journalists to ask tough questions about government affairs and intelligence.
“Even if, as Americans and as humans, there is a personal instinct to rally around the flag, asking questions is literally our job—demanding facts and answers, instead of just taking a president’s word for it,” he said. “History has taught us that the most pro-service member action we can take is to ask questions of our leaders, especially in times of war. That, for journalists, is the height of patriotism.”
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