President Donald Trump interrupted his Cabinet meeting on Tuesday to attack CNN reporter Natasha Bertrand, urging the network to fire her for reporting on an assessment that came from his own administration.
Trump brought Bertrand up unprompted as he described the U.S. operation to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, attacking her for a CNN report on an early intelligence assessment that disputed the U.S. strikes’ impact. The New York Times also reported on the analysis, but Trump mostly singled out Bertrand on Tuesday and claimed her reporting was “fake.”
“We had a lot of fake reporting, mostly from CNN where their scammer writer, a writer for CNN, who should be fired, by the way,” he said before referencing Bertrand’s past reports for Politico on Hunter Biden’s laptop. “She created a story out of the laptop from hell, saying that it came from Russia, but it actually came from Hunter Biden‘s bedroom, or worse. And, uh, just a scammer and she is still at CNN, which is pretty amazing.”
Trump further laid into Bertrand and the Times for the reporting, which he claimed illuminated large-scale problems with the media—before implicitly threatening the press.
“You ought to fire that reporter immediately, you should fire her,“ Trump said. ”Real fake.“
“The media has to straighten out their act,” he added. “The media is down to 17 percent approval. You got to do a little better than that. It’s important for the country that you do better. I think they ought to make a lot of changes—I think changes are gonna be made to the media.”
CNN pointed the Daily Beast to its statement)” href=”https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://x.com/CNNPR/status/1937954110302519517__;!!LsXw!UjvVaH99UqR8OO6oTS7zBp7QntOxCrIeYZb2-tQJnaBXzeHsy-R_Fkk5lReJqBHn97IX9-Qv2Dn6CSVQyEYIQJMpbQ$” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer” title=”https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://x.com/CNNPR/status/1937954110302519517__;!!LsXw!UjvVaH99UqR8OO6oTS7zBp7QntOxCrIeYZb2-tQJnaBXzeHsy-R_Fkk5lReJqBHn97IX9-Qv2Dn6CSVQyEYIQJMpbQ$”>statement last month defending Bertrand after Trump’s first round of attacks, where he claimed Bertrand should be fired “like a dog.”
“We stand 100% behind Natasha Bertrand’s journalism and specifically her and her colleagues’ reporting of the early intelligence assessment of the U.S. attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities,” it said in the statement. “CNN’s reporting made clear that this was an initial finding that could change with additional intelligence. We have extensively covered President Trump’s own deep skepticism about it. However, we do not believe it is reasonable to criticize CNN reporters for accurately reporting the existence of the assessment and accurately characterizing its findings, which are in the public interest.”
Trump has singled out individual reporters repeatedly in the last week as he’s ramped up his attacks on the media since January, ripping Forbes’ Dan Alexander, who he said has “written so inaccurately about me that it is ridiculous.”
“I would have thought Forbes would be DEAD by now, but it continues to hang around like a bad disease,” Trump wrote. “Isn’t it owned by a hostile nation? Anyway, that’s what happens when you have bad reporters with evil intentions. Eventually the publication dies. I’ve happily seen it over, and over, again!”
Forbes is owned by the Hong Kong-based firm Whale Media Investments.
Trump has singled out one potential media owner for praise: David Ellison, the Skydance CEO who’s attempting to buy Paramount Global.
Trump praised Ellison as a “fantastic young man” last week after Paramount settled with Trump for $16 million over his $20 billion lawsuit over 60 Minutes, backing up a New York Post report that the company set up a “side deal” that include public service announcements for pro-Trump causes. Paramount has denied those claims.
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