Trump goes after CNN, NY Times for ‘fake news’ about strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities

President Donald Trump called retired CNN and The New York Times for "fake news" connected Wednesday astir the strikes connected Iranian atomic facilities. 

"Great statements conscionable came retired from the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission and from, Iran, arsenic you know, that it was implicit full destruction," Trump said Wednesday, speaking during the NATO Summit successful The Netherlands about last weekend's strikes connected Iranian atomic facilities.

"And, CNN turned retired to beryllium fake news," Trump added. "As always. I curse they person nary credibility. That's wherefore they person nary viewers. But we're going to work it to you if you haven't seen it." 

Trump said Saturday that the United States completed a "very successful" onslaught against Iranian atomic sites astatine Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan, saying that Iran’s atomic enrichment installations person been "obliterated." 

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President Donald Trump called retired CNN and the New York Times for "fake news" astir the pilots who performed strikes connected Iranian atomic facilities.  (Photo by Paul Hennessy/Anadolu via Getty Images)

On Wednesday, CNN published an exclusive claiming the "US subject strikes connected 3 of Iran’s atomic facilities past play did not destruct the halfway components of the country’s atomic programme and apt lone acceptable it backmost by months, according to an aboriginal US quality appraisal that was described by 7 radical briefed connected it."

On Tuesday, the New York Times published an article entitled, "Strike Set Back Iran's Nuclear Program by Only a Few Months, U.S. Report Says." 

"A preliminary classified U.S. study says the American bombing of 3 atomic sites successful Iran acceptable backmost the country’s atomic programme by lone a fewer months, according to officials acquainted with the findings," the portion reads. 

"The strikes sealed disconnected the entrances to 2 of the facilities but did not illness their underground buildings, the officials said the aboriginal findings concluded," it adds. 

TRUMP ADDRESSES NATION ON 'SPECTACULAR MILITARY SUCCESS' OF US STRIKES ON IRANIAN NUCLEAR FACILITIES

Trump said Saturday that the United States completed a "very successful" onslaught against Iranian atomic sites astatine Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan, saying that Iran’s atomic enrichment installations person been "obliterated."  (Fox News)

Trump called the media sum "very unfair" to the mission's pilots and added, "New York Times and CNN marque up a phony communicative to get immoderate hits. That's the lone crushed I cared astir it. Because those pilots were truthful brave. I've ne'er seen thing similar it. They flew into the hornet's nest, and past they got wounded truthful severely by what the fake quality wrote." 

He criticized CNN and The New York Times by name, saying, "It was CNN. It was a New York Times and they're both, disgusting, disgusting, truly horrible groups of people. The pilots did an unbelievable occupation similar nobody's ever seen. They deed wage dirt, you see... Look, they spell astatine the wound, you spot wherever the coiled is connected the earth, and 3 of them close adjacent to each other." 

He besides said that the pilots who performed the strikes should beryllium "respected."

CNN changeable backmost astatine Trump's criticisms connected Wednesday, with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer saying,"I talk arsenic a erstwhile Pentagon analogous and we appreciate, we emotion the men and women of the United States subject who hazard their lives to support each of us, and we’re not criticizing them astatine all."

Blitzer added the "only happening that we were doing was of people reporting what the Pentagon’s apical quality agency, the DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, said successful their preliminary study astir the harm that was assessed arsenic a effect of this mission."

He besides said that the pilots who performed the strikes connected Iran should beryllium "respected." (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

"Yesterday, President Trump called this 'fake news,'" a New York Times spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "But helium and his full nationalist information squad subsequently confirmed that the Defense Intelligence Agency did successful information nutrient the preliminary appraisal described successful a study by The Times and others. So their connection was fake, not The Times’s reporting. We’ll proceed to study afloat connected the administration’s decision-making, including the president’s quality with the Defense Intelligence Agency, arsenic we did this morning."

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While Trump has asserted that the strikes connected Iran destroyed its atomic weapon-making capabilities, there are inactive questions astir whether the ground-penetrating "bunker buster" bombs utilized to onslaught the cardinal enrichment sites were capable to halt the rogue state from processing a atomic bomb.

"I really person a small spot of a rosier presumption connected things," Andrea Stricker, Deputy Director astatine the Foundation for Defense of Democracies' Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program, told Fox News Digital. "I deliberation that due to the fact that of the monolithic harm and the daze question that would person been sent by 12 Massive Ordnance Penetrators astatine the Fordow site, that it apt would render its centrifuges damaged oregon inoperable."

Fox News Digital's Alec Schemmel contributed to this report.