Politics
WATCH: Trump Torches Kaitlan Collins During NATO Press Conference, Crowd Loves It
Kaitlan Collins’ reputation as a presidential punching bag has made its way to Europe, where a crowd on Wednesday lapped up President Donald Trump’s vicious takedown of the CNN reporter.
While taking questions, Trump entertained one from Collins but prefaced it with his own prediction about how the interaction would go.
“Oh, fake news CNN? Ayayai, here we go,” he said, shielding his eyes from the lights as he looked for Collins in the crowd.
“Wait ’til you hear this question. You should really say how great our soldiers and warriors are,” he added as the audience laughed.
A stone-faced Collins replied, “I think everyone appreciates our soldiers and our warriors.”
She went on to challenge President Trump’s reliance on an Israeli intelligence assessment concluding that “extensive” damage was done to Iranian nuclear enrichment sites. Earlier in the day, Trump called a preliminary U.S. intelligence report “inconclusive” after it stated that bombs by the U.S. and Israel only set Iran’s nuclear ambitions back by a couple of months.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that the bombings “totally obliterated” the three nuclear development sites.
“Are you relying on the Israeli intelligence for your assessment of the impact of the strikes?” Collins asked.
“No, no, no. Also Iran made the statement, and also if you read the document that was given [to CNN] — which we can talk about if you like — the document said it could be very severe damage, but they didn’t take that. They said it could be limited or it could be very severe,” Trump responded.
“They really didn’t know other than to say it could be limited or it could be very, very severe. And you didn’t choose to put that,” he continued, accusing Collins and CNN more broadly of biasing their news report on the U.S. intelligence assessment.
He referenced firsthand visits by Israeli sources who made their way into Iran to view the damage up close.
“Since then, we’ve collected additional intelligence,” Trump continued.
“We’ve also spoken to people who have seen the site and the site is obliterated,” he finished, adding, “and we think everything nuclear is down there. They didn’t take it out.”
WATCH:
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced earlier Wednesday that the Pentagon, in conjunction with the FBI, would be probing for the leaker who gave the classified intelligence to CNN, signaling that the White House is eager to refute a report that casts doubt on what has otherwise been heralded as a significant foreign policy victory for Trump.
In a blistering, all-caps statement on Truth Social, Trump accused CNN and the New York Times of “teaming up… to demean one of the most successful military strikes in history.”
Israeli officials said they stand behind their preliminary report and clarified that a more comprehensive assessment of the damage done by the strikes will take weeks or months.
“A professional battle damage assessment takes time,” an official told Axios.
“Israeli intelligence services haven’t arrived at any bottom lines for now,” they added. “But we don’t think there was any bug in the operation, and we have no indications the bunker-buster bombs didn’t work. Nobody here is disappointed.”