Trump Angrily Calls for CNN to Fire Reporter Over Story on Iran Nuclear Strikes: She Should Be ‘Thrown Out Like a Dog'
President Trump has again lashed out at media outlets that have reported things he doesn't like — and he's now singled out one CNN reporter, whom he says should be fired by the network and 'thrown out 'like a dog.''
On Tuesday, CNN was first to report that Trump's military strikes on three of Iran's nuclear facilities over the weekend 'did not destroy the core components of the country's nuclear program and likely only set it back by months,' citing 'an early US intelligence assessment' produced by the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency. Other news outlets, including the New York Times, the Associated Press and ABC News, matched the network's reporting.
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Trump has insisted that the U.S. military strikes on Iran resulted in the 'total obliteration' of the regime's nuclear weapons program. At the same time, Trump told reporters at a NATO summit on Wednesday, 'The intelligence was very inconclusive. The intelligence says, 'We don't know, it could have been very severe' — that's what the intelligence says.'
On Wednesday, Trump unleashed a new rant aimed at CNN national security correspondent Natasha Bertrand, one of the reporters on the story.
'Natasha Bertrand should be FIRED from CNN! I watched her for three days doing Fake News. She should be IMMEDIATELY reprimanded, and then thrown out 'like a dog,'' the president wrote on Truth Social, the platform operated by Trump Media & Technology Group.
In the post, Trump referred to a story Bertrand had written for Politico in 2020. That article said, 'More than 50 former senior intelligence officials have signed on to a letter outlining their belief that the recent disclosure of emails allegedly belonging to Joe Biden's son 'has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.'' Following the New York Post's initial report about Hunter Biden's laptop in October of that year, other news outlets including the New York Times and Politico have reported that the laptop did belong to Hunter Biden and the documents on it were authentic.
'She lied on the Laptop from Hell Story, and now she lied on the Nuclear Sites Story, attempting to destroy our Patriot Pilots by making them look bad when, in fact, they did a GREAT job and hit 'pay dirt' — TOTAL OBLITERATION!' Trump said in the post. 'She should not be allowed to work at Fake News CNN. It's people like her who destroyed the reputation of a once great Network. Her slant was so obviously negative, besides, she doesn't have what it takes to be an on camera correspondent, not even close. FIRE NATASHA!'
In a statement about Trump's rant, CNN said, '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. 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.'
Bertrand is one of three CNN reporters with bylines on the story, alongside Katie Bo Lillis and Zachary Cohen.
In an earlier statement sent to Variety, a spokesperson for the news outlet said, 'CNN stands by our thorough reporting on an early intelligence assessment of the recent strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, which has since been confirmed by other news organizations. The White House has acknowledged the existence of the assessment, and their statement is included in our story.'
Earlier Wednesday, Trump lashed out at both CNN and the New York Times. 'We just caught the Failing New York Times, working with Fake News CNN, cheating again!' Trump wrote on Truth Social. 'They tried to demean the great work our B-2 pilots did, and they were wrong in doing so. These reporters are just BAD AND SICK PEOPLE. You would think they would be proud of the great success we had, instead of trying to always make our Country look bad. TOTAL OBLITERATION!'
That came after he wrote in a post Tuesday evening, 'FAKE NEWS CNN, TOGETHER WITH THE FAILING NEW YORK TIMES, HAVE TEAMED UP IN AN ATTEMPT TO DEMEAN ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL MILITARY STRIKES IN HISTORY. THE NUCLEAR SITES IN IRAN ARE COMPLETELY DESTROYED! BOTH THE TIMES AND CNN ARE GETTING SLAMMED BY THE PUBLIC!'
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Associated Press
19 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Supreme Court has 6 cases to decide, including birthright citizenship
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is in the final days of a term that has lately been dominated by the Trump administration's emergency appeals of lower court orders seeking to slow President Donald Trump's efforts to remake the federal government. But the justices also have six cases to resolve that were argued between January and mid-May. One of the argued cases was an emergency appeal, the administration's bid to be allowed to enforce Trump's executive order denying birthright citizenship to U.S.-born children of parents who are in the country illegally. The remaining opinions will be delivered Friday, Chief Justice John Roberts said. On Thursday, a divided court allowed states to cut off Medicaid money to Planned Parenthood amid a wider Republican-backed push to defund the country's biggest abortion provider. Here are some of the biggest remaining cases: Trump's birthright citizenship order has been blocked by lower courts The court rarely hears arguments over emergency appeals, but it took up the administration's plea to narrow orders that have prevented the citizenship changes from taking effect anywhere in the U.S. The issue before the justices is whether to limit the authority of judges to issue nationwide injunctions, which have plagued both Republican and Democratic administrations in the past 10 years. These nationwide court orders have emerged as an important check on Trump's efforts and a source of mounting frustration to the Republican president and his allies. At arguments last month, the court seemed intent on keeping a block on the citizenship restrictions while still looking for a way to scale back nationwide court orders. It was not clear what such a decision might look like, but a majority of the court expressed concerns about what would happen if the administration were allowed, even temporarily, to deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the country illegally. Democratic-led states, immigrants and rights groups who sued over Trump's executive order argued that it would upset the settled understanding of birthright citizenship that has existed for more than 125 years. The court seems likely to side with Maryland parents in a religious rights case over LGBTQ storybooks in public schools Parents in the Montgomery County school system, in suburban Washington, want to be able to pull their children out of lessons that use the storybooks, which the county added to the curriculum to better reflect the district's diversity. The school system at one point allowed parents to remove their children from those lessons, but then reversed course because it found the opt-out policy to be disruptive. Sex education is the only area of instruction with an opt-out provision in the county's schools. The school district introduced the storybooks in 2022, with such titles as 'Prince and Knight' and 'Uncle Bobby's Wedding.' The case is one of several religious rights cases at the court this term. The justices have repeatedly endorsed claims of religious discrimination in recent years. The decision also comes amid increases in recent years in books being banned from public school and public libraries. A three-year battle over congressional districts in Louisiana is making its second trip to the Supreme Court Lower courts have struck down two Louisiana congressional maps since 2022 and the justices are weighing whether to send state lawmakers back to the map-drawing board for a third time. The case involves the interplay between race and politics in drawing political boundaries in front of a conservative-led court that has been skeptical of considerations of race in public life. At arguments in March, several of the court's conservative justices suggested they could vote to throw out the map and make it harder, if not impossible, to bring redistricting lawsuits under the Voting Rights Act. Before the court now is a map that created a second Black majority congressional district among Louisiana's six seats in the House of Representatives. The district elected a Black Democrat in 2024. A three-judge court found that the state relied too heavily on race in drawing the district, rejecting Louisiana's arguments that politics predominated, specifically the preservation of the seats of influential members of Congress, including Speaker Mike Johnson. The Supreme Court ordered the challenged map to be used last year while the case went on. Lawmakers only drew that map after civil rights advocates won a court ruling that a map with one Black majority district likely violated the landmark voting rights law. The justices are weighing a Texas law aimed at blocking kids from seeing online pornography Texas is among more than a dozen states with age verification laws. The states argue the laws are necessary as smartphones have made access to online porn, including hardcore obscene material, almost instantaneous. The question for the court is whether the measure infringes on the constitutional rights of adults as well. The Free Speech Coalition, an adult-entertainment industry trade group, agrees that children shouldn't be seeing pornography. But it says the Texas law is written too broadly and wrongly affects adults by requiring them to submit personal identifying information online that is vulnerable to hacking or tracking. The justices appeared open to upholding the law, though they also could return it to a lower court for additional work. Some justices worried the lower court hadn't applied a strict enough legal standard in determining whether the Texas law and others like that could run afoul of the First Amendment.
Yahoo
21 minutes ago
- Yahoo
How Much Will the Supreme Court Let Trump Get Away With? We Got an Ominous Sign This Week.
Donald Trump won the presidency in part on promises to deport immigrants who have criminal records and lack permanent legal status. But his earliest executive orders—trying to undo birthright citizenship, suspending critical refugee programs—made clear he wants to attack immigrants with permanent legal status too. In our series Who Gets to Be American This Week?, we'll track the Trump administration's attempts to exclude an ever-growing number of people from the American experiment. For the past six months, President Donald Trump and his administration have contorted, stress-tested, and outright violated law to achieve his delusional 1 million deportations goal. The judicial system has been a critical check, forcing the federal government to follow the law—and at times it has worked as intended. But the Supreme Court has been throwing wrenches in our legal machinery that often seem to defy logic. In an order released this week, the court's conservative justices signaled they are unwilling to stand up to the Trump administration and would rather allow the White House to simply defy our justice system as it pleases. Meanwhile, one victim of the Trump administration's lawlessness, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, was finally brought back to the U.S. after being mistakenly deported four months ago. But thanks to a newly unveiled criminal indictment and a pending immigration detainer, it's highly unlikely that he will be returning home to his wife and children anytime soon. Here's the immigration news we're keeping an eye on this week: Less than three months after the Supreme Court shot down an injunction preventing deportations under the Alien Enemies Act, it released another historic shadow docket decision. The majority of the justices chose to lift a lower court judge's injunction that had, up until Monday, prevented the federal government from removing immigrants from the U.S. to third countries, instead of their home country of origin, without at least giving them advance notice and allowing them to object on the grounds that they face torture there. 'The court's order is certainly apt to have immediate and devastating consequences for all those in the crosshairs of the administration's chaotic and increasingly random deportation campaign,' Deborah Pearlstein, director of Princeton University's Program in Law and Public Policy and a professor of law and public affairs, told me. 'Moreover, it sends a really frightening signal about whether the court is going to stand up to what are increasingly blatant instances of administration defiance of court orders.' The Supreme Court's intervention comes after the Trump administration repeatedly violated U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy's orders by attempting to send migrants to South Sudan, Libya, and El Salvador. The targets of this scheme argue that they will be tortured and killed if removed to these countries, making their expulsions unlawful under the Convention Against Torture and various federal laws. Murphy ruled that, at a minimum, the government must tell migrants where they are being sent, and give them an opportunity to object, with the assistance of counsel, on the grounds that they'll be tortured there. Roughly two weeks after Murphy issued his injunction mandating this due process, the Trump administration defied it. And yet, on Monday, SCOTUS rewarded the government by sweeping away the injunction and allowing these potentially lethal removals to resume. The high court's decision shocks the conscience, as it effectively allows the federal government to get away scot-free with defying a lower court judge's order, establishing an extraordinarily dangerous precedent. It also subjects thousands of migrants to potential torture and death overseas in clear violation of federal law. And the justices offered zero explanation, since they issued their order on the shadow docket. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, wrote a scathing dissent. 'Apparently, the court finds the idea that thousands will suffer violence in far-flung locales more palatable,' Sotomayor wrote, 'than the remote possibility that a District Court exceeded its remedial powers when it ordered the Government to provide notice and process to which the plaintiffs are constitutionally and statutorily entitled.' The Supreme Court's decision is especially alarming in light of a new whistleblower complaint, Pearlstein noted. In the complaint, a Justice Department lawyer accused Emil Bove III, Trump's former personal attorney who has been named principal associate deputy attorney general, of telling subordinates he was willing to ignore court orders to fulfill Trump's mass deportation agenda. (Trump has nominated Bove to a federal appeals court; at his Senate hearing on Thursday, Republicans dismissed the complaint as partisan retribution.) 'I feel less confident in the court's willingness to stand up for an independent judiciary than at any point since Trump's inauguration,' Pearlstein said. After being mistakenly deported to El Salvador, denied due process, and placed in the country's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center for roughly three months, 29-year-old Kilmar Abrego Garcia was finally brought back to the U.S. this month. Now he faces a dubious federal indictment and is in federal custody. And despite U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara D. Holmes declaring he's eligible for pretrial release, it's unlikely he'll be going back to his family in Maryland anytime soon. On June 13, Abrego Garcia saw his wife and mother for the first time since before his March deportation, in a Tennessee courtroom where his lawyers argued against the Department of Justice's allegations that Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang and smuggled migrants across the country. During a hearing over whether he should be held in pretrial detention, Abrego Garcia's defense attorney insisted he doesn't pose a serious flight risk, arguing that the government provided 'zero' facts to prove that his client has a history of evading arrest or engaging in willful international travel recently, or has strong relations in countries that cause him to seek refuge there or any prior felony convictions. Over the weekend, Judge Holmes ultimately agreed. She noted that the government's evidence that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13 'consists of general statements, all double hearsay, from two cooperating witnesses,' both of whom have serious criminal histories and hope to avoid deportation or prison time if they cooperate with prosecutors. The very same day that Holmes ordered Abrego Garcia's release, government lawyers filed a motion to stay her decision. Homeland Security has an active immigration detainer against Abrego Garcia, which the Department of Justice says means 'he will remain in custody pending deportation and Judge Holmes' release order would not immediately release him to the community under any circumstance.' Abrego Garcia says he was fleeing death threats and extortion by a local gang when he first entered the U.S. in 2012 at 16 years old. In 2019, he was arrested for loitering but had no previous criminal record, and a judge granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador, where he allegedly faced persecution. Despite that, the Trump administration deported Abrego Garcia in March—a move that officials admitted was an error—on flights that took off in defiance of a judge's restraining order. And despite the Supreme Court ruling in April that the government must 'facilitate' the return of Abrego Garcia to the U.S. so he could receive due process, he was not flown back until June. In recent weeks, masked federal agents have raided car washes and other businesses in Southern California, even stationing themselves outside Dodger Stadium. (The team denied Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents entry to the stadium itself.) In one incident, according to the Los Angeles Times, a man stopped his unmarked car in the middle of an intersection, took out his pistol, and aimed it at a group of pedestrians. He did not hurt anyone, eventually getting back into the car and driving off with red and blue emergency lights flashing. After reviewing surveillance footage, Pasadena police Chief Gene Harris told the newspaper his department concluded the man was in fact an ICE agent. 'They show up without uniforms. They show up completely masked. They refuse to give ID,' Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said during a press conference. 'Who are these people? And frankly, the vests that they have on look like they ordered them from Amazon. Are they bounty hunters? Are they vigilantes? If they're federal officials, why is it that they do not identify themselves?' Similar scenes have been playing out in other parts of the country in recent months. Back in March, Tufts University doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk was arrested by federal agents dressed in plainclothes and face masks and forced into an unmarked van. In Chicago earlier this month, masked ICE agents raided a building where an immigrant supervision program operates. At least 10 people were taken away in vans, with no clear understanding of why they were detained. 'We don't know who is arresting our brothers and sisters, because they are hiding behind masks,' Michael Rodriguez, a city alderman, told CBS News. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who himself was arrested last week, witnessed immigrants getting arrested at a Manhattan immigration court 'by the same non-uniformed, masked ICE agents who gave no reason for their removal, ripped them out of the arms of escorts in a proceeding that bears no resemblance to justice,' he told CBS News. California state Sen. Scott Wiener compared federal agents' tactics to 'Nazi-level thuggery,' and has introduced legislation that would ban local, state, and federal law enforcement from covering their faces when interacting with the public—with some exceptions. Violations would amount to a misdemeanor charge. ICE acting director Todd Lyons defended the agency's use of masks, arguing it protects agents from people who 'don't like what immigration enforcement is.' He also blamed sanctuary jurisdictions, where local authorities do not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement, suggesting masks would not be necessary if they 'would change their policy.'
Yahoo
23 minutes ago
- Yahoo
New UNH poll reveals how New Hampshire residents feel about Big Beautiful Bill
New Hampshire residents do not want Congress to pass President Donald Trump's sweeping tax and spending legislation, known as the 'One Big Beautiful Bill,' reveals a new poll from the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. The bill, which includes major changes to taxes and social safety net programs that have the potential to affect millions of Americans, is currently being negotiated on in the Senate. Trump has requested a July 4 deadline for passage. But it's facing blowback around the country, as less than 30% of voters support the bill in three recent national polls by Pew, Quinnipiac and the Washington Post-Ipsos. This trend is seen in New Hampshire, too, where only 33% of residents want Congress to pass the bill. A majority (56%) want Congress to block it, including 90% of Democrats and 72% of Independents. In comparison, 64% of Republicans want the bill to be passed. The poll was based on the results of 1,320 surveys completed online from June 19 to June 23, 2025. The margin of error is 2.7%. Out of the provisions in the bill surveyed, New Hampshire residents only supported one: to remove taxes on tips and overtime. The poll found 60% of Granite Staters support this provision, which would allow tipped employees like waiters and hairstylists, as well as workers who are paid overtime, to claim a new tax deduction through 2028. But New Hampshire residents largely disapprove of the other provisions in the House-passed bill, including work requirements for Medicaid, making the 2017 tax cuts permanent, removing electric vehicle and solar energy tax credits and banning state regulation of artificial intelligence for 10 years. The AI provision is the least popular, with just 24% in support. However, when divided by party, Republicans in New Hampshire are supportive of work requirements for Medicaid, permanent 2017 tax cuts and removing EV and solar energy tax credits. Granite Staters are also worried about the $2.8 trillion increase that the U.S. Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill is expected to have on the federal budget deficit over the next 10 years. In total, 85% of New Hampshire residents said they are concerned about the deficit, including 86% of Democrats, 82% of Independents and 87% of Republicans. Per the poll, 55% of New Hampshire residents disapprove of Trump's handling of his job as president while 45% approve, giving him a net approval rating of -10. This is unchanged from his approval in May. Of those who approve of Trump's performance, 28% cite handling of immigration, 16% say they think he's kept his campaign promises, and 11% say his handling of the economy. Of those who disapprove, 19% say they believe Trump is undermining democracy, 11% because they think he has poor character, and 10% say his handling of the economy. Overall, 56% of Granite Staters disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy, while 44% approve. His net approval on this issue (-12) is down from May (-9), and much lower than February (-2). Trump's approval on immigration has also slightly decreased following ICE protests in Los Angeles. 54% of Granite Staters disapprove of his handling of immigration, according to the poll, up from 51% in April. Nearly all Democrats disapprove while nearly all Republicans approve. The poll reveals that 53% of Granite Staters have an unfavorable opinion of Elon Musk, up from 44% in April. Despite Musk's feud with Trump in early June, 64% of Republicans have a favorable opinion of Musk, virtually unchanged since April (62%). However, his unfavorability has increased greatly among Democrats and Independents. 49% of New Hampshire residents also believe that Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has had a negative effect on the federal government, versus 40% who think it has had a positive effect. This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: New poll: How do NH residents feel about Trump's Big Beautiful Bill?
