Pete Hegseth rips into the media for overshadowing 'historic' Iran strikes as Trump admin grapples with intel leak fallout: Live updates
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ripped into the media for failing to positively cover Donald Trump 's 'historically successful' strikes on Iran.
The president over the weekend authorized 30,000 pounds of explosives to 'obliterate' Iran's three largest nuclear sites dubbing it a total success.
But days later, a leaked report from the Pentagon 's Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) reportedly stated that the U.S. strikes only delayed Iran from getting a nuclear weapon by a couple of months. It also said that much of the enriched uranium was moved out ahead of the B-2 bomber hits.
Hegseth is holding a press conference at the Pentagon on Thursday morning to slam CNN, the New York Times and other outlets that disclosed the report's findings calling it 'preliminary.'
Follow along with Daily Mail's live blog:
12:16
Hegseth to media: It's in 'your blood to cheer against Trump'
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ripped the media during his press conference at the Pentagon, saying it's in 'your blood to cheer against Trump.'
Hegseth passionately defended Saturday's air strike on Iran and blasted the media for reporting on an early intelligence assessment that cast doubt on its success.
'I mean specifically you, the press corps, because you cheer against Trump so hard, like it's in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump. You want him not to be successful so bad, you have to cheer against the efficacy of the strikes. You have to hope they were not effective.'
Hegseth blasts media in defense of Trump's Iran airstrike
'Let me read the bottom line here,' Hegseth said during a press conference at the Pentagon. 'President Trump directed the most complex and secretive military operation in history and it was resounding success resulting in a ceasefire agreement and the end of the 12-day war.'
He then when on to criticize CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times and other outlets that reported on a preliminary intelligence report that said little damage was done to Iran's nuclear program.
'It is preliminary. It points out it is not coordinated with the intelligence community at all, there is low-confidence in this report, there are gaps in,' he said.
12:09
Exclusive:Trump's approval rating revealed after Iran strikes divide the nation
For all the twists and turns of the '12 Day War' between Israel and Iran - including President Donald Trump's decision to drop bombs on three Iranian nuclear sites - the president's approval rating remained extraordinarily stable.
A new Daily Mail/J.L. Partners poll found that Trump's approval rating stood at 47 percent.
It was also 47 percent on June 6, before Israel made the decision to start bombing Iran on June 12, with the goal of obliterating the Islamic regime's nuclear program.
And it was 47 percent on June 18, three days before the U.S. got involved.
The president's disapproval rating stayed at 53 percent throughout.
Trump's approval rating revealed after Iran strikes divide the nation
Americans voters have responded to President Donald Trump's leadership in the so-called '12 Day War,' a new poll from the Daily Mail and J.L. Partners revealed.
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Daily Mail
18 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Former Iran diplomat makes disturbing claim to Aussie journalist following US bombings
Iran could rebuild its nuclear sites within months, a former Iranian diplomat has warned. Seyed Hossein Mousavian, who previously served as a senior member of Iran's nuclear diplomacy team, said recent US strikes only 'partly' destroyed Iran's nuclear facilities and that the country still retains its nuclear 'know-how'. 'There is no doubt... Iranian nuclear facilities have been attacked, have been bombed, have been damaged,' he told the ABC's 7.30 program on Thursday. 'You can imagine buildings, utilities, even perhaps centrifuges have been destroyed, partly, not all. 'Nevertheless, if the objective of the US-Israeli air strikes aim and objective was to destroy (the) Iranian nuclear program, I'm confident they have failed. 'Even if they have another attack, even if they have 100 attacks, they will fail because you can not kill technology and know-how, Iranians, they have know-how.' Mr Mousavian, who claims to no longer be affiliated with the Iranian regime, suggested it might take only months to reconstruct the country's nuclear facilities. 'Iranians have the know-how technology and they can reconstruct everything, whether that would take one month or five months or six months, it doesn't matter.' The US launched an array of strikes on Saturday after Israel and Iran's long-standing feud developed into a direct conflict earlier this month. The strikes involved 125 US military aircraft and targeted three nuclear facilities: Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan. Mr Mousavian's comments stand in stark contrast to those of US President Donald Trump who has claimed the bombings devastated the country's nuclear facilities. 'Monumental Damage was done to all Nuclear sites in Iran, as shown by satellite images,' Trump wrote on Truth Social. The former Iranian diplomat is not the first to suggest the damage could have been less extensive than Trump had suggested, including by his own intelligence agencies. An initial assessment by the US Defense Intelligence Agency also suggested Iran's path to building a nuclear weapon might have been set back only by months. Trump shrugged off the findings in an appearance at a NATO summit in the Netherlands on Wednesday, claiming they were 'inconclusive'. 'It was very severe. It was obliteration,' he said. CIA director John Ratcliffe has since said the strikes had 'severely damaged' Iran's nuclear facilities but stopped short of stating the nuclear program had been wiped out. Asked by Mr Speers whether he believed Iran would remain in the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Mr Mousavian was non-committal. 'It depends to the US. If the US would be committed to international rules and regulations,' he said. 'If the US would respect Non-Proliferation Treaty, if the US would respect the rights of Iran like other members of Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran would stay. 'Iran, like before, would never go for nuclear bombs, like before, Iran would cooperate at the highest level of transparency and inspections, to ensure its nuclear program is peaceful.' Mr Speers then asked whether, in Mr Mousavian's view, there would be an 'incentive' for Iran to speed up its efforts towards building a nuclear weapon. 'It depends on the US. If the US is going to accelerate hostilities, wars, assassinations, terror, cyberattacks, why they should not? 'That sounds like a threat. 'It is (the) American threat. It is (the) Israeli threat. Why you are saying vice-versa? 'Iran has been attacked. Iran did not attack. Israel attacked Iran. The US attacked Iran. But now we are discussing about Iranian threat?'
Daily Mail
18 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Trump slams media who questioned Iran bombing strike
President Donald Trump continued his criticism of establishment media organizations for their emphasis on preliminary intelligence reports showing that the bombing strikes on Iran did not completely destroy its nuclear facilities. The president posted several posts throughout Wednesday and Thursday, many of them in all caps criticizing the reports and accusing them of publishing intentionally 'fake' stories. On Thursday, Trump teased a 'rumor' that the New York Times and CNN would fire their reporters who reported. 'Rumor is that the Failing New York Times and Fake News CNN will be firing the reporters who made up the FAKE stories on the Iran Nuclear sites because they got it so wrong,' Trump said. 'Let's see what happens?' CNN exclusively reported leaked details from preliminary intelligence assessments of the strikes by the Defense Intelligence Agency, citing 'seven people' briefed on the report. Trump and his officials, particularly Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth criticized the reports, targeting one of the lead reporters of the story Natasha Bertrand of being dishonest. '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,'' Trump wrote on social media. '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,' Trump continued. '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!' Trump's post about CNN firing Bertrand appeared to be wishful thinking, as CNN issued a statement standing by Bertrand and her reporting. '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,' the news outlet said in a statement. CNN denounced the criticism targeted at Bertrand as irrational. 'We do not believe it is reasonable to criticize CNN reporters for accurately reporting on the existence of the assessment and accurately characterizing its findings, which are in the public interest,' they wrote. The Trump administration continues to criticize the media for questioning the success of the mission after U.S. pilots aboard seven B-2 bombers dropped 14 Massive Ordinance Penetrator (MOP) bombs on the nuclear facilities in Fordow and Natanz. But the president continued posting criticism of both CNN and the New York Times, describing them on Thursday morning as 'bad people with evil intentions.' 'These reporters are just BAD AND SICK PEOPLE,' Trump wrote on social media on Wednesday. 'You would think they would be proud of the great success we had, instead of trying to always make our Country look bad.' Trump and his officials singled out Bertrand for her reporting on the infamous Steele Dossier and a 2020 Politico report reporting that 'former senior intelligence officials' believed that the Hunter Biden laptop was 'Russian disinformation.' '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 wrote on social media. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth held a press conference on Thursday, complaining about the media reports based on 'biased leaks to biased publications.' 'How about we take a beat, recognize first the success of our warriors, hold them up, tell their stories, celebrate that, wave an American flag, be proud of what we accomplish?' he asked.
Daily Mail
19 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
How much each NATO country will pay to meet 5% defence spending target
NATO agreed at a summit in The Hague this week to set a defence spending target of 5% of GDP for all its members following months of pressure from US President Donald Trump . The agreement, which seeks to boost defence expenditure in Europe 'back to the levels of the Cold War,' as Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb put it, gives members of the security bloc ten years to hit the new target. It's a major revamp of the way the transatlantic alliance calculates defence spending - and one that many analysts doubt is achievable for several of the bloc's members. Of the 5% of GDP members are expected to earmark for defence in 2035, 3.5% will be dedicated to core military spending, with a further 1.5% dedicated to security-related areas. This includes infrastructure - adapted roads, bridges, ports and airfields needed to host and deploy armies to a battlefield - as well as cybersecurity and broader societal changes and civilian programmes to prepare a population for conflict. According to the new regulations, weapons and ammunition that NATO members supply to Ukraine will be factored into the total spend, making the new target slightly easier to reach. The targets may also be adjusted in 2029. But many European countries have expressed concern that they will struggle to meet 5%. Spain, meanwhile, has openly declared it will not come close to meeting the target, leading Trump to threaten to slap tariffs on Spanish goods to make up for the deficit. The UK's current defence spend is 2.33% of GDP, amounting to almost $81.4 billion. If Britain were required to meet the 5% target today, the Government would need to set aside a whopping $192 billion. Our interactive map below displays the current defence expenditure of all the NATO countries, both as a percentage figure of GDP and in monetary terms. As a comparison, you can also see how much money 5% of GDP equates to today. Following Russia 's annexation of Crimea in 2014, NATO members agreed at a summit in Wales to commit 2% of their GDP to defence to help ensure the alliance's military readiness. A decade later, in 2024 - two years into Russia's full-scale war in Ukraine - only 23 of the bloc's 32 members had managed to achieve the target. Now, they're expected to double down even further. The bloc-wide push to increase defence spending comes amid concerns over Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine and the Trump administration's desire to reduce Europe's dependency on Washington for defence and security as Washington turns its focus to China and the Indo-Pacific. NATO allies dedicate a much smaller share of their economic output to defence than Russia but, taken together, they spend significantly more cash than Moscow. Russia's military spending rose by 38% in 2024, reaching an estimated $149 billion and 7.1% of GDP, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). The US is still by far the biggest spender on defence overall in terms - forking out a total of $967.7billion, equivalent to 3.38% of GDP. But America falls behind Poland and Estonia in percentage spend. These nations, which share a land border with Russia or its exclave Kaliningrad, contribute 4.12% and 3.43% of their respective GDPs to defence. The UK by comparison spends around $81.4billion, equivalent to 2.33% of its GDP, with Sir Keir Starmer 's government insisting it is on a 'path' to increasing this to 2.5%. But no member of the alliance is close to spending 5% of GDP on defence at present, and some nations - including Spain , Canada , Italy and Portugal - are still lagging below the 2% threshold. Spain is at the bottom of the pile, spending just 1.28% as of this year. For Madrid, spending 5% of GDP on defence would mean boosting its annual defence budget by around €80 billion - nearly half the size of the Spain's entire pensions bill - a move the government is unwilling to accept. NATO countries spent over $1.3 trillion on core defence in 2024, up from about a trillion a decade earlier in constant 2021 prices. If NATO states had all spent 3.5% of GDP on defence last year, that would have amounted to some $1.75 trillion - in other words, hundreds of billions of dollars more. Besides the focus on defence spending targets, NATO leaders in The Hague this week reaffirmed their 'ironclad commitment' to the alliance's collective defence clause, Article 5. In recent months, Trump had sowed seeds of doubt about whether the US would actually come to the aid of any NATO ally under attack, conditioning American military support on whether said ally was contributing enough to defence spending. With NATO's new spending pledge in the bag - albeit with Spain's refusal to meet it - a positive Trump told reporters that 'I left there saying that these people really love their countries. 'It's not a ripoff. And we're here to help them protect their country.' It was clear that this week's NATO summit had been curated to appeal to the US President, with leaders perhaps having recognised that stroking the former reality TV star and real estate mogul's ego likely constitutes the path of least resistance in their dealings with him. As Trump flew to the Netherlands, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte sent a text message gushing about him being on the verge of a great achievement and saying, 'Europe is going to pay in a BIG way, as they should, and it will be your win.' Trump gleefully plastered the message on social media, forcing Rutte to bat down speculation that he was pandering to the President and that his gushing texts made him look weak. Rutte later suffered another gaffe during a press conference with Trump in The Hague. As the US President went on a rant about America's involvement in the Israel-Iran conflict, Rutte quipped that 'sometimes Daddy has to use strong language', in a pointed reference to Trump's use of a forceful expletive in an interview when chastising the arch foes for breaking a ceasefire deal. Trump's appearance at the summit was brief - his engagements were limited and a simple, one-page statement was prepared to keep him happy and focused. The approach seemed to pay dividends. After the meeting, Trump said he had headed into the summit seeing it as a political chore, but left convinced that the assembled leaders love the alliance, their own countries and, mostly importantly, the United States. He called NATO leaders a 'nice group of people' and said that 'almost every one of them said 'Thank God for the United States.' While Western leaders and defence chiefs met in The Hague, China was preparing to host defence ministers from Iran and Russia for a meeting in its eastern seaside city of Qingdao today. China has portrayed itself as a neutral party in Russia's war with Ukraine, although Western governments say its close ties have given Moscow crucial economic and diplomatic support. Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov painted a bleak picture of a world seeing 'worsening geopolitical tensions' when he addressed his counterparts at the meeting. 'The current military and political situation in the world remains difficult and shows signs of further deterioration,' he said, according to a Russian defence ministry statement. His Chinese counterpart Dong Jun also framed Thursday's meeting in Qingdao, home to a major Chinese naval base, as a counterweight to a world 'marked by intertwined turmoil and changes'. 'It is all the more important for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation to play its role as an anchor of stability,' he said, according to state news agency Xinhua. Recent fighting between Israel, Iran and the United States was also likely discussed in Qingdao. Though Russia and China are both seen as allies of Iran, Moscow and Beijing refrained from offering anything more than diplomatic support to Tehran as it came under attack from Israeli warplanes. This lack of support reflects both Russia and China's limited leverage in the region and reluctance to worsen relations with the US, analysts said. 'Public backing for Iran will come in the form of words, rather than deeds,' said James Char, an expert on the Chinese army at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. 'Other than condemning the US strikes on Iran, Beijing can be expected to continue treading cautiously in the Middle East's security issues and would not want to be dragged into the region's security challenges,' he said. Iran's defence minister will likely 'discuss with China the supply of weapons but I doubt China would agree', said Andrea Ghiselli, an expert in China foreign policy and a lecturer at Exeter University. 'It would be seen as provocative by both Israel... and, even more important for China, the US, with which Beijing is trying to stabilise relations,' Ghiselli said.
