President Trump threatens to sue CNN, New York Times over Iran intelligence report leak

President Donald Trump on Wednesday sent letters to CNN and the New York Times, threatening to sue them for publishing articles about a leaked intelligence report that appeared to contradict the message he wanted to put out about the United States' bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities. 

Trump ordered the bombings and a missile strike on three locations over the weekend, which led to brief retribution from Iran. The bombings were intended to destroy Iran's nuclear program.

The CNN and New York Times reports claimed that the bombing had only set Iran back in its nuclear program by a few months, but Trump and his administration have repeatedly stated that the operation succeeded in effectively eliminating Iran's nuclear capabilities.

Trump's personal attorney sent the letters to the outlets, accusing the outlets of damaging Trump's reputation and demanded an apology and retraction for the "false,” “defamatory” and “unpatriotic" coverage.

Both outlets have rejected the request for an apology and retraction, the New York Times reported Thursday.

“No retraction is needed,” the New York Times' lawyer, David McCraw responded. “No apology will be forthcoming. We told the truth to the best of our ability. We will continue to do so.”

McCraw emphasized that the information in both the report and article was preliminary, which appeared to be in line with a complaint from the Trump administration. 

“While the Trump administration protests that the assessments were only preliminary — which, by the way, was the second word of our article — and that later assessments may come to different conclusions, no one in the administration disputes that the first assessments said exactly what the article said they did," McCraw wrote. "[Which is] the destruction caused by the raid was not as significant as the president’s remarks suggested.”

The administration has also emphasized that the report had a "low confidence" rating, which did not appear to be reflected in the initial article, and that it takes "weeks" to make a formal assessment because of the amount of data required.

The letters come after Trump called for CNN to fire the main reporter on the story, Natasha Bertrand, on Wednesday.

"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 posted to Truth Social. "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," he added.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.