News commentary

Analysis: Trump claims the press is demeaning the military. But questioning power is patriotic.

CNN · Brian Stelter · last updated

Journalists ask questions, vet the answers and report the results to the public. That’s pretty much the job description.

But the Trump administration is claiming that it’s unpatriotic to do so.

Several days after the US conducted airstrikes in Iran, as the public awaits a clearer picture of the strikes’ impact, President Trump is attacking CNN for reporting on an early US intel assessment that undercut his claims about Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites being “totally obliterated.”

The New York Times is also being targeted by Trump because it matched CNN’s reporting. “They tried to demean the great work our B-2 pilots did,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday.

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