White House slams CNN's anon-sourced report claiming 14 30,000 pound bombs did not destroy Iran's nuclear sites

CNN reported on Tuesday that the damage done to Iran's nuclear facilities by 14 30,000 pound American bunker buster bombs was not actually that extensive. Citing three unnamed sources who discussed an early draft of a classified intelligence assessment, CNN reported that the strikes "did not destroy the core components of the country's nuclear program and only set it back a few months."

The White House said the "alleged 'assessment' is flat-out wrong and was classified as 'top secret' but was still leaked to CNN by an anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community." 

"The leaking of this alleged assessment is a clear attempt to demean President Trump," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, "and discredit the brave fighter pilots who conducted a perfectly executed mission to obliterate Iran’s nuclear program. Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration."

CNN national security correspondent Natasha Bertrand reported that the sources told her that the early assessment was from the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency "based on a battle damage assessment" from CENTCOM. Bertrand spoke about the report, saying that "it is worth noting that it's a very early assessment" and that information about the extent of the damage is still being gathered.

Per her sources, Bertrand said that the Defense Intelligence Agency's assessment, from looking at images, was that "the core components of Iran's nuclear program are largely intact and that Iran's nuclear program has essentially only been set back by months." Bertrand asked the White House for comment. Leavitt posted her comment, above, on X.

Of Bertrand, Leavitt pointed out on X that she was the same journalist who reported that the Hunter Biden laptop was fake back in 2020. "This CNN story was written by the same 'reporter' who wrote the very first FAKE NEWS story claiming the Hunter Biden laptop was disinformation. How did that work out for you, [Natasha Bertrand]?"

That story, which Bertrand penned in Politico, claimed that the Hunter Biden laptop, first reported on by Emma Jo Morris at the New York Post, was actually a product of Russian disinformation. The article relied on a letter penned by 51 then-current and former intel officials which claimed that the laptop had all the "hallmarks" of Russian disinformation.

The intel agent who gathered the rest of the intel agents, it was later revealed, was contacted by then Biden campaign staffer Antony Blinken who suggested that perhaps the laptop story had the hallmarks of Russian disinformation. The laptop was real. Politico, and every outlet that made their claims of laptop fakeness, ended up with egg on their faces when they were forced to admit that the laptop was real. The FBI had known it was real since the previous year.

Of the damage to Iran's nuclear facilities, Bertrand said that "there has been dissent... within the intelligence community, within the defense community about just how much of an impact these massive bunker buster bombs would have on Iran's nuclear facilities. It was far from certain, given that these bombs had never been tested in an actual combat scenario, whether they would actually penetrate those very, very deep underground tunnels that lie underneath these nuclear facilities."

Again hedging her comments due to the preliminary nature of the report, Bertrand said "what we are told is that, as of now, this Defense Intelligence Agency assessment, it does conclude at this point, again it is still very early, that those underground facilities, including the centrifuges, including the highly enriched uranium, those are largely intact."

After multiple reports on Bertrand's story emerged in the press, CNN reached out with a statement from a network spokesperson, saying "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."

When President Trump was asked about the reporting from CNN, while on the way to The Hague for a meeting with NATO nations, he said "that place is demolished. The B-2 pilots did their job, they did it better than anyone could imagine, it was late in the evening, it was dark with no moon, and they hit that target with every one of those things, and that place is gone. But when I see CNN all night long, they're trying to say, 'well, maybe it wasn't really as demolished as we thought...' It was demolished."

The president said CNN should "apologize" to the pilots and that the network is "garbage" and that the networks are "real losers." "The people that run it ought to be ashamed," he said.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the facilities were "totally obliterated." In a statement to CNN, he said "Based on everything we have seen—and I've seen it all—our bombing campaign obliterated Iran's ability to create nuclear weapons. Our massive bombs hit exactly the right spot at each target and worked perfectly. The impact of those bombs is buried under a mountain of rubble in Iran; so anyone who says the bombs were not devastating is just trying to undermine the President and the successful mission."

The New York Post reported that the damage was extensive, more extensive than initially thought. "Based on its knowledge of what these halls contained, the IAEA assesses that this strike may have caused localized contamination and chemical hazards," said International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Grossi.