What was wrong with the CNN “report” that U.S. air strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites had—so to speak—bombed? Aren’t intrepid journalists supposed to pursue the truth wherever it takes them, regardless of whether they offend people in high places?
Well, yeah. But the Free Beacon explains why CNN, which relied on a faulty document from an agency that is not held in high regard to discredit the Trump-ordered air strikes, likely was duped. By the Iranians. Talk about bombing! The Free Beacon reports:
The U.S. intelligence community deemed that initial assessment “low-confidence,” a fact CNN omitted from its original piece, and based it solely on satellite imagery and intercepted communications—known as signals intelligence, or SIGINT—from Iranian officials. Shortly after the assessment leaked, Axios reported that communications intercepted by Israel “suggest Iranian military officials have been giving false situation reports to the country’s political leadership—downplaying the extent of the damage.” Such communications likely made their way into the DIA report, according to three former U.S. intelligence operatives, a current U.S. official, and other veteran national security insiders who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon both on and off the record. Some of them referred to the DIA as the “discount intelligence agency.”
“It’s basically messaging by the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps], messaging by Tehran,” said Michael Pregent, a former intelligence officer with U.S. Central Command who operated in the Middle East for nearly 30 years. “DIA is taking a SIGINT report from the National Security Agency … and putting together an assessment to leak. I know it’s messaging, the Iranians know it’s messaging, and for some reason, NSA believes it’s actual f—ing intelligence.”
A current U.S. official familiar with the ongoing damage assessment process said that the DIA’s findings—as well as “the partisan hit job published by CNN”—have been “completely debunked” over the past 24 hours, including by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
“Trump Bombs the Leak Machine” is the headline on Kimberley Strassel’s Wall Street Journal this morning. There is a good reason for the Trump administration to act decisively:
The Trump team went all-in this week countering the DIA report, with updates and briefings laying out the damage from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, military officials, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and the White House press team. The president pressed his claims of success in 21 posts on Truth Social on Wednesday alone and piled on news outlets. The administration also opened an investigation into the leak and suggested it might limit some classified information-sharing with Congress.
This has put much of the media on the back foot, engaged in a lot of throat-clearing about the “fog” of intelligence and the precise definition of “obliteration.” CNN, hilariously, continues to refuse to take the loss, and instead ran a piece suggesting the administration’s “hyperemotional” response to “honest questioning” only makes it “look defensive.” Sure.
The White House has good reason to move quickly in correcting the record and sending a message. The leaks are designed to do political damage, and the administration knows from the first term how real that damage can be.
The CNN reporter who broke the Iran story was Natasha Bertrand, dubbed a “CIA stenographer” by Miranda Devine. Ms. Bertrand’s most illustrious scoop previously concerned the 51 former intelligence agents who claimed that Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation. It was not. (Poignant Aside: Hunter is once again having trouble keeping current on his debts.)
Meanwhile, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in an interview with Fox’s Brett Baier that the Iran air strikes were “a hot in the arm” for American credibility. Rice, who served in the George W. administration, did mention any President or former President by name, but she did dwell on the Afghanistan withdrawal as catastrophic for American prestige. Amazing interview. Is Brett Baier inheriting the world’s greatest interviewer mantle of Oriana Fallaci?
Will the One Big Beautiful Bill be ready in time to land on President Trump’s desk on July 4? The Senate Parliamentarian has rejected key proposals regarding Medicaid. A Yahoo story crows that “she’s unelected, unknown and has the power to veto Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill.” In “About Those ‘Millions’ Losing Medicaid,” Wall Street Journal explains that they fall into two categories: able-bodied recipients who won’t work even part-time, and illegal aliens.
Who put socialist Zohran Mamdani over the top and made him New York’s likely next Mayor? Veteran political sage Michael Barone characterizes Mamdani’s support:
Mamdani won by huge margins from the same constituency that cast the critical votes for [Mayor Brandon] Johnson in Chicago. It’s the same constituency that in 2021 in New York was the base of Maya Wiley, who won slightly more first-choice votes than Kathryn Garcia, whose base was affluent Manhattan, but fewer than the winner, incumbent New York City Mayor Eric Adams, whose base was Blacks in Brooklyn and Queens.
I have called this constituency the “barista proletariat,” made up of people with temporary jobs in service industries, nonprofit organizations or media, perpetual grad students or adjunct lecturers who supplement their incomes often by gaming welfare systems and working off the books. You could see them as economic parasites on Manhattan’s rich finance and media wealth. They prefer to see themselves as cultural rebels against the larger society’s complacency and intolerance.
In a similar vein, Ms. Must’s favorite demographer Joel Kotkin explains at Spiked Online why Mamdani’s “progressive intifada” will be a disaster for New York:
By roughly four to one, Americans favour much higher taxes on the rich, longer holidays and government-imposed cuts to pharmaceutical prices. Rising inequality and the fear of downward mobility drive support for expanded government and wealth redistribution.
Yet it would be a mistake to see Mamdani’s success in New York as a precursor to left-wing victories at the national level. The problem for such candidates is that most middle- and working-class Americans don’t protest, much less riot, when their cities and states go downhill – they just move somewhere less stressed and more promising, mostly to the suburbs. Those who remain in the cities are now totally unrepresentative of America as a whole.
Former Governor Andrew Cuomo, despite having been walloped by Mamdani, so far plans to stay in the race. Current New York Mayor Eric Adams, whose term was hijacked by the illegal migrant crisis, is running as an Independent. Republican Curtis Sliwa is refusing pleas to drop out so the anti-Mamdani vote can coalesce. City Journal’s Jesse Arm has suggestions for NYC powerbrokers, including the tantalizing notion of persuading NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch to run.
“Everything Conservatives Said about Joe Biden Got Exposed One Year Ago Today” is the headline on Matt Vesta’s reminiscence of then-sorta President Joe Biden’s catastrophic debate. The House Oversight Committee is valiantly trying to figure out who the real President was back then. Alas, the Committee had to subpoena Doctor Biden’s suddenly shy “work husband” Anthony Bernal to come and testify.
I can’t end without mentioning “Alligator Alcatraz,” a proposed detention center for illegal aliens with criminal histories in Florida’s scenic Everglades. The BBC notes:
The facility, in the middle of a Miami swamp, was proposed by state lawmakers to support US President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda.
“You don’t need to invest that much in the perimeter. If people get out, there’s not much waiting for them other than alligators and pythons,” explains the state’s attorney general, James Uthmeier, a Republican, in a video set to rock music and posted on social media.
It’s not a sure thing—environmentalist and tribal leaders are fighting it tooth and nail. But I do look forward to feigning innocence and saying to my liberal friends, “Goodness gracious, they’ll be perfectly unharmed unless they get naughty and try to escape.” Just kidding. Or not.
