President Donald Trump locked horns with an NBC correspondent and mocked CNN on the world stage Wednesday.
His jab at CNN anchor and White House reporter Kaitlan Collins drew laughs, and the president also tangled with NBC News White House correspondent Kelly O’Donnell over the network’s “demeaning” of the military personnel who carried out the strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities last week.
The president has been critical of the press in recent days as reports have claimed that the strikes were not the complete success that Trump has declared and that Iran’s nuclear program may have only been set back by a matter of months.
“The report said what it said, and it was fine. It was severe, they think, but they had no idea. They shouldn’t have issued a report until they did, but we’ve gotten the information. I think Pete said it better than you can say it,” Trump told O’Donnell, who pressed the issue during a news conference at the NATO summit.
“Here we go. Here’s another one [fake news journalist]. We got them all today.”
“It’s been obliterated, Kelly.”
President Trump and Secretary Hegseth shutdown misleading reporting from NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell. pic.twitter.com/fnQLd2MuAt
— Thomas Hern (@ThomasMHern) June 25, 2025
“And, you know, he should be proud. You, especially you, should be of those pilots, and you shouldn’t be trying to demean them,” he added, referring to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who had just dropped a reality check on the fake news.
“No, there’s a difference, sir, between asking about an assessment and demeaning the skill–,” the NBC reporter said.
“Those pilots flew at great risk, a big chance that they’d never come back home and see their husbands or their wives,” the president emphasized as O’Donnell responded, “Nobody is questioning the skill of those pilots.”
“Let me just tell you, you and NBC, fake news, which is one of the worst. And CNN, New York Times are all bad. They’re sick! There’s something wrong with them.,” an exasperated Trump railed.
“You know what? You should be praising those people instead of trying to find something. By getting me, by trying to go and get me, you’re hurting those people. They were devastated. You know, I got a call from Missouri, great state, and I won three times by a lot. And I got a call that the pilots and the people on the plane were devastated because they were trying to minimize the attack,” he continued.
“And they all said it was hit. But, oh, but we don’t think it was really maybe hit that badly. And they were devastated. They put their lives on the line, and then they have — and I’m not referring to you, but real scum, real scum, come out and write reports that are as negative as they could possibly be,” the president said. “It should be the opposite. You should make them heroes and heroines, you should make them really people that they were so devastated when they heard this news.”
“And you know what they said? One of them, I spoke to one of them said, ‘Sir, we hit the site. It was perfect. It was dead on!’ Because they don’t understand fake news because they have a normal life except they have to fly very big, very fast planes,” Trump said. “But it’s a shame. You should be making them heroes.”
During another moment at the press conference at the NATO summit on Wednesday, Kaitlan Collins attempted to ask the president a question.
Lmao Trump just dragged @kaitlancollins on CNN’s lies…… I could watch this all day😂😂pic.twitter.com/JaKBeKtuz4
— Spitfire (@DogRightGirl) June 25, 2025
“Yes, please, go ahead. Oh, fake news, CNN?” Trump joked as he called on Collins.
“Here we go! Wait’ll you hear this question,” he said as those gathered had a laugh before he told the CNN anchor, “You should really say how great our soldiers and our warriors are.”
“I think everyone appreciates our soldiers and our warriors,” she replied, following with her “two questions.”
“You just cited Israeli intelligence on these attacks. Earlier, you said US intelligence was inconclusive. Are you relying on Israeli intelligence for your assessment of the impact of the strikes?” Collins asked as Trump interjected with a “no” before she finished.
“Now, this is also — Iran made the statement, and it’s also — if you read the document that was given, that you can talk about if you’d like, the document said it could be very severe damage,” the president said.
“But they didn’t take that. They said it could be limited or it could very severe. They really didn’t know, other than to say it could limited or could be very, very severe, and you didn’t choose to put that — because it was very early after,” he continued. “Since then, we’ve collected additional intelligence. We’ve also spoken to people who have seen the site, and the site is obliterated. And we think everything nuclear is down there. They didn’t take it out.”
