Trump calls for CNN’s Natasha Bertrand to be ‘thrown out like a dog’ over report on Iran intel assessment

WASHINGTON, DC: President Donald Trump unleashed blistering attacks on CNN reporter Natasha Bertrand and demanded that she be ‘thrown out like a dog’ over her reporting on an early intel assessment of the Iran strikes.

Since his July 21 attack, the 79-year-old President has insisted that the US military strikes on Iran resulted in the “total obliteration” of the regime’s nuclear weapons program.

However, CNN later released a report on a Defense Intelligence Agency assessment that the US's strikes on Iran will likely push the country's nuclear program back only a few months.

The US military “did not destroy the core components of the country's nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, according to an early US intelligence assessment that was described by seven people briefed on it,” the report read, according to Daily Mail.

Bertrand is one of three CNN reporters with bylines on the story, alongside Katie Bo Lillis and Zachary Cohen.

Donald Trump brutally slams CNN reporter Natasha Bertrand

Since the report's release, Donald Trump has left no chance unturned to push back at the Defense Intelligence Agency's assessment on Iran strikes.

In his latest diatribe, the President accused Bertrand of publishing ‘fake news’ and asked CNN to throw her out ‘like a dog’.

“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,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.

“She lied on the Laptop from Hell Story, and now she lied on the Nuclear Sites Story, attempting to destroy our Patriot Pilots by making them look bad when, in fact, they did a GREAT job and hit ‘pay dirt’ — TOTAL OBLITERATION!” he added.

In the post, Trump was referring to a story Bertrand wrote for Politico in 2020 over Hunter Biden’s lost laptop.

“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 concluded the post.

Trump’s attack came after White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt took a jab at CNN’s report.

"This 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," she said in a statement.

"The leaking of this alleged assessment is a clear attempt to demean President Trump 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," the statement added.

Natasha Bertrand replies to Trump’s blistering attack

After Trump accused Bertrand of spreading ‘fake news’, the CNN correspondent took to her Instagram to share a slew of stories, hitting back at the President.

Among those stories, Bertrand shared Donald Trump’s Truth social post with a red circle around the words “thrown like a dog.”

In the next slide, she shared a hilarious meme featuring her dog Wallace Cornelius III and added a tagline to the post that read, “... and I took that personally.”

The network also responded to Trump’s attack with a statement, saying “We stand 100% behind Natasha Bertrand's journalism and specifically her and her colleagues' reporting of the early intelligence assessment of the US attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.”

“CNN's reporting made clear that this was an initial finding that could change with additional intelligence. We have extensively covered President Trump's own deep skepticism about it.”

“However, we do not believe it is reasonable to criticize CNN reporters for accurately reporting the existence of the assessment and accurately characterizing its findings, which are in the public interest,” the statement added.