Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard put CNN and The New York Times on blast Wednesday, confirming that their reporting on President Donald Trump’s strike against Iran’s nuclear program was based on cherry-picked, incomplete, and misleading intelligence.

Both left-leaning outlets tried to downplay the success of Operation Midnight Hammer, claiming that “early U.S. intelligence assessments” questioned the effectiveness of the historic airstrike.

In reality, those assessments—leaked illegally to the press—were based on “low confidence” intel and lacked the complete picture, according to Gabbard and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

“New intelligence confirms what [President Trump] has stated numerous times: Iran’s nuclear facilities have been destroyed,” Gabbard declared in a post on X. “If the Iranians chose to rebuild, they would have to rebuild all three facilities (Natanz, Fordow, Esfahan) entirely, which would likely take years to do.”

Gabbard, a former Democrat turned America First national security hawk, didn’t hold back, slamming the outlets as part of the "propaganda media" that selectively released portions of classified intelligence in an effort to discredit Trump’s leadership and undermine U.S. military success.

“The propaganda media has deployed their usual tactic: selectively release portions of illegally leaked classified intelligence assessments… to try to undermine President Trump’s decisive leadership and the brave servicemen and women who flawlessly executed a truly historic mission,” she wrote.

CNN and The Times cited anonymous sources claiming the Fordow nuclear site sustained only surface damage, supposedly making it easy for Iran to repair. But Gabbard confirmed that such conclusions were premature, speculative, and most importantly — wrong.

Defense Secretary Hegseth, speaking from the NATO summit in the Netherlands, delivered a blistering defense of the U.S. military and shredded the media narrative.

“These pilots, these refuelers, these fighters… flew 36 hours into enemy territory to take out a nuclear program,” Hegseth said. “It is beyond what anyone in this audience can fathom.”

He specifically rebuked CNN and The New York Times for their rush to “spin” the success into a political hit job.

“CNN and New York Times instinctively try to hurt President Trump or our country,” Hegseth said. “Any assessment that tells you something otherwise is speculating with other motives… We’re doing a leak investigation with the FBI right now because this information is for internal purposes.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt echoed the sentiment, torching the unnamed leaker as an “anonymous, low-level loser” and warning that such disclosures are dangerous and unlawful.

Meanwhile, new intelligence supports Trump’s claim that the strikes “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities. The Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan facilities were decimated. If Iran dares to rebuild, it’ll take years—giving the Trump administration a commanding strategic edge in the region.

What the media wanted to spin as a failure has, in fact, become one of the most successful strategic air operations in U.S. history.