CNN’s Natasha Bertrand: SecDef Confirmed Our Reporting — Kaitlan Collins Calls It ‘Great Reporting’ скачать в хорошем качестве

CNN’s Natasha Bertrand: SecDef Confirmed Our Reporting — Kaitlan Collins Calls It ‘Great Reporting’

On June 26, 2025, Kaitlan Collins, anchor of CNN’s The Source, featured Natasha Bertrand as her lead source, praising her for “great reporting” during a brief 2-minute-and-46-second segment. Bertrand — better known as “Fusion Natasha” for promoting the discredited Steele dossier — has built a career on pushing false narratives, from the Trump-Russia collusion hoax to the baseless claim that Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation, a lie she amplified in Politico just weeks before the 2020 election. Now, in her latest CNN piece — co-authored with others and built entirely on anonymous sources — she claims U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites were minimally effective. It’s just another conveniently timed narrative that undermines Trump while propping up the intelligence community. In the segment, Bertrand claimed the Secretary of Defense had confirmed CNN’s reporting — even though what he actually confirmed was merely the existence of a preliminary, low-confidence DIA assessment. But at CNN, that’s apparently still good enough to be called “great reporting.” Let’s take a look at some of the “great reporting” Collins was referring to: Headline Exclusive: Early US intel assessment suggests strikes on Iran did not destroy nuclear sites, sources say The U.S. military strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities last weekend did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, according to an early U.S. intelligence assessment described by seven people briefed on it. The assessment, which has not been previously reported, was produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s intelligence arm. It is based on a battle damage assessment conducted by U.S. Central Command in the aftermath of the U.S. strikes, one of the sources said. The analysis of the damage to the sites and the impact of the strikes on Iran’s nuclear ambitions is ongoing and could change as more intelligence becomes available. But the early findings are at odds with President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that the strikes “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also said on Sunday that Iran’s nuclear ambitions “have been obliterated.” Two of the people familiar with the assessment said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed. One of the people said the centrifuges are largely “intact.” Another source said that the intelligence assessed enriched uranium was moved out of the sites prior to the U.S. strikes. “So the (DIA) assessment is that the U.S. set them back maybe a few months, tops,” this person added. The CNN piece also included a map with the caption: “Iran has a well-developed nuclear program. Iran has been developing its nuclear infrastructure since the 1960s, often in secret with some facilities buried underground. It is capable of most stages of uranium production from mining to enrichment; it insists its program is peaceful.” At least CNN got that right: Iran has a well-developed nuclear program. The article, co-authored by Natasha Bertrand, once again leaned entirely on anonymous sources to advance a narrative aimed at undermining Trump — a familiar playbook of selective leaks, vague intel, and zero accountability. It offered no named officials, no hard evidence, and no independent verification — just a carefully timed story and headline that cast doubt on Trump’s claims. To drive the point home, CNN even quoted Democratic Rep. Pat Ryan, who accused Trump of canceling a classified briefing because “his team knows they can’t back up his bluster and BS.”