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(NewsNation) — The Trump administration has gone on the offensive over a “leaked” intelligence report contradicting the White House’s claims about damage caused by U.S. strikes in Iran.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will hold a news briefing at 8 a.m. EDT, in which Hegseth will discuss the report and “fight for the dignity of our great American pilots,” according to President Donald Trump.
While Trump has claimed “Operation Midnight Hammer” obliterated Iran’s nuclear program, a preliminary report from the Defense Intelligence Agency said the strikes set back Iran by only a few months.
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In a statement to NewsNation, the DIA called its report a “preliminary, low confidence assessment” and clarified officials “have still not been able to review the actual physical sites themselves, which will give us the best indication.”
Trump has blasted CNN, the New York Times and other outlets as “fake news” for reporting on the assessment, and Trump and Hegseth have claimed the report and its coverage disparaged U.S. military personnel involved in the attacks.
The DIA report did not take aim at military personnel — it simply outlined what worked, and what didn’t, in the airstrikes.
Still, the administration is doubling down.
“There was a total and complete obliteration of Iran’s nuclear facilities,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said. “And because of the president’s strike, because of the precision of our United States military and this perfectly executed mission, Iran no longer has the capability to produce a nuclear weapon as imminently as they did prior to the strike.”
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Senators are scheduled to receive a classified briefing Wednesday afternoon about the operation.
“Now, they’re trying to get away with sending only the secretary of state and defense … instead of the usual intelligence officials who attend the briefings,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., regarding the briefing.
He said the pair of top Trump officials would provide a “woefully insufficient” briefing.
“If they are the only ones in attendance, they will only parrot whatever the president wants them to say,” Schumer said.
Senior officials from the CIA and National Intelligence have said new intelligence shows the strikes did far more damage than originally reported.
NewsNation’s Anna Kutz contributed to this report.
