President Donald Trump bashed a CNN reporter on Sunday for asking if the president believes Iran takes his “threats seriously.”
The exchange came aboard an Air Force One flight from Palm Beach, Florida, to Washington, DC.
“Do you think Iran takes your threats seriously?” the reporter asked.
“I think so, don’t you think so, CNN?” Trump said sternly, before highlighting his administration’s killings of Gen. Qasem Soleimani, terrorist leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in his first administration, and the B-2 bomber strikes on Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan in 2025 during operation Midnight Hammer.
“Wouldn’t you say that they probably do at this point, after going through it for years with me? Being hit, Soleimani, al-Baghdadi, the Iran nuclear threat wiped out…And then you just had Venezuela,” Trump said.
“Wouldn’t you say they do, after all of the things we’ve done? What a stupid question,” the president added.
The exchange aboard Air Force One came as Trump said the United States “stands ready to help” as Iran looks “at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before” on Saturday as protests and mass demonstrations persist against the Islamic Republic, headed by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. As of Sunday, a minimum of 192 protesters had been killed, per AFP.
Trump blasted the CNN reporter earlier in the flight as well, when she tried to avoid answering what outlet she represents.
Earlier in the gaggle, one reporter asked Trump if Iran had crossed his “red line yet to trigger a response,” to which he said, “They’re starting to, it looks like.”
“There seemed to be some people killed that aren’t supposed to be killed,” he added, going on to note that “the military is looking at it, and we’re looking at some very strong options.”
The CNN reporter asked Trump for the options he had been briefed on.
“Why would I tell you that…Are you asking me to say what will I do, where will we attack, when, and at what angle will we attack from? Who are you with?” he asked.
She responded that she is with the White House press pool to avoid saying CNN. She ultimately fessed up to working for CNN when Trump pressed her.
“Why don’t you just say, ‘I’m with CNN,’” he said, adding that CNN is “fake news.”
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