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President Donald Trump will not receive an apology from The New York Times for its coverage of U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, according to an attorney for the Gray Lady.
Trump has repeatedly called out The New York Times, along with CNN, for coverage of U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. On Tuesday, the Times published an article on a leaked intelligence assessment that the strike had only set Iran back by a few months, which Trump administration officials have said is simply a false talking point designed to undermine the president. Trump has said the attacks were a complete success and «obliterated» Iran’s capabilities.
Trump has also called the media coverage «very unfair» to the mission’s pilots and his legal team demanded a retraction and apology from the Times. A personal attorney for the president called the Times’ reporting «false,» «defamatory» and «unpatriotic,» while threatening legal action. He also threatened to sue CNN over its reporting.
Times senior vice president David McCraw, who serves as the paper’s lead newsroom attorney, shot down the notion that any apology or retraction is on the horizon.
TRUMP GOES AFTER CNN, NY TIMES FOR ‘FAKE NEWS’ ABOUT STRIKES ON IRANIAN NUCLEAR FACILITIES
President Donald Trump held a press conference after the NATO Heads of State and Government Summit in The Hague, Netherlands on June 25, 2025. (Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu via Getty Images)
«No retraction is needed. No apology will be forthcoming,» McCraw wrote in a defiant response to Trump’s attorney, Alejandro Brito.
McCraw detailed why the paper stands by its report.
«Let’s be clear about what happened in the aftermath of the raid. The U.S. intelligence services issued a preliminary assessment concluding that the attacks delayed Iran’s nuclear program only by a few months. That is what we reported,» McCraw wrote.
TRUMP ADDRESSES NATION ON ‘SPECTACULAR MILITARY SUCCESS’ OF US STRIKES ON IRANIAN NUCLEAR FACILITIES
Trump said Saturday that the United States completed a «very successful» strike against Iranian nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan, saying that Iran’s nuclear enrichment installations have been «obliterated.» (Fox News)
«While the Trump administration protests that the assessments were only preliminary—which, by the way, was the second word of our Article—and that later assessments may come to different conclusions,» he continued. «No one in the administration disputes that the first assessments said exactly what the Article said they did: the destruction caused by the raid was not as significant as the President’s remarks suggested.»
McCraw said that Americans deserve to know whether the attack on Iran was a success.
«We rely on our intelligence services to provide the kind of impartial assessment that we all need in a democracy to judge our country’s foreign policy and the quality of our leaders’ decisions. It would be irresponsible for a news organization to suppress that information and deny the public the right to hear it,» McCraw wrote.
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«We told the truth to the best of our ability. We will continue to do so,» he added.
Trump has recently said CNN and the Times are «disgusting, disgusting, really horrible groups of people» while objecting to coverage of the strikes. CNN has also stood by its reporting.
«CNN stands by our thorough reporting on an early intelligence assessment of the recent strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, which has since been confirmed by other news organizations. The White House has acknowledged the existence of the assessment, and their statement is included in our story,» a CNN spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Wednesday.
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Fox News Digital’s Rachel del Guidice and Emma Colton contributed to this report.
