5
#000000
#FFFFFF
War & Peace
Trump Cries 'Virtual Treason' as US News Outlets Detail Iran War Intel Assessments
New reporting on classified US intelligence findings undercuts the Trump administration's repeated claims that it has obliterated Iran militarily.
May 13, 2026
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday accused news outlets of committing "virtual treason" by reporting on classified American intelligence agency assessments showing that Iran has retained significant missile capabilities, contradicting triumphant White House claims that the Middle East country's forces have been utterly decimated.
The New York Times reported Tuesday that the Trump administration's "public portrayal of a shattered Iranian military is sharply at odds with what US intelligence agencies are telling policymakers behind closed doors, according to classified assessments from early this month that show Iran has regained access to most of its missile sites, launchers, and underground facilities."
"Most alarming to some senior officials is evidence that Iran has restored operational access to 30 of the 33 missile sites it maintains along the Strait of Hormuz, which could threaten American warships and oil tankers transiting the narrow waterway," the newspaper added.
The Times reporting came on the heels of a Washington Post story last week detailing "a confidential CIA analysis delivered to administration policymakers" concluding that Iran "can survive the US naval blockade for at least three to four months before facing more severe economic hardship."
The Post also reported that the US intelligence community "found that Tehran retains significant ballistic missile capabilities despite weeks of intense US and Israeli bombardment."
"Iran retains about 75% of its prewar inventories of mobile launchers and about 70% of its prewar stockpiles of missiles," according to the Post, which cited an unnamed US official. "The official said there is evidence that the regime has been able to recover and reopen almost all of its underground storage facilities, repair some damaged missiles, and even assemble some new missiles that were nearly complete when the war began."
In a Truth Social post late Tuesday afternoon, Trump—who has claimed that Iran has "nothing left in a military sense"—fumed that "when the Fake News says that the Iranian enemy is doing well, Militarily, against us, it’s virtual TREASON in that it is such a false, and even preposterous, statement."
"They are aiding and abetting the enemy!" the president continued, declaring that Iran has "no Navy, their Air Force is gone, all Technology is gone, their 'leaders' are no longer with us, and the Country is an Economic Disaster."
On top of intelligence assessments showing that Iran has maintained substantial military capabilities in the face of the US-Israeli onslaught, reports indicate that Iran has inflicted more damage on American military bases and other equipment than the Trump administration has publicly disclosed.
"American military bases and other equipment in the Persian Gulf region suffered extensive damage from Iranian strikes that is far worse than publicly acknowledged and is expected to cost billions of dollars to repair," NBC News reported late last month, citing three unnamed US officials, two congressional aides, and another person familiar with the damage.
A recent Washington Post analysis of satellite imagery found that "Iranian airstrikes have damaged or destroyed at least 228 structures or pieces of equipment at US military sites across the Middle East since the war began, hitting hangars, barracks, fuel depots, aircraft, and key radar, communications, and air defense equipment," an amount of destruction "far larger than what has been publicly acknowledged by the US government."
Phil Gordon, a foreign policy scholar at the Brookings Institution, wrote Wednesday that, "10 weeks in, the strategic failure is undeniable" for the Trump administration in Iran.
"The risk now is that having missed the opportunity to declare victory after the first few weeks, Trump can't accept defeat and humiliation so will keep looking for the next quick fix, thereby likely only making things worse," Gordon warned.
The Trump administration has lashed out publicly at news outlets for reporting on assessments that run counter to the Pentagon's rosy narrative of the illegal war's trajectory. Pete Hegseth, the Pentagon secretary, has condemned American media outlets as "unpatriotic" and warned reporters to "think twice" before publishing classified information.
Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal revealed that the US Justice Department subpoenaed the newspaper's journalists in March for records related to coverage of the Iran war.
“This is the latest attack in the Trump administration’s war on press freedom," Katie Fallow, deputy litigation director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said in response to news of the subpoenas. "Time and again, the administration has shown itself willing to disregard the First Amendment and long-standing limits on the use of government power to go after news outlets that publish embarrassing or critical information about the government."
Keep Reading
Show Less
Cuba Joins 'Lego Resistance Front' With Iran-Style Video Decrying Trump Warmongering
Content creator María Teresa Felipe Sosa hailed Cubans as "a people who refuse to submit to the true regime of horror, which the United States represents, as it goes around starting wars throughout the world."
May 12, 2026
As the team at Tehran-based Explosive Media keeps churning out viral artificial intelligence-generated Lego-style animated videos condemning the US-Israeli war on Iran, a Cuban version of the clips reacting to President Donald Trump's threats to attack the island appeared Monday on social media.
First posted by Havana art historian and digital content creator María Teresa Felipe Sosa, the video was shared by users including US investigative journalist Ryan Grim and Explosive Media, which added, "Welcome to the #LRF Cuba," or Lego Resistance Front.
"The threat that Cuba represents to the United States is the dignity and principles of a people who refuse to submit to the true regime of horror, which the United States represents, as it goes around starting wars throughout the world," Felipe said Tuesday on social media.
According to the video's lyrics:
They seek to stifle the lifeblood of this land with the talons of empire and the drums of war, from the north they unleash their poisonous breath seeking to seize what belongs to others. But this soil has roots of steel and a people who cannot be bought with money.
They raise walls of hatred and lies while the island, relying on its own strength, breathes amid 60 years of constant hostile siege—yet we continue to march forward with a firm step. There is no threat that can break our faith; the Cuban knows well how to stand tall.
Here dignity has neither price nor master; we are the guardians of our own dream. My people, stand tall, with fists held high against the invader and their dark assault.
There's no surrender beneath this burning sun, for it's known that the homeland must be defended. Resist my brother with your head held high for every victory in the battle-hardened struggle, your love is the compass of our people, for you know that the homeland must be defended.
The video comes amid more than 65 years of US-based terrorism, assassination attempts, and a tightened economic embargo targeting Cuba, as well as Trump's threats to attack or "take" the island. Despite extreme hardship caused or exacerbated by these internationally condemned policies, the Cuban people have been resolute in their resistance to US aggression.
With no victory in sight in the US-Israeli war on Iran and the American people increasingly wary of yet another war of choice waged by the self-described "president of peace" who's now attacked 10 countries over the course of his two terms in office, even some Republican lawmakers are warning Trump against attacking Cuba.
Asked if he would support such an attack, Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) told The Hill on Tuesday, "No, I would not."
"There’s a lot of economic pressure you can put on Cuba that makes a big difference by itself,” the hawkish senator added.
Numerous Democratic lawmakers have consistently opposed any attack on Cuba; however Democratic Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) recently helped sink a Senate war powers resolution aimed at blocking Trump from attacking the country.
More than 6 in 10 Americans surveyed by multiple pollsters in recent months said they oppose a US war on Cuba.
Responding to the renewed US menace under Trump, Felipe recently wrote that "the current threats aren't anything new, they only confirm a dangerous insistence—that of replacing international law with the law of the strongest."
"In the face of that, Cuba responds with an uncomfortable and persistent idea—its people does not give up," she continued. "Cuba is not seeking confrontation. It demands respect. And history, although some prefer to ignore it, has been clear—independence is not negotiated under threat."
"Once again," Felipe added, "and against all imperial odds, Cuba will win."
Keep Reading
Show Less
Trump's 'Golden Dome' Shield Exposed as 'Trillion-Dollar Boondoggle' by CBO
Sen. Jeff Merkley called the project “nothing more than a massive giveaway to defense contractors paid for entirely by working Americans.”
May 12, 2026
The Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday released a report estimating that President Donald Trump's proposed "Golden Dome" missile defense system would cost $1.2 trillion to create, deploy, and operate over the first 20 years of its existence.
The CBO report projects that acquisition costs for the proposed national missile defense (NMD) system would account for the vast majority of the $1.2 trillion total, including "costs for the system’s major components—namely, the interceptor layers and a space-based missile warning and tracking system."
In fact, the report says that the NMD system's space-based interceptor layer will be so expensive that it "accounts for about 70% of acquisition costs and 60% of total costs."
The CBO also questioned whether this massive investment would successfully protect the US from a foreign missile attack.
"Although the notional NMD system... would be far more capable than defenses the United States fields today," the report states, "it would not be an impenetrable shield or be able to fully counter a large attack of the sort that Russia or China might be able to launch."
"The strategic consequences of deploying an NMD system with the capacity considered here are unclear," the report continues, "because they hinge on an adversary’s perception of the defense's capability and how that adversary chose to respond."
The CBO's estimate on the missile system's cost was nearly seven times the projection Trump made last year, when he said it would cost just $175 billion.
And because the US Department of Defense still hasn't delivered key details about the proposed system, the CBO wrote, it is currently "impossible to estimate the long-term cost" of the initiative.
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), a longtime critic of the "Golden Dome" proposal, said the CBO report shows the Trump-backed project is "nothing more than a massive giveaway to defense contractors paid for entirely by working Americans."
"Just like the president’s symbolic renaming of the Department of Defense or deploying National Guard troops to our cities," added Merkley, who is the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, "this move to fund the ‘Golden Dome’ will be far more effective at squandering money than protecting American lives."
The Oregon Democrat vowed to "continue to work with my colleagues in the Senate to prevent another dime from flowing to this racket."
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), also a longtime critic of the president's proposed missile system, wrote in a social media post that "Trump’s Golden Dome is a $1.2 trillion golden sieve that won’t stop a nuclear attack, but will balloon the deficit and boost the bottom lines of billionaires."
Tommy Vietor, former National Security Council staffer under President Barack Obama and current co-host of Pod Save America, was even blunter in his criticism of the "Golden Dome" plan.
"$1.2 TRILLION for this dumb fucking Golden Dome missile defense system," he wrote in a social media post. "The initial estimate was $175 billion! Madness. No one wants this."
Daniel Larison, contributing editor at Antiwar.com and former senior editor at The American Conservative magazine, wrote that the CBO report exposed Trump's dome as a "trillion-dollar boondoggle."
Trump has said that he was inspired to develop such a missile system after being impressed by Israel’s “Iron Dome," despite the fact that Israel has a vastly smaller landmass to defend compared to the US and has historically faced far more danger from missile and rocket attacks.
Keep Reading
Show Less
‘How to Sell a Genocide’: Media Critic's Book Details Biased Coverage of Israeli Assault on Gaza
Adam Johnson said his analysis of thousands of articles and TV segments showed that "US media coverage of the war on Gaza was one-sided, racist, dehumanizing, and often veered into outright incitement."
May 12, 2026
A new book is using an exhaustive data analysis to demonstrate that mainstream US media outlets "systematically favor Israel" in their coverage of the Gaza genocide.
For his book, How to Sell a Genocide: The Media’s Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza, which became available last month from Pluto Books, journalist Adam Johnson said he "examined over 12,000 articles from The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN.com, Politico, Axios, USA Today, and The Associated Press, along with 5,000 TV segments that aired on CNN and MSNBC," which has since rebranded as MS NOW
He said that by analyzing the content of these news outlets, he seeks to "demonstrate, beyond a reasonable doubt, that US media coverage of the war on Gaza was one-sided, racist, dehumanizing, and often veered into outright incitement," frequently using "double standards" that treat Israeli life and safety as inherently more important than those of Palestinians.
Johnson focused especially on center-left outlets that were considered influential within the administration of then-President Joe Biden, who continued to provide almost totally unrestricted aid to Israel despite fierce opposition by many Democratic voters in the lead-up to the 2024 election.
An article written by Johnson published Tuesday in The Intercept previews seven statistical findings proving this anti-Palestinian bias, particularly during the first year of the conflict when Israel's leaders were working hardest to establish a "narrative" in the American press that could justify the total destruction of Gaza and the mass displacement of its people.
He found that the media used the phrase "right to defend itself" almost exclusively to refer to Israel, which used it to justify numerous civilian massacres. Guests, anchors, and reporters on CNN and MSNBC referred to the right of Israelis to defend themselves 755 times during the first 90 days of the conflict, while the same right was invoked for Palestinians only eight times over that period.
Johnson found that print media outlets invoked Israel's right of self-defense 100 times more frequently than for Palestinians.
Although Palestinians lack a sovereign state due to Israel's illegal occupation, meaning their right to self-defense under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter is disputed, they are still afforded the right to self-determination and the right to resist occupation under international law.
Media outlets examined by Johnson also used the phrase "human shields" to describe instances where civilians were killed in close proximity to Palestinian militants. Though Johnson noted that this justification is "rejected by human rights groups," he found that CNN and MSNBC described Palestinians killed by Israel that way nearly 800 times, while print outlets did hundreds more.
But media outlets almost never described Israel's use of Palestinians as human shields, even though there have been multiple cases of Israeli troops documented forcing Palestinian detainees to carry out life-threatening tasks on the battlefield in order to protect themselves from injury.
The killing of Israeli civilians was frequently described in much more "emotive" terms than it was for Palestinian civilians, even as the latter were killed in far greater numbers.
Words like "massacre," "slaughter," "savage," and "barbaric" were used hundreds of times by print and TV outlets to refer to the killing of roughly 1,200 Israelis by Hamas militants on October 7, 2023. But Israeli forces' subsequent killings of approximately 24,000 Palestinians during the first 100 days of the conflict hardly ever elicited these words.
This is despite numerous documented attacks on schools, hospitals, aid facilities, and other civilian sites, as well as a near-total blockade of food, water, and medicine entering Gaza, which resulted in mass starvation and illness.
All the while, the horrific statistics coming out of Gaza were downplayed by the persistent use of the phrase "Hamas-run" by news networks to cast a shadow of doubt over the Gaza Health Ministry, which was the main official source for death toll figures in Gaza.
The US State Department, the World Health Organization, and Human Rights Watch had long relied on the ministry figures and investigations into their reporting on past conflicts found them to be accurate. But CNN nevertheless adopted it as an official policy to refer to the health ministry as "Hamas-run," a term which implied its figures were likely being inflated for propaganda purposes, even though independent estimates suggest it actually vastly undercounted the dead.
Facing pressure to cut off support for Israel, Biden and several officials in his administration used similar language to suggest the death tolls could be exaggerated, including National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby, who called the ministry “just a front for Hamas.“
In January 2026, after spending more than two years using the "Hamas-run" pejorative to cast doubt upon the idea that civilians were killed en masse in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) finally acknowledged the accuracy of the Gaza Health Ministry's death count, which by that point had surpassed 71,000.
Johnson further contextualized this anti-Palestinian bias by comparing coverage of the Gaza conflict to the coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
He found that CNN and MSNBC discussed child casualties more often in Ukraine, where about 262 children were killed during the first 100 days of the war, than in Gaza, where more than 10,000 children were killed during the same time frame. The killings of journalists was mentioned with roughly the same frequency, even though the number killed in Gaza was 77 compared with just eight in Ukraine.
The words "war crime" and "genocide" were also rarely invoked in the early days of the Gaza war, but were used liberally to describe Russia's attacks on Ukraine, despite the fact that vastly more civilians were killed and displaced in Gaza during the respective periods.
Johnson found that this biased coverage extended to the home front, especially as the war in Gaza fomented ethnic hatred. Incidents of both antisemitism and Islamophobia increased in the months after October 7. But headlines from the first six months of the conflict referred exclusively to antisemitism about 31 times as often as they referred exclusively to Islamophobia.
This emphasis on antisemitism only grew as protests on college campuses became more forceful throughout the conflict's first year. Though the protests often exclusively focused on Israel, they were commonly framed as attacks on Jewish students.
Coverage and discourse surrounding these protests and campus administrators' responses to them often drowned out coverage of the conflict itself.
One example of this that Johnson described as particularly "poignant" was The New York Times' wall-to-wall coverage of Harvard University President Claudine Gay, who resigned following pressure from Congress to crack down on pro-Palestine protests and a plagiarism scandal.
While hundreds of articles and TV spots were dedicated to covering the Gay story, Johnson found that the media almost totally ignored the IDF's killing of the 5-year-old Palestinian girl Hind Rajab, who was left to die in a car by soldiers after her entire family was killed around the same time. In fact, there were 95 headlines about Gay in print media between December 5, 2023, and January 5, 2024, while just six focused on the killings of thousands of Palestinian children.
In an interview promoting the book's release, Johnson said that the role of media institutions was not ancillary to the Gaza genocide, but rather they played a central role in prolonging it and maintaining support from the Biden administration.
"You need them as a kind of validator... to justify things like [the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East] is Hamas, aid workers are Hamas, Al-Shifa [Hospital] is actually a secret command and control center, mass rapes were Hamas policy," he said. "These fundamental axioms of genocide were essential to the genocide, and they cannot exist without The New York Times."
Keep Reading
Show Less
Most Popular