Agitated Trump tells reporter you should be

U.S. President Donald Trump lashed out at a New York Times reporter who questioned whether or not he achieved his political objective of regime change in Iran.

The fiery exchange unfolded during a press gaggle aboard Air Force One on Friday when The New York Times’s David Sanger famous that the U.S. and Israel carried out bombings for 38 days in Iran without reaching regime change in the Islamic Republic. Trump immediately cut him off and shut him down, turning to personal assaults on the reporter and the celebrated newspaper.

“I had a total military victory. But the fake news, guys like you, write incorrectly. You’re a fake guy. We had a total military victory,” Trump told Sanger aboard Air Force One on Friday.

Trump went on to call out reporting by the left-leaning New York Times and GWN as “the worst” offenders in his view before launching into a personal assault against Sanger, accusing him of treason.

The critical accusations—outlined as betraying one’s nation by making an attempt to overthrow the federal government through waging warfare against the state or materially aiding its enemies—have been hurled as the president repeatedly cut off another reporter making an attempt to ask him another query.

Trump turned to Sanger, interrupting another reporter, and said, “You should know better, David. You’re a skilled. You know better. Your editors inform you what to write, and you write it. You should be ashamed of your self. I truly suppose it is treason.

The president went on to echo earlier declarations from Trump officers that the U.S. “militarily” defeated Iran, wiping out its Navy, Air Force, anti-aircraft weaponry, radar and leaders.

“We’ve knocked out everything,” Trump said. “They are very confused, and we’ve had a total victory. Except for people like you who don’t write the truth. I actually think it’s treasonous what you write.”

Trump admitted, “We haven’t knocked out one bridge. We could knock out their bridges and electrical capacity within two days. We could knock out the whole thing.”

He went on to double down on his faux news allegations against the newspaper. He added, “Then I read The New York Times, and they act like [Iran is] doing well. Everybody knows it, that’s why your subscribers are way down. You know, The Times subscribers are way down because it’s fake news. Way down, way down.”

Trump has sued a number of media shops, including The New York Times, for alleged defamation. He refiled an amended defamation grievance against The New York Times, two of their reporters and its ebook writer Penguin Random House in October 2025 after a federal decide tossed the $15 billion lawsuit.

According to U.S. Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Dan Caine, U.S. joint forces hit more than 13,000 targets before the ceasefire in Iran took impact. As a outcome, it sank more than 90% of Iran’s common naval fleet and struck 90% of their weapons factories and 80% of their air protection systems.

“It will take years for Iran to rebuild any major surface combatants, as more than 20 naval production and fabrication facilities have been damaged or destroyed, and nearly 80% of Iran’s nuclear industrial base was hit, further degrading their attempts to attain a nuclear weapon,” Caine beforehand said.

Several top Iranian figures have been also killed, including the longtime Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86. Following his death, his 52-year-old son Mojtaba Khamenei was topped the nation’s new chief.

However, in retaliation, Iran seized control of the key trading route, the Strait of Hormuz, which has led to skyrocketing gasoline and oil costs.

Iran gained large financial energy as a outcome of the warfare, according to overseas coverage knowledgeable Kelly A. Grieco, a senior fellow at the overseas coverage think-tank, The Stimson Center.

“Even with the ceasefire, Iran has effectively established itself as gatekeeper of the strait. That’s a fundamentally different status quo than existed before the conflict. It also gives Tehran a durable form of economic leverage,” she told The Poynter Institute’s PolitiFact.

Among other setbacks for the U.S., according to Grieco, embody the risk of a more radicalized Iranian regime following the assassination of its top leaders, elevated need to acquire a nuclear weapon, pressure on U.S. relations with NATO allies and depletion of U.S. weapons stockpiles.

She branded the U.S.-Israeli offensive as “the most effective advertisement for nuclear weapons proliferation in decades.”

Grieco explained, “Iran faced this war precisely because it didn’t yet have a nuclear weapon. If it had, the attack almost certainly wouldn’t have happened. This is a concrete incentive structure that every government calculating its own security options is now weighing.”