WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25, 2025
...the second time around: Yesterday, when he dropped the bomb in question, one news site took notice.
Mediaite reported the president's rage. Tommy Christopher started like this, headline included:
‘SCUM!’ Trump Rages at CNN, MSNBC on White House Lawn Over Skeptical Coverage
President Donald Trump raged at MSNBC and CNN over their coverage of the U.S. airstrikes in Iran, claiming they “hurt” bomber pilots by questioning his claims about the damage done.
[...]
Both of those networks drew Trump’s rage when he spoke to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House Tuesday morning as he departed the White House on route to The Hague, Netherlands.
He called the outlets “scum” and accused them of trying “to demean me” with their reporting.
At that point, Mediaite's Tommy Christopher presented a transcript of the angry president's rage-filled remarks. His remarks had gone like this:
REPORTER (6/24/25): How confident are you [INAUDIBLE] has been demolished?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I think it’s been completely demolished. I think the reason we’re here is because those pilots, those B-2 pilots, did an unbelievable job.
And, you know, the fake news, like CNN in particular, they’re trying to say, “Well, I agree that it was destroyed, but maybe not that destroyed.”
You know what they’re doing? They’re really hurting great pilots that put their lives on the line! CNN is SCUM! And so is MSDNC. They’re all—.
And frankly, the networks aren’t much better. It’s all fake news, but they should not have done that.
Those pilots hit their targets. Those targets were obliterated, and the pilots should be given credit. They’re not after the pilots. They’re after me. They want to try and demean me.
Obviously, no one has been criticizing the pilots who performed Saturday's elaborate mission. The president offered that absurd claim, that moved to the angry assertion that CNN and MSNBC are "scum."
We're willing to call that unusual language. Quite correctly, Mediaite took note of that fact, from its eye-catching headline on down.
That was the fury of the president as he started his trip to the NATO conference. This morning, during a formal presser at The Hague, there the president went again. Once again, with extreme anger, he delivered his favorite new bomb:
PRESIDENT TRUMP (6/25/25): This was an unbelievable hit by genius pilots and genius people in the military. And they're not being given credit for it because we have scum [pointing] that's in this group.
And not all of you are. You have some great reporters, but you have scum.
CNN is scum. MSDNC is scum. The New York Times is scum. They're bad people. They're sick. And what they've done is they're trying try to make this unbelievable victory into something less...
As of this morning, the New York Times is also scum. And not only that—the Times is also sick.
Love is said to be better the second time around. By way of contrast, the furious use of the insulting term "scum" seems to be less notable.
In today's diatribe from The Hague, the president continued with the ridiculous claim in which "the genius pilots" are being demeaned by the press, along with other "genius people in the military."
After relaunching that foolish claim, he turned again to his favorite insult, even as some of the "scum" sat right there before him. For a fuller account of today's explosion, see this morning's report.
Love is better the second time—but this startling insult is being ignored today, even at Mediaite. Simply put, our sitting president is extremely erratic and very angry—and our timorous press corps seems inclined to normalize all such behavior.
They don't know what to say about this This seems to be their solution:
Nothing to look at! Move right along!
In this face of the president's strange behavior, they just say nothing at all.
ReplyDeleteSquealing idiot-Democrats is a nice spectacle. I agree with you: they should squeal more.
"they just say nothing at all"
Because they know they are scum. And they will keep being scum. What's there for them to say?
Trump is wrong as usual. Those outlets are not scum, they are putrid hot garbage.
ReplyDeleteJew-hater violent crime loving communist wins Democrat primary in NYC.
ReplyDeleteI know, isn't that fabulous the predator creep weirdo had his ass handed to him. Great news.
Delete@5:37 I wonder how many New Yorkers voted for Mamdani as a FU to Trump.
DeleteI don't think Trump was much of a factor. Mamdani has that winning charisma thingy like Obama. (Trump has it with the cult, sadly.) Young, smart, eloquent, photogenic, and progressive ain't a bad way to go thru NY politics. And really, an old asshole right centrist sex pest like Cuomo should be hiding in shame. And hopefully Mamdani forces all white people to quit their high paying jobs and give them to Muslim immigrants like a good brown monster Commie should.
DeleteJew hating commies for the win.
DeleteJeez. These nutball wingers are going to make me feel nostalgic for the Somerby-Putin conspiracy theorists.
ReplyDeleteHow does Somerby write today's essay without noting that Trump is angling for the Nobel Peace Prize and everything he has been saying is in support of that campaign. If his attack on Iran did not accomplish over-the-top results, then he won't be a candidate (he thinks) so he has to inflate his actions in order to deserve the same medal that Obama won.
DeleteSomerby's focus on the words without considering Trump's motives leaves us without anything resembling analysis.That's also why Trump has Israeli intelligence contradicting the US assessment of damage -- to support Trump's effort to win the Peace Prize. It is also why Trump got so angry when Israel decided to violate his ceasefire announcement.
This isn't exactly a conspiracy theory but something so obvious no theory is needed to explain Trump's actions. Trump doesn't care about Iran or Middle East peace or those bomber pilots. He has been doing Putin's bidding (in terms of inviting China to transport oil through the straits of Hormuz). Iran got a head's up about the bombings that enabled it to move its enriched uranium ahead of the attack, because Putin and Iran are allies and Trump and Putin are allies too. There is no mystery about that. The Pentagon tried to cut Trump out of the intelligence, but there was no anti-aircraft fire on the bombers flying into Iran because the uranium had already been moved and it was to Putin's advantage to have Trump make a fool of himself this way, while driving up the price of oil and further destabilizing the US economy.
But you go ahead and follow Somerby's path, in which the most important consequence of this bombing is that Trump used bad words to and about the press. That's all that really matters.
CBS Hourly radio news gave major attention to the uncertainty and weakness in the estimate that the reported low impact of our bombs. This is a battle of spin. I’m glad to see the good guys fighting back.
ReplyDeleteMedia and corrupt Defense Department officials perpetuated the hoax that our bombs in Iran set Iran’s nukes back only a couple of months. CNN and others who perpetuated this hoax deserve to be called scum.
""the genius pilots" are being demeaned by the press"" says the cretin taking a wrecking ball to Universities and government funded research labs. Complete weirdo and doofus.
DeleteDavid, if you are going to call the damage estimates that you disagree with a hoax, you need some evidence that (1) the lower damage estimates are incorrect, and (2) they were deliberately fabricated to mislead. You have supplied neither.
Delete"...corrupt defense department officials..."
DeleteThis comment is grounded with what supporting evidence?
DiC - You’re getting more ridiculous by the second. You don’t know the DOD officials and don’t know if they are perpetrating a corrupt hoax. But nevertheless you’re telling us that the press should self-censor and hide what these officials said. That’s unAmerican, pure and simple.
ReplyDeleteI don't see anyone here saying that.
DeleteIf a DoD official leaked a classified report for political purposes, that would have been a corrupt act and probably a crime. However, I just read that the report had been shared with members of Congress. So the corrupt act may have been perpetrated by a Dem Rep or Sen.
DeleteGiven that no info was being shared with Democrats, your theory suggests that it was a Republican who leaked.
Delete6:48 - I guess you’re right, it’s worse. According to DiC’s first accusation, the media conspired with DOD officials to concoct and then report a hoax. This is an absurd accusation, parroting Dear Leader’s brazen attempts to intimidate the press. It’s unAmerican.
DeleteDiC then walked that back, proving he didn’t know fuckall about what he was talking about. His new story is that some MoC leaked it to the press. Does he apologize for his ridiculous “media participated in concocting a hoax” story? No. Instead, he blithely moves on to sliming Dem MOCs, still without the barest shred of support for his slander.
"This is an absurd accusation"
DeleteThere's nothing absurd about it. That's what 's been happening since 2016 over and over again (with the FBI, DOJ, etc.). If you didn't pay attention, that's your problem.
11:04 - Didn’t you get the new talking points? Leavitt confirmed the existence of the intelligence report, and admits that it was a DoD official who leaked the report to CNN. The new talking point is that the report is “wrong” because “everyone knows” that dropping 30K bombs will destroy the bunkers. If someone points out that the nuclear material might have been moved before the bombing, then pivot to accusing the questioner of demeaning our brave and patriotic pilots.
Delete
DeleteI don't care about any bombs or pilots. All I'm saying is that surmising that "the media conspired with DOD officials to concoct and then report a hoax" is not at all an "absurd accusation". Because, like I said, that's been happening a lot.
An example of what you mean?
DeleteTrump has now canceled both proposed briefings to Congress about the results of the mission. That suggests he cannot back up his claims with actual data and knows questions will be asked that he does not want answered. So he is going to take his ball and go home instead.
ReplyDeleteHow is it that the President of the US gets away with not reporting to congress after exercising military power in an attack on another country and doesn't have to account to Congress about it? That has to be as illegal as the other abuses of power that Trump has been engaged in. I think this should be added to the Articles of Impeachment against Trump.
Meanwhile, it is obvious that he doesn't want the public to know that he didn't achieve what he has been claiming. That will mean that his achievement is not Nobel prize-worthy after all, but instead a giant waste of money that has advanced Iran and Russia's interests and not made the world safe from Uranian nukes at all.
Trump is throwing a major tantrum because he sees his glory slipping away because of his incompetence. Somerby has allowed himself to be distracted by the noise, as always.
DG - what the press should have said was that the estimated impact was too early to be reliable. Instead they made it sound like the “few months” was an established fact. Their spin succeeded. Many people now believe that the bombing only delayed Iran’s next A bomb for a few months.
ReplyDeleteKaroline Leavitt (!) says the report - which CNN describes as an “early report” - was leaked to CNN by a low-level intelligence official. So, if you’re a mensch you’ll apologize to Dem MOCs and to CNN. And if you’re a true American you’ll admit that CNN was doing its patriotic duty in making this report, especially in the certain knowledge that it would be slimed by the President, by Leavit, and by their scummy lickspttles.
DeleteDG - OK, I apologize to the Dems MOCs. But, CNN probably helped conspire to release a carefully chosen portion of the report that was designed to mislead the public. They gave a false impression of how much the bombing achieved.
Delete"a low, vile, or worthless person or group of people" is an accurate description of CNN.
The report is real. The only “hoax” is your accusation that the report was a hoax.
Delete“They gave a false impression of how much the bombing achieved.”
DeleteAgain, you’re just making shit up. You have no idea at all how accurate the report is. You want it to be false so you make yourself believe it is false. The self-deception is pitiful; the resulting sliming of CNN is slimy and unAmerican.
You suffer a lot of hate attacks in these comments, DiC, and by and large I disapprove of them. But your drooling repetition of Dear Leader’s vicious attacks on a free press cannot stand.
DeleteDG - I'm not saying the report is false. I'm saying the way it was presented to the public created the impression that Iran's nuclear development was only set back a few months. How could anyone possibly know this? They haven't inspected the sites. Nobody knows how much damage the equipment suffered.
DeleteDG - Is my criticism of the liberal media harsher than other posters' criticism of FoxNews and various conservative web sites? I don't think so.
If Trump says that the bombings were a complete success and demolished the enrichment sites, it is the patriotic duty of every American to believe that and call any assessment that says otherwise, even if made by the investigative arm of the DoD, a hoax concocted by corrupt officials.
DeleteDiC - Again, your favorite dodge: “The other side does it, too!” It’s a great way to deflect, if you lack integrity.
Delete
DeleteIt's not that "The other side does it, too!". It's that this is your side's deliberate and standard M.O. vis-a-vis Donald Trump since 2016. So, your side's happy to dish it out, but can't take it? Well, as the Bible says: sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.
From Political Wire:
ReplyDelete"Trump Limits Sharing of Classified Info with Congress
June 25, 2025 at 1:30 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 78 Comments
“The Trump administration plans to limit sharing classified information with Congress after someone leaked an internal assessment suggesting that Saturday’s bombings of Iran’s nuclear facilities weren’t as successful as President Trump claimed,” Axios reports."
In order for Congress to have leaked info saying that the bombings weren't as successful as Trump is claiming, they had to have been provided with that info by the White House in the first place. Otherwise, it isn't a leak. So that means the White House knows the raid was less successful and was participating in a cover up with respect to the press. Trump was then lying about the success of the raid.
Trump was booed at the NATO meeting. I don’t think the Nobel Committee is going to look favorably on his peace efforts.
ReplyDeleteIs it true that "the genius pilots" are being demeaned by the press, along with other "genius people in the military.""? That's an exaggeration, but IMO they're not getting the praise they deserve. Regardless of the correctness of the bombing, the military from Hegseth and Caine on down did a perfect job of a difficult task.
ReplyDeleteMore is expected of Hegseth and Caine than just dropping the bombs in the right place.
DeleteLet’s just face it: This whole “demean the pilots” bullshit is misdirection, plain and simple.
DeleteThe entire country is watching sick Democrats trash these brave men and the disgust for Democrats by all decent people will grow even stronger.
Delete