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President Donald Trump blasted journalists for their coverage of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran last week, labeling their reporting as “seditious.”
Trump denounced CNN and The New York Times in comments to reporters at the White House last Thursday. His complaints came shortly after The Times editorial board published an opinion piece condemning the president for exposing vulnerabilities within the U.S. military.
“I only watch [CNN] because you have to watch a little bit of the enemy,” Trump told reporters.
“If you see CNN, you think [Iran] is winning the war. If you read The New York Times — it’s actually seditious, in my opinion,” he added, referring to the publication’s coverage of the war.
Trump has a long history of attacking the press over reporting that paints him in an unflattering light. He has described the press as “enemies” of the American people and expressed a desire for reporters to be shot during his campaign rallies. His administration has also taken actions critics have said were intended to censor dissenting voices in the media, and Trump himself has said that reporters should be arrested for articles published on specific elements of the war on Iran.
The Times piece in question is titled, “The U.S. Military Was Losing Its Edge. After Iran, Everyone Knows It.” The editorial board cited Iran’s ability to use the Strait of Hormuz to hurt the U.S. and other countries economically to make the case that the conflict “has provided a road map for any country that wants to resist the United States in the future.”
The editorial wasn’t entirely critical, noting that the war “has shown that [the U.S. military] has an astonishing ability to find and destroy enemy targets.” But the primary argument of the editorial was that the U.S. had exposed its own military flaws and vulnerabilities.
“The good news is that Congress, the administration, and the Pentagon can all now see our military shortcomings. The bad news is that our adversaries can see them too,” the board claimed.
An assessment of The New York Times editorial by HuffPost trends reporter Anthony Orrico found that it did not come anywhere close to meeting the definition of “sedition.”
“What the NYT didn’t do in its article was ‘conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States,’ which is how seditious conspiracy is defined under 18 U.S. Code § 2384,” Orrico wrote.
Other observers condemned Trump for accusing a news agency of sedition, a federal crime that is punishable by death.
“Trump calls The New York Times ‘seditious’ for not reporting favorably on his illegal war with Iran that no one wants,” journalist Nancy Levine Stearns wrote on Bluesky.
“The free press is not the enemy. A president demanding state-approved reality is,” read a post from The Steady State, an organization composed of former national security experts.
“If he’s looking for evidence of sedition, I’d recommend Trump take a look at some of the people who were actually convicted of seditious conspiracy — whom he pardoned and freed from prison,” MS NOW producer Steve Benen said.
Recent polling indicates that most Americans are opposed to Trump’s decision to launch a war against Iran.
According to a Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted in late April, only 33 percent of respondents believe Trump has handled the war well, with 66 percent saying they disapprove of how he’s handled the war. Sixty-one percent described Trump’s decision to use military force against Iran as a mistake, while only 36 percent said it was the right move.
The poll also found that only 19 percent of Americans describe the war as “successful,” while 80 percent believe it hasn’t been successful or that it’s too soon to tell. Meanwhile, only 32 percent are confident the war with Iran will prevent the country from developing nuclear weapons in the future, while 65 percent said they’re not confident that’s the case.
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