CNN's Dana Bash defended a rival network on "Inside Politics" after President Donald Trump used his platform at Tuesday's NATO summit to admonish the news media for reporting on an initial intelligence assessment of his strikes on Iran.
Bash recounted the early assessment made by the Defense Intelligence Agency, which reported the strikes didn't completely "obliterate" Iran's nuclear sites, as Trump has been claiming.
"That did not sit well with the president, who jumped on a few reporters during his press conference, including our friend Kelly O'Donnell at NBC, who is asking questions about that single initial assessment," Bash said before playing a clip of Trump's takedown.
"You, especially, you, should be proud of those pilots, and you shouldn't be trying to demean them," Trump addressed O'Donnell during a press conference in The Hague. "Those pilots flew at great risk, a big chance that they'd never come back home and see their husbands or their wives. Let me just tell you, you and NBC fake news — which is one of the worst — and CNN, New York Times, are all bad. They're sick. There's something wrong with them. But you know what? Youu should be praising those people instead of trying to find some — by getting me, by trying to go and get me, you're hurting those people."
Bash said she played the clip, "number one, because Kelly O'Donnell did a great job trying to get information out of the president in the face of sort of some personal attacks on her and the rest of us."
Bash continued, "But much more importantly, this was not anything to do with the U.S. military or their abilities, or their, you know, patriotism — anything at all. This was a report on an initial assessment by one intelligence agency — full stop. And...the president didn't like it, but it has nothing to do with the men and women of the U.S. military. And that was a 'tell,' the fact that he keeps harping on that and is trying to manipulate the conversation to make it like the reporters who are reporting on something that part of the U.S. government is trying to figure out has to do with not liking the military, which is just ridiculous on its face."
Watch the clip below via CNN or click here.