Trump spirals off-script as NATO press event turns to presidential brag session

President Donald Trump careened wildly off script at a NATO press conference in the Netherlands Tuesday to praise his "great victory" in Iran and to air his grievances with the U.S. news media for "maligning" U.S. troops.

"It's so, so sad that that whole thing had to go," Trump said of Iran's nuclear facilities, "but I just want to thank our pilots. You know, they were maligned and treated very bad, demeaned by fake news CNN, which is back there, believe it or not, wasting time, wasting — nobody's watching them. So, they're just wasting a lot of time, wasting my time. And The New York Times, they put out a story that, 'Well, maybe they were hit, but it wasn't bad.' Well, it was so bad that they ended the war. It ended the war."

Trump compared his airstrikes to the nuclear bombings of Japan that ended World War II.

"It was so devastating. Actually, if you look at Hiroshima, if you look at Nagasaki, you know, that ended a war too. This ended a war in a different way. But it was so devastating," Trump exclaimed.

Trump shifted back to the media.

"So what bothered me about these reports, with fake reports put out by The New York Times failing — I call it the failing New York Times, because it's doing terribly. Without me, it would be doing no business at all. But, and by fake news, CNN and 'MSDNC,' all of these terrible people, you know, they have no credibility. You know, when I started, they were at 94% credibility. The media now it's at 16%. And I'm very proud of it because I've exposed it for what it is."

"But when I saw them starting to question the the caliber of the attack — 'Was it bad?' It was really bad. It was devastating. They obliterated. Like, you can't get into the tunnels...And they also knew we were coming. So, I don't think too many people want to be down there knowing we're coming with the bunker busters, as we call them. We're the only ones that have them. We have the best equipment, best nuclear equipment, and we have the best equipment in the world.

"I think we had a great victory here. But this is an ongoing project," Trump said.

Watch the clip below via CNN or click here.