On Tuesday night, MSNBC’s The Briefing With Jen Psaki, regurgitated the same unreliable, CNN article that claimed the U.S. strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities “only set them back by a few months.” Psaki even went as far as to say that Trump was always “about obfuscation and defiance being prioritized over facts.” Yes, Jen Psaki was the one who said this -- the former obfuscator for President Biden and for Secretary of State John Kerry before that. 

Psaki wanted to quibble over the word “obliterate” by elevating one assessment that was leaked to the press, while others remained classified:

PSAKI: Iran’s nuclear program has been completely and totally obliterated. I feel like maybe they had a notecard that said “obliterated” on it, and they gave it to all those people and made them say it, who knows? But that was the message from the Trump administration since Saturday night, clearly, that's what they kept saying over and over and over again. Even, by the way, as top members of the military, including high ranking people within this administration, were saying it’s too early to make an assessment. Because it is too early — was too early to make an assessment, and now here are the headlines from this afternoon. 

(...)

And, our own reporting, NBC News put an even finer point on it, saying, quote, “An initial assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency concludes that the U.S. airstrikes conducted over the weekend on Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites were not as effective as President Donald Trump said…” To state the obvious, claiming you obliterated Iran’s nuclear program doesn’t make it so, and it’s something that people then assess, including the military.

Instead of thanking our dedicated U.S. military personnel who carried out this extraordinary strike, Jen Psaki chose to run a smear segment on President Trump based off of “anonymous” reports from someone in the intelligence community. She quoted the NBC News article that claimed the initial assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that the U.S. airstrikes were not as effective as Trump said, while also citing this CNN article.

Keep in mind while reading this article that the “journalist,” Natasha Bertrand also wrote a story that claimed the Hunter Biden laptop was disinformation. 

The former Biden press secretary went on to spew this ironic statement: “But for Trump, it’s always about the one day of headlines, the one-word slogan, claiming victory right off the bat, about obfuscation and defiance being prioritized over facts, and that will continue, I expect, even in the face of these new facts.”

Psaki claimed Trump was about defiance over facts while presenting a story from a low level, preliminary assessment, that claimed damage to the sites could be limited or very severe, of course, CNN didn’t include the severe part.

Ignoring how the confidentiality classifications were generated and why they exist, and that different analysts could have different assessments, Psaki finished by asking why this assessment was classified as top secret if it was false:

If the assessment is "flat out wrong," why was it classified as Top Secret, as she also characterized it? And if it’s top secret, why do low level losers, as she called them, have access to it? Lots of questions there. Her statement obviously makes no sense. Of course it doesn’t, but we see this cycle constantly, Donald Trump says something, facts and reality say something else, and then his people have to kind of twist themselves into knots trying to explain why he’s right and we’re all, apparently, crazy. Though, we’re not.

“Journalists” like Psaki and Bertrand were the exact reason these types of reports were sealed in the first place. Reporters took this initial, low level report and ran with it, highlighting the reason they weren’t released and readily available to news outlets like MSNBC, CNN, and The New York Times. 

Here’s the White House’s official website that has the reports of 17 officials who were closer to the operation than these news outlets could ever dream of. All 17 made the claim that Iran’s nuclear sites were, in fact, very badly damaged by the U.S. strikes. In a matchup of 17 officials closely involved in the strike vs one anonymous intelligence leak, the United States (which boasts the greatest military the world has ever seen) had better odds in regards to utterly destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The full transcript is below. Click "expand" to view:

MSNBC: The Briefing With Jen Psaki

9:01:07 PM

June 24th, 2025

JEN PSAKI: So, Donald Trump and all of his MAGA minions, many of his MAGA minions, I guess I should say, have been lying to the country for days. They have lied to all of us, over and over and over again. 

[CLIPS OF TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S RESPONSE TO IRAN STRIKES]

DONALD TRUMP: Iran’s key nuclear facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.

Those pilots hit their targets, those targets were obliterated

JD VANCE: We have obliterated the Iranian nuclear program

KAROLINE LEAVITT: We are confident — yes — that Iran’s nuclear sites were completely and totally obliterated.

JEN PSAKI: Iran’s nuclear program has been completely and totally obliterated. I feel like maybe they had a notecard that said “obliterated” on it, and they gave it to all those people and made them say it, who knows? But that was the message from the Trump administration since Saturday night, clearly, that's what they kept saying over and over and over again. Even, by the way, as top members of the military, including high ranking people within this administration, were saying it’s too early to make an assessment. Because it is too early — was too early to make an assessment, and now here are the headlines from this afternoon. 

Here’s one from CNN: “Early US intel assessment suggests strikes on Iran did not destroy nuclear sites.” From the New York Times, “Strikes Set Back Iran’s Nuclear Program by Only a Few Months, U.S. Report Says.” That’s according to an initial classified intelligence assessment, which reportedly found that the U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, quote “Did not collapse their underground buildings” and “set back Iran’s nuclear program by only a few months.” In fact, from all this reporting, a lot of it came out this afternoon, it turns out that much of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was moved before the strikes. Which destroyed little of the nuclear material.

And, our own reporting, NBC News put an even finer point on it, saying, quote, “An initial assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency concludes that the U.S. airstrikes conducted over the weekend on Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites were not as effective as President Donald Trump said…” To state the obvious, claiming you obliterated Iran’s nuclear program doesn’t make it so, and it’s something that people then assess, including the military. But for Trump, it’s always about the one day of headlines, the one-word slogan, claiming victory right off the bat, about obfuscation and defiance being prioritized over facts, and that will continue, I expect, even in the face of these new facts.

Takes for example, the statement released today by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, here’s what she had to say, “This alleged assessment is flat out wrong and was classified as ‘top secret,’ but was still leaked by an anonymous, low level, loser in the intelligence community.” Whew, there’s a lot to unpack there, a couple quick questions here. If the assessment is flat out wrong, why was it classified as top secret, as she also characterized it? And if it’s top secret, why do low level losers, as she called them, have access to it? Lots of questions there. Her statement obviously makes no sense. Of course it doesn’t, but we see this cycle constantly, Donald Trump says something, facts and reality say something else, and then his people have to kind of twist themselves into knots trying to explain why he’s right and we’re all, apparently, crazy. Though, we’re not.