Pete Kegsbreath Says ‘The Sooner David Ellison Takes Over’ CNN ‘the Better’ in Slamming Outlet’s Report That Trump Administration ‘Underestimated’ Iran Attack’s Impact on Strait of Hormuz

Like a mad dog with a bone, the Trump regime won’t or can’t let it go with CNN today over the cable news channel’s coverage of the ongoing war with Iran.

via: Variety

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is rooting for David Ellison‘s Paramount Skydance to close its $111 billion deal to acquire CNN parent Warner Bros. Discovery as soon as possible, as Hegseth lashed out at the news network over a report about the Trump administration’s Iran war.

At a press briefing Friday, Hegseth claimed that a CNN report saying the Trump administration “underestimated the Iran war’s impact on the Strait of Hormuz” was “fake news.”

“The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better,” Hegseth said at the briefing.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt subsequently called the CNN story “100% fake news” in a post on X. “CNN decided to run this garbage based on three anonymous ‘sources familiar with discussions,'” she wrote. Leavitt said the Pentagon “has been planning for Iran’s desperate and reckless closure of the Strait of Hormuz for DECADES, and it has been part of the Trump Administration’s planning well before Operation Epic Fury was ever launched.”

“CNN Is Lying to Undermine Operation Epic Fury’s Crushing Success,” the headline of a White House article said.

In a statement Friday, CNN chairman and CEO Mark Thompson said, “We stand by our journalism. Politicians have an obvious motive for claiming that journalism which raises questions about their decisions is false. At CNN our only interest is in telling the truth to our audiences in the U.S. and around the world and no amount of political threats or insults is going to change that.”

The CNN article in question, first published Thursday, reported that “the Pentagon and National Security Council significantly underestimated Iran’s willingness to close the Strait of Hormuz in response to U.S. military strikes while planning the ongoing operation.” The report cited “multiple sources familiar with the matter.” According to the CNN report, Trump’s national security team “failed to fully account for the potential consequences of what some officials have described as a worst-case scenario now facing the administration.”

Trump’s preference of “leaning on a tight circle of close advisers in his national security decision making had the effect of sidelining interagency debate over the potential economic fallout if Iran were to respond to U.S.-Israeli strikes by closing the strait,” CNN reported.

CNN appended a “clarification” to the article later Friday that read: “This story has been updated to reflect additional developments and clarify that top Trump administration officials briefed lawmakers on long-standing military plans to address a major disruption to the Strait, according to one official, but that multiple sources familiar with the session said there was no indication there were any near-term solutions.”

Other news outlets have reported that the Trump administration had miscalculated the risks involved in attacking Iran. The New York Times, for example, published a story March 10 that said, “In the lead-up to the U.S.-Israeli attack, President Trump downplayed the risks to the energy markets as a short-term concern that should not overshadow the mission to decapitate the Iranian regime.”

With Ellison’s Paramount pending deal to buy WBD, staffers at CNN have expressed fears that Paramount Skydance will steer the network’s coverage to be less critical of President Trump and his administration.

Ellison last fall acquired The Free Press, headed by former NYT opinion section staff editor Bari Weiss, and put Weiss in charge of CBS News editorial — resulting in significant turmoil within the organization. One departing producer at “CBS Evening News” wrote in a farewell memo to colleagues that under the new regime, stories may be “evaluated not just on their journalistic merit, but on whether they conform to a shifting set of ideological expectations — a dynamic that pressures producers and reporters to self-censor or avoid challenging narratives that might trigger backlash or unfavorable headlines.”

Weiss is expected to have a role in overseeing CNN once the Paramount-WBD deal closes. Ellison has maintained that CNN will remain an editorially independent news organization.

The editorial independence of CNN “will absolutely be maintained,” Ellison said in a CNBC interview last week. “It’s maintained at CBS. It’ll be maintained at CNN. And, really, who we want to talk to is the 70% of Americans and really around the world that identify as center-left, as center-right. And we want to be in the truth business. We want to be in the trust business. And that’s not going to change.”

Ellison said that “CNN is an incredible brand with an incredible team. And we absolutely believe in, you know, the independence that needs to be maintained obviously for those incredible journalists, and we want to support that going forward.”

*****

I just love when I'm proven right by this regime of gestapo imbeciles, and Pete Kegsbreath said the quiet part out loud. I have said from the beginning that since the Ellison's are Trumps bitch boys that they want to take over all of media that opposes any decision Trump makes, and will continue lying to the American people in order to push a certain narrative. We see them doing it with CBS, causing many legitimate journalists to jump ship and either go to a different network (which is confusing to me, since linear media is becoming a dying art form) or going independent via YouTube or Substack.

Also I find it quite hilarious that Kegsbreath and Anorexic Barbie Bondi are chastizing CNN when the network has been giving airtime to Israeli pro-war propagandists like Emily Schraeder who is the founder of the Iran-Israel alliance, and has worked with the IDF. So why take over a network that's already spreading dangerous misinformation and is justifiably salivating at the mouth over his unnecessary war?

Maybe they're pushing all of this propaganda because they know the Ellison's and Bari Weiss are about to come in and gut the network, so "reporters" like Jake Tapper are already positioning themselves to kiss their ass as to keep his job?

I'm also hearing that David Ellison's first meeting with WB execs didn't go well, which isn't surprising since David definitely gives me that he's good at throwing his nepo baby money behind movies, but has no idea how to be an exec.

So who knows -- the longer they drag this deal out maybe the deal won't go through, and once Democrats sweep during the midterms they can prevent the Ellison's from monopolizing our media.

Oh, and we are definitely losing this war.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7tyqNwVl_0