Trump administration denounces CNN for airing messages from Iranian leaders

The Trump administration denounced CNN on Thursday for airing a portion of the new Iranian supreme leader’s public statement, the second time in three days that he’s targeted the network for reporting on how the regime is responding to the American attacks.

The attack illustrated the care news outlets must take in reporting during wartime, and the responsibilities of American journalists to report the perspective of countries its government views as enemies. It also exposed inconsistencies. The message of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei during his first public statement since he succeeded his father, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike, was widely available elsewhere.

The White House said on social media that “fake news CNN just aired four straight minutes of uninterrupted Iranian state TV, run by the same psychotic and murderous regime that prided itself on brutally slaughtering Americans for 47 years.”

Earlier CNN interview criticized by Trump’s communications leader

Two days earlier, White House communications director Steven Cheung took issue with CNN anchor Erin Burnett’s interview with Hossein Mousavian, a former Iranian nuclear negotiator. Burnett asked Mousavian what he had been he...