MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough warns media to avoid ‘being played’ over leaked report on Iran nuclear facilities

Even lefty MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough is pouring cold water on reports suggesting the US airstrikes on Iran only set its nuclear facilities back by a few months — suggesting that the mainstream media could may be getting “played” by the intelligence community.

“We … have to be cautious about being played by people inside the intel community who want to get their message out,” Scarborough said on “Morning Joe.” 

Scarborough’s comments follow a preliminary Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) assessment leaked to CNN and The New York Times claiming the damage done to Iran’s nuclear facilities over the weekend was less than President Trump touted as a resounding success.

The report also alleged that much of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile was moved from the facilities before the attacks.

Scarborough nodded to several past reports based on leaks that were blown out of proportion, noting a bombshell New York Times report during President Trump’s first term that claimed Russian President Vladimir Putin was paying Taliban-associated militants to kill US troops in Afghanistan. 

“That’s happened an awful lot, happened a lot in Iraq. It happened a lot in Afghanistan,” Scarborough said. “I’m not saying that’s happening here, but I remember in the last Trump term, The New York Times runs a story on the front page, somebody from the Intel community said Vladimir Putin was paying for hits against U.S troops in Afghanistan. Everybody ran with it,” said the former Republican.

“That’s why waiting to see what happens, actually, and not not drawing too many conclusions makes sense. And that, of course, not only is the best practice for the White House and for the president, that’s the best practice for the media as well.”

Trump administration officials also railed against the report.

“This alleged ‘assessment’ is flat-out wrong and was classified as ‘top secret’ but was still leaked to CNN by an anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community,” White House Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in response to the leak.

“The leaking of this alleged assessment is a clear attempt to demean President Trump, and discredit the brave fighter pilots who conducted a perfectly executed mission to obliterate Iran’s nuclear program,” she added.

Trump claimed that Israel had sent agents to Iran’s bombed nuclear sites to confirm their “total obliteration” — and compared the attack to the US nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan at the end of WWII.

President Trump reaffirmed Wednesday his previous claims that the attacks were a massive success.

At a NATO summit at The Hague, he said the strikes led to the “virtual obliteration” of Iran’s nuclear capabilities and set its program back “by decades.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was also at the summit, added that the preliminary report was made with “low confidence” and that the leak was under FBI investigation.