New York Times veteran David Sanger blasted President Donald Trump’s assertion that his reporting on the Iran war amounted to treason.

Trump made the comment on Air Force One this week after Sanger asked, “What would the use be of repeating the bombing? You you did it for 38 days, and you did not get the political changes in Iran.”

After claiming he had achieved a “total military victory” in Iran, Trump turned on Sanger, saying, “I actually think it’s treason when you write, like, ‘They’re doing well militarily,’ and they have no navy, no air force, no anti-anything.”

Sanger told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Friday night that it all comes down to Trump’s frustration that Iran hasn’t given in on the nuclear issue.

“Look, if if he had achieved the military goal, the political goals that he set out, not just the military goals, then the strait would be open, and Iran’s nuclear program would be being dismantled right now. And it’s not,” he said. “Maybe it will be, and maybe that’s exactly how it will play out. But it certainly has not thus far.”

Sanger continued:

To the treason statement. Look, reporting is not treason, right? And you’ve been on the receiving end of these probably more than I have, and we all know what this is about. It is an effort to intimidate news organizations into not doing the reporting. But reporting is the fundamental First Amendment responsibility that we have to go about. And, you know, that’s what the founders were trying to protect when they wrote the First Amendment. And that’s what we go to work every day to do, some days imperfectly. I would not argue for a moment that we get it all right, but the president seems to conflate news he doesn’t want to hear with treason. And that’s not the case.

Sanger added, “Look, he, himself, ran for office arguing that the United States made all the biggest mistakes that it could make in Afghanistan and Iraq. And he knew that from enterprising reporting that was appearing in The New York Times, on CNN, and elsewhere.”

In a statement on X, a spokesman for the Times wrote Friday:

Reporting isn’t treason. It’s foundational to a free press and the work that America’s founders wrote the First Amendment to protect. That includes making clear when the claims of government officials and the reality of their actions don’t line up. Our reporters, in this case, have been working carefully to provide the public with the fullest possible understanding of the reality of the military action in Iran. We will continue this important, constitutionally protected work.

Watch above via CNN.

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