Trump attacks the media for reporting on intelligence assessment of Iran strikes

President Donald Trump is repeatedly condemning CNN and The New York Times for reports that call into question the damage caused by last weekend’s U.S. strikes of Iran — and downplaying his own intelligence analysts in the process, Associated Press reported.

Trump on Wednesday called on CNN to throw out “like a dog” a reporter who has worked on the story and suggested Times reporters were “bad and sick people” who were attempting to demean American pilots involved in the strikes.

Both news outlets defended their reporting.

The president is angry about stories that a preliminary assessment by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency had said Saturday’s strike of three nuclear sites had set back Iran’s nuclear program by a few months. The assessment “suggests that President Trump’s claim that Iran’s nuclear facilities were ‘obliterated’ was overstated,” The Times said in a six-bylined story on Tuesday night, according to Associated Press.

Trump says US and Iranian officials will talk next week as ceasefire holds

Israel and Iran seemed to honor the fragile ceasefire between them for a second day Wednesday and U.S. President Donald Trump asserted that American and Iranian officials will talk next week, giving rise to cautious hope for longer-term peace, Associated Press reported.

Trump, who helped negotiate the ceasefire that took hold Tuesday on the 12th day of the war, told reporters at a NATO summit that he was not particularly interested in restarting negotiations with Iran, insisting that U.S. strikes had destroyed its nuclear program. Earlier in the day, an Iranian official questioned whether the United States could be trusted after its weekend attack.

“We may sign an agreement, I don’t know,” Trump said. “The way I look at it, they fought, the war is done.”

NATO commits to major defence spending hike sought by Trump

NATO allies have agreed to massively boost military spending while affirming their “ironclad commitment” to collective defence, Aljazeera reported.

Leaders from the 32-member bloc pledged to allocate up to 5 percent of their national GDP to defence and related sectors by 2035, describing the move as a “quantum leap” in collective security.

The new pledge was made in a summit communique agreed on Wednesday in The Hague. It stated that members would “invest 5 percent of GDP annually on core defence requirements as well as defence- and security-related spending”.

Trump says Nato's new 5% defence spending pledge a 'big win'

Nato leaders have agreed to ramp up defence spending to 5% of their countries' economic output by 2035, following months of pressure from Donald Trump, BBC reported.

The US president described the decision, taken at a summit in The Hague, as a "big win for Europe and... Western civilisation".

In a joint statement, members said they were united against "profound" security challenges, singling out the "long-term threat posed by Russia" and terrorism.

Nato leaders reaffirmed their "ironclad commitment" to the principle that an attack on one Nato member would lead to a response from the full alliance, according to BBC.