More than 10 weeks ago, when Donald Trump announced the start of the U.S. war with Iran in a prerecorded video filmed at his glorified country club in Florida, the president presented the public with five objectives. The first goal of the operation was to destroy Iran’s missiles and missile industry.

To hear the Republican administration tell it, that objective has been met. In March, for example, the president boasted that Iran’s missiles were “down to a scatter” and the Middle Eastern country had “nothing left in a military sense.” A month later, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth echoed the point, adding that Iran’s military capabilities have been rendered “combat-ineffective for years to come.”

There is reason to believe the president and his team have not just mismanaged an unnecessary war, they have also taken deliberate steps to deceive the public about its progress. The New York Times reported:

The Trump administration’s public portrayal of a shattered Iranian military is sharply at odds with what U.S. intelligence agencies are telling policymakers behind closed doors, according to classified assessments from early this month that show Iran has regained access to most of its missile sites, launchers and underground facilities.

Most alarming to some senior officials is evidence that Iran has restored operational access to 30 of the 33 missile sites it maintains along the Strait of Hormuz, which could threaten American warships and oil tankers transiting the narrow waterway.

The Times’ report, which MS NOW has independently verified, went on to say the country “still fields about 70 percent of its mobile launchers across the country and has retained roughly 70 percent of its prewar missile stockpile.”

It stands to reason that the president would be displeased with this information, given that it undercuts a foundational objective of the entire mission, but Trump is not directing his ire at Iran or U.S. officials who have failed to crush Tehran’s capabilities.

Rather, the president appears enraged by journalists telling the public information he would prefer to obscure. In other words, Trump seems less upset about the developments in Iran than he does about Americans knowing about the developments in Iran.

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Steve Benen

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

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