President Donald Trump has regularly criticized legacy media for its left-wing biases and agenda-driven reporting. He’s rightfully accused them of dishonesty and manipulating stories that advance specific Democratic narratives instead of telling the truth to the people. An example of these deceptions is the recent legacy media coverage of Operation Epic Fury. Manipulated stories, omitted facts, and contrived narratives are advanced daily in attempts to persuade the public that the Iran war is going poorly. Today’s Democratic politicians are no better. This dishonesty reinforces Trump’s previous claims that the legacy media is the enemy of the people.
Fortunately, a new analysis of the Iran conflict by the Institute for the Study of War, a “nonpartisan, nonprofit public policy research organization,” would appear to rebut many of the claims made by Democrats and legacy media. For starters, ISW categorized the current trajectory of the war as “relatively positive,” highlighting the numerous successful military accomplishments over the last two weeks. According to ISW’s report, “the United States is steadily destroying Iran’s ability to use its most essential tool in the war — drone and missile attacks — which in turn underpin the entire Iranian strategy.”
Being critical of a presidential administration’s war strategy and preparation is one thing. So is offering sincere insight and commentary about what is going well and where there could be improvements. Those are honest conversations that should happen. However, a constant misrepresentation of facts, fake hyperbolic outrage, and baseless accusations by Democrats and legacy media about the Trump administration’s war strategy is another thing altogether. They seek to brainwash Americans to influence public opinion against Trump. In many instances, it comes off as if they’re rooting for the U.S. to lose the war to Iran.
For example, consider the words of left-wing politician Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT). On Saturday, Murphy claimed that Trump “lost control of the war” and that he “badly misjudged Iran’s ability to retaliate. He then provided a “thread” of more baseless and embellished narratives to justify his misrepresentation and false claims. Murphy’s rhetoric is the kind of toxic commentary that dominates legacy media, influencing public perception and opinion. It’s a despicable kind of propaganda that is rooted in anticipation of the U.S. failing.
“If Trump paid any attention to the Ukraine war, he would have noticed how warfare has changed,” Murphy said. “But he didn’t. And he blundered.”
It’s crystal clear now that Trump has lost control of this war. He badly misjudged Iran’s ability to retaliate. The region is on fire.
1/ I’m going to explain to you in this
what I’ve learned – in part from closed door briefings – about the four biggest current crises.
— Chris Murphy
(@ChrisMurphyCT) March 14, 2026
But, according to the ISW report, this is not true. There was no blunder as Murphy claimed. It’s an example of how Democrats are trying to distort reality for political gain.
“Iran’s attacks have not yet affected U.S. military operations and fallen far short of Iran’s hopes for attacks with thousands of missiles and drones, however,” read the ISW assessment. “The available evidence supports the assessment that the combined campaign is achieving its military objectives thus far, but is not yet complete. Declaring the campaign a failure at this stage is therefore premature. The collapse of Iranian drone and missile attacks — down significantly since February 28 — presents a compelling picture that the military campaign is degrading ballistic missile and drone capabilities.”
Moreover, the report suggested that U.S. military efforts have hampered Iran’s ability to launch missile and drone strikes in the Middle East. Joint strikes by the U.S. and Israel have limited Iranian retaliation on “U.S. partners and interests in the region.”
“The combined force began this effort on the first day of the campaign, and it has gradually decreased Iran’s ability to fire missiles and drones,” according to ISW.
Why haven’t such things been consistently reported on legacy media or by outlets such as CNN?
Another example was Sunday’s episode of CBS News’s 60 Minutes, which featured an interview with Mara Karlin, a former Biden administration foreign policy and defense adviser. Consider her words, analysis, and how different they were from the reality of the assessments presented in the ISW report.
“They went into this war prepared for certain threats, like missiles,” Karlin said. “They did not go into this war prepared for other threats like drones hitting soft targets.”
“If anyone were to wargame this out, you knew there were a couple of things the Iranian regime would do,” Karlin said. “They would always look at how to use cheap, tough-to-counter capabilities, like drones, in as many spots as possible.”
First, how would Karlin know this? She isn’t part of the Trump administration. She has no idea what it did or did not do in preparation for the military strikes. Next, targeting drones and drone launchers have reportedly been an integral part of Operation Epic Fury. And while Iran has had some success in deploying these weapons, as military conflicts are rarely unanimous, one-sided victories without suffering any damage, most reports have the U.S. and Israel adequately defending their positions against Iranian drones so far.
“The combined force began this effort on the first day of the campaign, and it has gradually decreased Iran’s ability to fire missiles and drones,” ISW claimed. “A senior Israeli military official said that Israel has destroyed or rendered combat ineffective between 260 and 290 of an estimated 410 to 440 launchers.”
Moreover, given the offensive measures taken as part of Operation Epic Fury, Iranian drone strikes have decreased in quantity since the war began, a possible sign of successful tactics used to eliminate Iranian drone use.
“The campaign has struck drone launchers, though neither the U.S. nor Israel has released information about the numbers or type of drone targets struck,” read the ISW report. “Iranian ballistic missile and drone launches have, in any case, decreased gradually since the beginning of the war. Some individual drones have penetrated air defenses and caused politically unacceptable damage to oil infrastructure, but the overall trend in attacks is overwhelmingly positive.”
There have also been reports of low morale by Iranian troops and a significant amount of desertions. Other reports suggest Iranian troops have started to defy commanders and carry out orders, according to Israeli intelligence. Yet, a simple search of news broadcasts, reports, and political statements will show that it is likely easier to locate Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster than to find these revelations discussed by legacy media or Democratic politicians.
Moreover, Democrat and legacy media critiques would also run counter to the recent assessment by U.S. Central Command Adm. Brad Cooper, who provided an update in a video message posted on X on Monday.
“To date, our Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps aviators have collectively flown more than 6,000 combat flights, demonstrating the unmatched capability of America’s joint force,” said Cooper. “As we maintain air superiority over Iranian skies, we continue to remain centered on our military objectives. These are well defined and include eliminating Iran’s ballistic missiles, drone, and naval threats.”
“We’re also zeroed in on dismantling Iran’s decades-old threat to the free flow of commerce through the Strait of Hormuz through a combination of air land and maritime capabilities,” Cooper added. “We have successfully destroyed over 100 Iranian naval vessels and we aren’t done. We will continue to rapidly deplete Iran’s ability to threaten freedom of navigation in and around the Strait of Hormuz. Our progress remains steady.”
The people are being lied to about the Iran war, and the deception is coming from the elected leaders of the country. Doomsday narratives concocting scenarios of U.S. struggles, chaos, disorganization, and failure flood legacy media broadcasts. As mentioned above, such consistent deceptive accounts of events in Iran legitimately suggest Democrats and their accomplices in the media actually want the U.S. to lose in battle so Trump could suffer political consequences. It is a sick and twisted political reality, and it shows the depths of depravity to which Democrats and legacy media will sink to achieve their political objectives.