On February 28, the United States and Israel unleashed Operation Epic Fury, a coordinated combat operation against a radical Iranian regime which has threatened America for decades, terrorizing its neighbors and even massacring its own people. President Donald Trump explained his war reasoning in a Truth Social post, citing the historical context of the dangerous regime and insisting “this terrorist regime can never have a nuclear weapon.”
As the war progressed, the three major broadcast networks insisted the Trump administration was on the backfoot, both at home and over the battlefield, mired in muddled messaging (despite Trump’s consistent emphasis on denying Iran nuclear weapons) and rising prices, while severely underplaying U.S. military success and barely noting the danger the Iranian regime posed to its neighbors and the world.
MRC analysts reviewed all evening news discussions of the Iran War, including domestic economic knock-on effects like “soaring” gas prices -- much of it caused by Iran disrupting oil tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz -- that aired on the ABC, CBS, and NBC evening newscasts from March 16 through April 15, including weekends. Over that one-month period, the networks gave the war 88% negative coverage. The breakdown, by network:
■ ABC: 93% negative
■ CBS: 92% negative
■ NBC: 79% negative
Total war coverage on the evening news shows added up to 6 hours, 26 minutes: 125 minutes on ABC; 142 minutes on CBS; and 119 minutes on NBC.
Network evening news coverage was decidedly non-triumphal, with little emphasis on the global danger Iran’s nuclear program posed. Instead, the rise in U.S. gas prices was rendered in forensic detail in a nightly drumbeat. Prices were not just high, but “sky high,” which translated into “pain at the pump” and “economic turmoil,” directly linked to when “Trump started the war.” Details:
■ ABC: 93% Negative
ABC eked out a win as the most negative-leaning network, led by Trump-hostile White House correspondent Mary Bruce, who provided this negative take on ABC’s March 19 World News Tonight in response to the Pentagon’s request for more defense spending:
“On Capitol Hill, the $200 billion request catching many members of Congress off guard. The president launched this war without seeking their approval. Now lawmakers from both parties demanding details before they write that check….The president didn't consult American allies before going to war, either.”
Reporter Patrick Reevell on March 21 tried to discourage the president from seizing Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil export site: “Speculation grows President Trump might use ground troops to reopen the Strait or even seize Iran's Kharg Island.” After a clip of Col. Mark Cancian, USMCR (Ret.) warning that getting there would pose a challenge to troops, Reevell warned bleakly: “It could also risk more U.S. casualties. At least 13 Americans have been killed. The Pentagon says 232 have been wounded. Back in the U.S., funeral services today for two Iowa soldiers killed in the attack on an American base in Kuwait at the start of the war.”
On March 27, the anti-Trump blame game from ABC reporter Matt Rivers was particularly blunt: “Global oil prices tonight above $100 a barrel. Gas prices in the U.S. closing in on $4 per gallon. Drivers in many parts of the country already paying more than that to fill up. Prices up more than $1 since President Trump started the war.”
Occasionally Iran was properly fingered for blame, as ABC’s Jonathan Karl did on March 31: “…Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz causing oil prices to soar around the world….”
Sometimes the network’s coverage descended into anti-war pathos. ABC weekend anchor Linsey Davis on March 29 engaged in emotive rhetoric: “And a sobering reminder of the cost of this war: More than 3,000 people have been killed across the region, including 13 American service members.” Later in the broadcast, Davis reacted to Rivers’s report of the death of a soldier by lamenting “so many lives cut short by this war.”
Mary Bruce provided this pungent parade of economic statistics on April 6: “The war, now in its sixth week, taking a toll on American families. The average price of gas now $4.11 a gallon, up $1.17 since the war began. Crude rising to nearly $113 a barrel. Airlines including JetBlue and United raising fees for checked baggage, $10 a bag for United. Amazon adding a 3.5% fuel surcharge for businesses whose products they sell.”
Bruce’s most opinionated report appeared April 7, based on Trump’s Truth Social post warning Iran that “a whole civilization will die tonight” if the country didn’t make a deal. Bruce showed sudden respect for religion in the form of Pope Leo’s anti-war pieties, and also for formerly persona non grata figures like Tucker Carlson and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Mary Bruce: The president's extraordinary threat that a whole civilization will die tonight, condemned in Rome by the first American pope.
Pope Leo [clip]: Attacks on civilian infrastructure is against international law, but that it is also a sign of the hatred, the division, the destruction, the human being is capable of.
Bruce kept going, showing rare media appreciation for the opinions of certain formerly Trump-supporting personalities.
Bruce: Trump's one-time close ally, Tucker Carlson, disgusted.
Tucker Carlson [clip]: On every level, it is vile, on every level.
Bruce: Former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene posting ‘25th Amendment!!! Not a single bomb has dropped on America. We cannot kill an entire civilization. This is evil and madness.'
Bruce even recycled the same Pope Leo clip six days later, on April 13, and added a new condemnation from a prominent religious Trump supporter: “Today, American Catholic leaders condemning Trump's attacks. Bishop Robert Barron, who sits on the president's Religious Liberty Commission, calling his words entirely inappropriate and disrespectful, saying he owes Pope Leo an apology.”
■ CBS: 92% Negative
Despite the supposed culture change at CBS under the new leadership of Bari Weiss, CBS News was almost as negative as ABC. Alone among the networks, CBS uncovered a war angle to the story of two Apache helicopters filmed hovering outside the Nashville home of singer Kid Rock, with Weiss-recruited reporter Matt Gutman delivering a lecture after his March 30 report:
Tony Dokoupil: I don't know the exact price tag of those helicopters, but they are valuable pieces of military equipment. We are at war at the moment. What's the reaction been like?
Matt Gutman: It's been somewhat critical. Online military officials I've spoken with say that there's head shaking, there's criticism that the U.S. is in the midst of a controversial war, service members have been killed and wounded abroad, and military analysts say this seems like an unnecessary risk and possibly a frivolous use of U.S. military resources at such a sensitive time, Tony.
Meanwhile, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer was popular on CBS, appearing in three clips over the study’s range, including his statement that aired on the April 4 CBS Evening News that “this is not our war, we’re not going to get dragged into it.” His anti-Trump, anti-war rhetoric was perhaps considered particularly influential, coming from an ostensible American ally and fellow NATO member.
CBS also hammered Trump the hardest on the economic impact of the war at home, expending 18% of its total war coverage on economic news, usually bad, compared to 13% for NBC and 11% for ABC.
Dokoupil made the link explicit: “The war and your money” was his oft-used slogan before introducing yet another story on economic turmoil.
Not to be outdone, CBS’s Nancy Cordes on April 1 engaged in a little parallelism, “with gas prices rising and his poll numbers sinking.” Taurean Small reported on April 12 poll results which “found most Americans think gas prices have been a financial hardship since the start of the war.”
CBS White House correspondent Ed O’Keefe continued the price drumbeat and brought the midterms into the Iran War discussion March 25, over the chyron “Midterm Elections Warning for Republicans,” intoning “Worries from Republicans, who see continued signs voters are rejecting the war and the president’s handling of the economy. Asked about rising gas prices, now up for a 25th consecutive day, the White House says voters should sit tight.”
■ NBC: 79% Negative
NBC's coverage was a little less negative than its competitors, although it certainly had negative moments, as when it aired a disgruntled Trump voter’s bleeped-out anti-Trump vulgarity on March 19, and when anchor Tom Llamas lamented over a “market meltdown milestone” March 27. NBC even showcased a poll from a competing network April 12, with reporter Julie Tsirkin citing CBS News/YouGov: “A new poll finds most Americans say they feel worried, stressed, or angry about the escalating war.”
Yet NBC carried the most analysis of the actual military progress of the war, albeit against shallow competition. NBC uniquely noted on the March 31 Nightly News that Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE) wanted Trump to keep the war going, citing the danger Iran posed to the region. Reporter Garrett Haake relayed: “Some allies, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have encouraged the White House to keep up the strikes to make sure Iran can no longer threaten the region with ballistic missiles or drones. Their message to the White House? Finish the job.”
NBC issued rare reporting on the war’s military successes, while noting the danger the Iranian regime posed to its neighbors and the world, as NBC’s Keir Simmons did on the March 19 Nightly News from Saudi Arabia: “All as the Pentagon saying it is decimating Iran's ability to attack, with Iranian missile and drone strikes down 90%.” Simmons went on to cite U.S. war ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “So Prime Minister Netanyahu saying Iran can no longer enrich uranium or manufacture ballistic missiles.”
As noted, NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez indulged in an anti-Trump vulgarity on March 19: “Polls show most Republicans support the president's decision to attack Iran. But clearly, some don't. As this voter in Pennsylvania told NBC's Jon Allen.” A clip followed:
Jon Allen [clip]: If you could say something to President Trump, and he was going to hear you right now, what would it be?
Female PA Voter: You are a worthless pile of [bleep].
Allen: And you voted for him -- how many times?
Female PA Voter: Three times. That was my bad. Apparently I'm an idiot.
On March 28, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was interviewed by NBC’s Raf Sanchez in Qatar, and the NBC journalist nudged him into suggesting the Iran War benefited Russian dictator Vladimir Putin: “The U.S. has lifted some sanctions on Russian oil. The Kremlin is benefiting from higher oil prices. Is Vladimir Putin the big winner from this war?.…You think it’s in Vladimir Putin's interest for this war to drag on?” Zelenskyy agreed: “100%.”
NBC’s Gutierrez matched ABC on April 13, also using Bishop Barron to demand the president apologize to the pope: “Bishop Robert Barron, a Catholic and a member of President Trump's Religious Liberty Commission, posting he thinks the president owes the Pope an apology.”
■ Even the bright side of the coverage had a touch of gray. While the networks paid proper due to the U.S. military’s “dangerous,” “daring” rescue of a weapons systems officer who had to eject from his F-15 fighter jet deep over Iranian territory, and gave Trump airtime to delight in the details of the rescue, no network could resist faulting Trump multiple times for his previous comments insisting Iran was no longer capable of shooting down U.S. aircraft.
ABC did so twice on the April 3 World News Tonight, after a previous incident with an A-10 “Warthog” that was shot down. ABC also mentioned Trump’s comments three times on April 4 after the shooting down of the F-15 -- before the airman’s successful rescue.
CBS cited Trump’s previous comments once each on April 3 and 4, and on April 3 attributed similar comments to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.
NBC mentioned Trump’s dismissive comments twice on April 3.
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METHODOLOGY: To determine the spin of evening news coverage, our analysts tallied all explicitly evaluative statements about the war from either reporters, anchors or non-partisan sources such as foreign affairs analysts, retired military officers, and individual citizens. In order to isolate the networks’ own slant, not the back-and-forth of partisan politics, evaluations from partisan sources (Republican officials supporting Trump and the war, Democratic officials criticizing him or the war) were not included.
Using these criteria, MRC analysts tallied 194 evaluative statements about the war -- on ABC's World News Tonight, CBS Evening News or NBC Nightly News -- of which 171 (88%) were negative vs. a mere 23 (12%) which were positive.
