CNN’s Reliable Sources newsletter yesterday (April 4) led with news that satellite imagery of Iran is being censored at the request of the U.S. government. All imagery providers, apparently, received the same “request.” The newsletter goes on to quote Josh Rogin saying, “We've had about four weeks of the administration telling us everything's fine, everything's going according to plan. And now everyone can see with their eyes that that's obviously not the case. So now we're back to square one. How do we get out of this?”[1]
It’s a pretty safe bet that if Donald Trump had good news about the Iran war, he’d be trumpeting it on Truth Social rather than inhibiting independent analysis. We can infer, then, that the news is not good. Which, at this point, is no surprise.
But we also won’t know just how bad the news really is. Which is rather strongly to suggest that the U.S. and Israel are getting their butts kicked.
[1] Brian Stelter to Reliable Sources list, “‘Information silence’ as US searches for missing F-15 crew member,” Cable News Network, April 4, 2026, https://www.cnn.com/newsletters/reliable-sources