Amanpour Mispresents Reporting To Flirt With War Crime Accusations

Co-host, former Clinton official, and Amanpour’s ex-husband Jamie Rubin began by reading a question from a listener, “Paul on email, ‘Even before the ceasefire the US reportedly struck civilian infrastructure in Iran, including a bridge and a girls’ school. How likely is it that Trump or Hegseth could face war crimes charges and has a US president ever been charged with such crimes?’” PBS's Christiane Amanpour mispresents some recent New York Times reporting on her podcast, Then The New York Times and other agencies have been showing you know pictures and showing essentially the pattern of the US and Israel striking civilian targets inside Iran throughout as pic.twitter.com/WtkzTnAI0w — Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) April 17, 2026 Amanpour never directly answered the question, but did suggest the idea wasn’t totally ridiculous, “From day one the United States it has been investigated by newspapers and others using all that sort of geo-locating, seeing the images of the Tomahawk cruise missile, knowing where the US was active on that first day, did actually cause the death of all those, you know, 175+ little girls, school girls, in that school in Minab plus teachers and basically destroyed that.” She also claimed: Then The New York Times and other agencies have been showing, you know, pictures and showing essentially the pattern of the U.S. and Israel striking civilian targets inside Iran throughout. As I said in the main episode, there have been schools, universities, mosques, cultural heritage sites, ordinary businesses, even the Grand Bazaar last week or so before the ceasefire came in, and pharmaceutical companies, and the others that have really, really, really damaged a deal of Iran itself, it's civilian infrastructure including energy depots, and fuel storage, and plants et cetera, so it's—and water desal—I mean, it just goes on and on and on. “Striking” makes it seem like the U.S. and Israel are deliberately targeting all those areas, and that is not what The New York Times reported. For example, Farnaz Fassihi wrote, “The strikes on Isfahan on Monday came a week after another cultural icon, the Golestan Palace, was badly damaged during an attack on a police station in downtown Tehran.” [emphasis added] Likewise, “Israeli military strikes in Isfahan were targeting the governor’s building, which sits near Naqshe Jahan Square, according to Iranian government officials.” [emphasis added] Nevertheless, Amanpour rolled on and pretended like believing Trump might nuke Iran was a legitimate fear, “So, even before Trump said that he was going to wipe—what did he say?—wipe Iran’s civilization off the face of the map. That they would never be able to recover, which sent tremors through everybody, who really, some people thought he was preparing to drop a nuke. I never believed that, but many smart people thought that that's what he was telegraphing.” She concluded by declaring: There's been a lot of civilian and infrastructure damage done, so, I think that there was such an out—you know, an uproar about Trump's last comment that I mentioned that there were concerns in the Pentagon that this could actually lead to very undesirable consequences, including war crimes charges, and I don't know Jamie whether you clocked that as they were announcing the ceasefire, they were saying, 'But we could do this and we could do that,' but both Dan Caine and Pete Hegseth—I heard them refer multiple times to military targets and I think it's because of the uproar over, you know, what Trump had said the day before. For his part, Rubin was more reasonable. He cited his personal experience of being called a war criminal in the Clinton administration to point out that over recent years “war crime” has become an insult divorced from its actual definition. He argued that if Trump followed through on his pledge to destroy Iranian civilization in the literal sense, it would have been a war crime, but he had enough faith in the U.S. military to judge whether a target, such as a bridge, should be struck and leave Trump’s comments in the realm of the hyperbolic. Here is a transcript for the April 16 show: Christiane Amanpour Presents: The Ex Files with Jamie Rubin 4/16/2026 JAMIE RUBIN: Yes, Paul on email, “Even before the ceasefire the US reportedly struck civilian infrastructure in Iran, including a bridge and a girls’ school. How likely is it that Trump or Hegseth could face war crimes charges and has a US president ever been charged with such crimes?” CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Jamie, I don't think a U.S. president has ever been charged—I'm right, yeah, no? Not as far— RUBIN: I think you're right although some— AMANPOUR: Yeah. RUBIN: —Some did—I'll get to that in my answer, but you go ahead. AMANPOUR: Okay. Okay. So, for the rest of the question, yes, from day one the United States it has been investigated by newspapers and others using all that sort of geo-locating, seeing the images of the Tomahawk cruise missile, knowing where the US was active on that first day, did actually cause the death of all those, you know, 175+ little girls, school girls, in that school in Minab plus teachers and basically destroyed that. Then The New York Times and other agencies have been showing, you know, pictures and showing essentially the pattern of the US and Israel striking civilian targets inside Iran throughout. As I said in the main episode, there have been schools, universities, mosques, cultural heritage sites, ordinary businesses, even the Grand Bazaar last week or so before the ceasefire came in, and pharmaceutical companies, and the others that have really, really, really damaged a deal of Iran itself, it's civilian infrastructure including energy depots, and fuel storage, and plants et cetera, so it's—and water desal—I mean, it just goes on and on and on. So, even before Trump said that he was going to wipe—what did he say?—wipe Iran’s civilization off the face of the map. That they would never be able to recover, which sent tremors through everybody, who really, some people thought he was preparing to drop a nuke. I never believed that, but many smart people thought that that's what he was telegraphing. There's been a lot of civilian and infrastructure damage done, so, I think that there was such an out—you know, an uproar about Trump's last comment that I mentioned that there were concerns in the Pentagon that this could actually lead to very undesirable consequences, including war crimes charges, and I don't know Jamie whether you clocked that as they were announcing the ceasefire, they were saying, “But we could do this and we could do that,” but both Dan Caine and Pete Hegseth—I heard them refer multiple times to military targets and I think it's because of the uproar over, you know, what Trump had said the day before. Alex Christy Fri, 04/17/2026 - 14:53 Marketing Timing Regular Search Engine Title Amanpour Mispresents Reporting To Flirt With War Crime Accusations CNS Commentary Off