United States President Donald Trump has ignited a fresh battle with CNN, accusing the network of amplifying a fabricated Iranian statement that claimed a “historic and crushing defeat” over Washington following a newly announced ceasefire.

The dispute erupted after CNN reported that Iran’s Supreme National Security Council had declared victory, saying the United States was forced to accept key elements of Tehran’s preferred negotiation framework. The report framed the ceasefire as a strategic win for Iran rather than a mutual de-escalation.

Trump, posting on his Truth Social platform, denounced the report as “a fraud,” alleging that CNN relied on a “fake news site from Nigeria” rather than authentic Iranian sources. He insisted that the statement carried by the network did not match Iran’s official position and claimed that the genuine communiqué from Tehran had been shared on his platform.

He accused CNN of knowingly inflaming a “very delicate situation” by publishing what he described as a “totally made up” statement and warned that authorities were examining whether any crime had been committed in the process. Trump said CNN was being ordered to withdraw the report and issue a full apology, promising that the outcome of the investigation would be made public.

The reference to Nigeria quickly reverberated there, with local commentators questioning the basis for Trump’s claim and noting that he offered no evidence that a Nigerian-based outlet was the original source of the disputed text.

In Washington, Trump’s criticism found an ally in Brendan Carr, chairman of the US Federal Communications Commission, who argued that pushing out a questionable headline at a moment of high national security tension “requires accountability.”

CNN, however, has firmly rejected the president’s accusations. A network spokesperson said the report was based on statements from “specific official Iranian spokespeople” known to its journalists and corroborated by multiple Iranian state media platforms in both English and Farsi. The network maintained that it followed standard verification procedures and that its coverage accurately reflected what Iranian authorities were communicating at the time.

The clash unfolds against the backdrop of a fragile two-week ceasefire between Washington and Tehran, welcomed internationally as a rare step back from confrontation in the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz. Both sides have sought to claim political advantage from the truce, turning a diplomatic pause into a new front in the information war.