A dramatic clash erupted between the White House and ABC News after a report warning of a potential Iranian drone attack on the U.S. West Coast triggered immediate backlash from the Trump administration. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt demanded that ABC News retract the report entirely, accusing the outlet of spreading misleading information that she said unnecessarily alarmed the public. The controversy began Wednesday when ABC News posted a breaking update claiming the FBI had warned police departments in California that Iran could retaliate against recent U.S. military actions by launching offensive drones toward the West Coast. The report quickly spread across social media, raising concerns that Iran could attempt to strike U.S. soil. But Leavitt fired back Thursday, calling the report flat-out false.

BREAKING: The FBI has warned police departments in California that Iran wants to retaliate for American attacks by launching offensive drones against the West Coast, according to an alert reviewed by @ABC News.

Read more: https://t.co/LNR2dkGK8T pic.twitter.com/gMwi9Xbtyc — ABC News (@ABC) March 11, 2026

“This post and story should be immediately retracted by ABC News for providing false information to intentionally alarm the American people,” Leavitt wrote in a sharp statement. According to the White House, the report was based on a single email sent to local law enforcement about a tip that had not been verified. Leavitt argued that ABC failed to include that critical context when presenting the story. “They wrote this based on one email that was sent to local law enforcement in California about a single, unverified tip,” Leavitt said. “The email even states the tip was based on unverified intelligence. Yet ABC News left out this critical fact in their story! WHY?” Leavitt made the administration’s position even clearer in a follow-up post. “To be clear: No such threat from Iran to our homeland exists, and it never did,” she wrote. Fueling the dispute further, FBI Assistant Director for Public Affairs Ben Williamson shared side-by-side screenshots showing how the alert was reported versus the original document distributed to law enforcement partners. The comparison highlighted a key word included in the FBI alert but missing from the initial reporting: unverified.

This post and story should be immediately retracted by ABC News for providing false information to intentionally alarm the American people.

They wrote this based on one email that was sent to local law enforcement in California about a single, unverified tip. The email even… https://t.co/jKey9ahsNk — Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) March 12, 2026

According to Williamson, the alert was sent to Joint Terrorism Task Force partners as part of routine intelligence sharing and was never presented as a confirmed threat. After the criticism gained traction, ABC News updated its report and added an editor’s note acknowledging that the intelligence cited in the FBI alert had not been verified. “The FBI has posted a fuller version of its alert to California authorities, which includes that the information was unverified,” the outlet wrote in the update. Despite the clarification, the dispute underscored rising tensions as the United States confronts escalating conflict with Iran.

On the left is the way ABC (or their source) reported the FBI alert.

On the right is the actual FBI alert that went to JTFF partners. You will notice the word left out —“Unverified.” https://t.co/zSBHObisAI pic.twitter.com/XEZPeNKmDA — Ben Williamson (@_WilliamsonBen) March 12, 2026

When asked about the report earlier in the week, President Donald Trump struck a cautious tone, saying authorities were still reviewing the situation. “It’s being investigated,” Trump said Wednesday. “But you have a lot of things happening, and all we can do is take them as they come, and the war itself is being prosecuted as well as anybody has ever seen.” The episode has quickly become another flashpoint in the ongoing battle between the Trump administration and major media outlets over how national security threats are reported and interpreted. Fox News