Trump reportedly raged over Dan Coats and his Capitol Hill testimony

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.
(Image credit: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

President Trump was mad about U.S. intelligence chiefs contradicting him Tuesday during testimony on Capitol Hill, but he reserved most of his ire for Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, two people with knowledge of his blowup told CNN.

His anger was delayed because he didn't watch the testimony live on Tuesday, and was catching up on the highlights Wednesday morning, CNN reports. Coats said a lot of things at odds with previous statements by Trump — he said the Islamic State has not been defeated, Iran isn't currently pursuing nuclear weapons, and North Korea was unlikely to "completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities."

Unable to contain his rage for long, Trump went off on Twitter, and in a message complete with a misspelling, suggested "Intelligence should go back to school!" In an interview last summer, Coats was taken aback when told the White House was planning on inviting Russian President Vladimir Putin to Washington; laughing, he said, "That is going to be special." Trump got over that comment, and it sounds like he'll get over this as well — an official told CNN he does not plan on firing Coats.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.