The White House doubled down on its defense of Pete Hegseth by blasting The Washington Post as the “Media Offender of the Week” over its boat strike story.
The Trump administration updated its recently launched “Media Offender” page on Thursday and made a point to specifically call out The Washington Post, after the latter published a story that claimed Secretary of War Hegseth gave a “kill everybody” order during an anti-terrorist operation in the Caribbean Sea.
The White House echoed Hegseth’s denial, writing that the outlet “published an unsubstantiated lie to undermine the Department of War’s anti-terrorist operations.”
“The Department of War killed 11 narco-terrorists in a coordinated strike designed to ‘kill the narco-terrorists who are poisoning the American people,’” the site stated. “This attack was the first in a series of lethal kinetic strikes against Designated Terrorist Organizations. The Washington Post published this unsubstantiated claim in an attempt to discredit the United States’ warfighters and inflame anti-American sentiment.”
Hegseth previously called the report “fabricated, inflammatory and derogatory.”
The White House then specifically called out journalists Alex Horton and Ellen Nakashima, accusing them of lying, malpractice and omission of context.
Horton and Nakashima join the likes of Alyssa Vega (The Boston Globe), Andrew Feinberg (The Independent), Eric Garcia (The Independent) and Nancy Cordes (CBS News), all of whom were all called out during last week’s launch.
The White House also sounded off on CBS News, CNN and MS Now (though, they called them MSNBC) as part of their “Hall of Shame.”
In response to the callout, Washington Post Executive Editor Matt Murray wrote, “Let’s be clear what’s happening here: the wrongful and intentional targeting of journalists by government officials for exercising a constitutionally protected right. The Washington Post will not be dissuaded and will continue to report rigorously and accurately in service to all of America.”
The post White House Blasts The Washington Post as ‘Media Offender of the Week’ Over Hegseth Boat Strike Story: ‘An Unsubstantiated Lie’ appeared first on TheWrap.
