Pete Hegseth bristled through a Pentagon press conference, snapping at his own hand-picked journalists who asked seemingly innocuous questions.
The defense secretary went live to the nation from the Pentagon to address concerns about Donald Trump’s muddled war in Iran, which the president launched over the weekend with a series of air strikes.
The address started with the so-called ‘Secretary of War’ doling out platitudes and victim-blaming in a pre-prepared statement, before he and Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, faced the press pool regarding the war that has split opinion among Republicans.
The pool is usually mainly comprised of a handpicked bunch of Trump-friendly hacks after seasoned reporters refused to sign an essential Pentagon gag order back in October last year. However, a Defense Department official told the Daily Beast that journalists from many traditional organizations, including Politico, CNN and MS NOW, were allowed to attend the press conference. However, it appeared that Hegseth only answered questions from his chosen outlets.
Hegseth’s mood deteriorated rapidly as he grew more and more irate and animated. The first flash point came when an unidentified reporter asked whether there were currently American boots on the ground in Iran.
“No, but we are not going into the exercise of what we will or will not do,” he said, before pointedly adding, “It is a fallacy that this department or presidents should tell the American people and our enemies, ‘Here is what we’ll do, here is how long we’ll go, how far we’ll go, what we’re willing to do and not do.’ It is foolishness!”
After basically suggesting that his department does not have to inform Americans about a new war in the Middle East, he added, “We will go as far as we need to go to advance American interests. You don’t have to roll 200,000 people in and stay for years. We are not foolish about it. Will we be bold and decisive about it? Do we put months of planning in? Absolutely.”
He grew even more animated, gesticulating towards the press and saying, “Going forward, why would we tell you—you, the enemy, anybody—what we will or will not do? We fight to win and achieve the objectives the president of the United States laid out, and will do so.”
Hegseth looked tetchy again after NBC News’s Courtney Kube snuck in a question, asking how long the operation in Iran might last. “That’s a typical NBC sort of, gotcha type question,” he grumbled.
CNN media analyst Brian Stelter reported that Hegseth had a pre-selected list of questioners, and all the reporters were in assigned seats, “so he knew who to call on.” Kube was not one of them, hence his pointed response.
He reserved perhaps his most harsh rebuke for a female journalist who dared to pull him up on earlier comments, stating that the American public “deserve” to know what “they’re sending their men and women to war for.”
“Did you not hear my remarks?” he bluntly responded before ranting about the Trump administration being “clear-eyed” in its objectives.
“We’re ensuring the mission gets accomplished, we are clear-eyed, unlike other presidents, about foolish policy of the past that recklessly pulled us into things not tethered to clear objectives,” he said.
The Pentagon has been approached for comment.
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