Critics on social media sounded the alarm after comments from Pete Hegseth in a preview of an upcoming interview on “60 Minutes” began circulating online Friday.
In the clip, Hegseth was asked about reports that Russia is assisting Iran in targeting Americans and whether that would place U.S. personnel in greater danger.
“No one’s putting us in danger,” Hegseth replied in the interview, set to air Sunday. “We’re putting the other guys in danger. That’s our job. So we’re not concerned about that.”
He then added a line that quickly drew criticism online.
“The only ones that need to be worried right now are Iranians that think they’re going to live,” Hegseth said.
The comment prompted backlash from political commentators and policy analysts.
Writer and commentator Adam Schwarz called the remark “a grotesquely indiscriminate threat against the entire Iranian population.”
“Hegseth’s statements are increasingly reminding me of comments by Israeli government leaders in the early stages [of] the Gaza War – comments that are now being reviewed by the International Court of Justice,” he added on X.
Other critics launched harsher jabs.
Stan Oklobdzija, associate professor of public policy at the University of California, Riverside, wrote on Bluesky: “It’s ok to hate the people who voted for this.”
Journalist Laura Jedeed also mocked the remark, telling her Bluesky followers that Hegseth was targeting “Not ‘terrorists,’ not ‘radicals,’ not even ‘Islamists.’ ‘Iranians.’ In case anyone was confused about who the enemy is.” She added that the statement came from “Pete Hegseth, Very Normal Guy.”
“Take that, Iranian kids,” Atheist blogger Hemant Mehta posted on X. “He’s coming after your schools next.”
MS NOW host Chris Hayes told his Bluesky followers, “Worth watching the whole clip, but purely in propaganda terms it seems to me, admittedly just an amateur observer when it comes to war fighting, that it may be useful to send the message to the 91+ million Iranian civilians that we are not trying to kill them.”
Journalist Justin Baragona was even more blunt.
“We live in a world where the binge-drinking Fox News weekend host who didn’t wash his hands for a decade is openly boasting about committing genocide,” he wrote on Bluesky.
Hegseth: “The only ones who need to be worried right now are Iranians who think they’re going to live” pic.twitter.com/gZIl7sdcGl — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 7, 2026
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