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The former Fox News weekend presenter who now serves as the head of the massive American defense establishment baselessly accused the Pentagon press corps — including one of his former colleagues — of deliberately trying to cast doubt on the success of last weekend’s U.S. airstrikes against Iranian nuclear sites out of a desire to undermine the Trump administration in a bizarre rant-filled press conference aimed at the Pentagon on Thursday.
Speaking alongside the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon briefing room, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth laid into the assembled reporters from the start by grousing about how news outlets hadn’t given President Donald Trump enough credit for NATO members’ decision to increase defense spending to an annual five percent of GDP at this week’s summit in The Hague.
He also accused them of missing “historic moments” while trying to “find wedges and spin stories” before claiming the airstrikes aimed at Iran’s Esfahan, Fordow and Natanz nuclear sites on Saturday had been “the most complex and secretive military operation in history” and “a resounding success.”
The airstrikes, which were conducted by seven B-2 Spirit bomber aircraft with the aid of numerous fighters and an Ohio-class guided missile submarine that fired dozens of Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles at one of the target sites, appear to have inflicted significant damage on the sites. But Hegseth and President Donald Trump have become increasingly irate over press coverage of the action because of reporting in the last few days which cited a preliminary report stating that the damage to the underground Fordow site wasn’t enough to match their claims to have “obliterated” the facilities.
Hegseth complained that the press had reported on the preliminary document and cited other more recent statements from some of Trump’s political appointees which assessed that the strikes had “severely damaged” Iran’s nuclear program before returning to attacking journalists and accusing them of wanting the military to fail because it would look bad for Trump.
“You cheer against Trump so hard, it's like in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump,” he said. “Because you want him not to be successful so bad, you have to cheer against the efficacy of these strikes.”
“You have to hope maybe they weren't effective, maybe the way the Trump administration is representing them isn't true. So let's take half truths, spun information, leaked information, and then spin it, spin it in every way we can, to try to cause doubt and manipulate the mind, the public mind over whether or not our brave pilots were successful,” he added.
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