U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth gave a press briefing at the Pentagon on Thursday morning, attacking the press and defending the administration’s assessment of the strikes on Iran nuclear sites.
Hegseth accused the press of misrepresenting leaked intelligence regarding how much damage was inflicted on the Iranian nuclear facility at Fordow.
“Maybe the way the Trump administration is represented isn’t true. So let’s take half truths, spun information, leaked information, and then spin it,” Hegseth said.
“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 continued.
Hegseth began the briefing by asking the press to focus more on the recent commitment by 32 NATO countries to increase military spending to 5% of their respective GDP, calling it a “game-changing and historic shift in burden-sharing” with Europe.
He then moved on to the strikes on Iran, calling them “the most complex and secretive military operation in history,” describing the action as “highly successful.”
Hegseth called the recently leaked preliminary report unreliable, and berated the press for focusing on that leaked information instead of the stories of the bomber pilots.
“It’s in your DNA, it’s in your blood, to cheer against Trump,” Hegseth said to the reporters.
Hegseth also cited CIA Director William J. Burns and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard as sources backing up his claim the nuclear sites took severe damage, setting them back years.
Hegseth then handed the briefing to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Caine, who went into detail describing the stories of the bomber pilots and weapons developers who made the strike possible.
“We ask for a beat, for a moment, a day, or two,” said Hegseth, asking for time to tell the pilot’s side of the story, before turning it over to the press for questions.
When asked if he was under any political pressure to change his statements, Chairman Caine said he was not, and even if he was, he would not let it affect his judgement.
Fox News reporter Jennifer Griffin asked Hegseth if any enriched uranium had been removed from the site, citing satellite imagery of trucks at the site prior to the strikes.
“Jennifer, you’ve been about the worst, the one who misrepresents the most intentionally what the president says,” Hegseth responded.
Griffin stood up in her chair and defended her reporting, saying she was the first to report the B-2 bombers and did so accurately, to which Hegseth replied “I appreciate that.”
Another reporter asked why Hegseth’s initial statement congratulating America’s “boys in bombers” did not acknowledge the female pilots of the operation.
Hegseth responded “we don’t play your little games anymore,” disparaging the media’s alleged focus on race and gender.
“I wanna thank the heroism of our men and women in the military, what they accomplished is truly historic, setting back the Iranian nuclear program an untold number of years, it was a devastating attack,” said Hegseth.
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Author: JBaron
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