Pete Hegseth Is Mad the Media Won’t Celebrate U.S. War With Iran

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had a meltdown on Thursday during a Pentagon press conference, excoriating reporters for failing to act as cheerleaders for his boss, President Donald Trump. In a briefing about U.S. strikes on Iran, Hegseth criticized the press for not following the Pentagon line and called on journalists to “wave an American flag.”

His statements harken back to past Pentagon calls for fawning coverage in the name of patriotism.

“The press corps,” Hegseth complained, “cheer against Trump so hard, it’s like in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump because you want him not to be successful so bad.” Hegseth’s tantrum stemmed from reporting that cast doubt on Trump’s assertion that recent U.S. air strikes had “obliterated” Iranian nuclear facilities last Saturday. 

The Intercept reported on skepticism about Trump’s claims by current and former defense officials on Monday. On Tuesday, multiple media outlets disclosed information from a preliminary classified Defense Intelligence Agency, or DIA, report that said the attacks set back Iran’s nuclear program by only a few months.

“You have to cheer against the efficacy of these strikes. You have to hope,” Hegseth said at his second-ever news conference, claiming that the media assembled “half truths, spun information, leaked information” to “manipulate … the public mind over whether or not our brave pilots were successful.”

Before and after Hegseth’s atomic meltdown on Thursday, Trump unleashed a paroxysm of posts on Truth Social. “FAKE NEWS CNN IS SO DISGUSTING AND INCOMPETENT. SOME OF THE DUMBEST ANCHORS IN THE BUSINESS!,” he shout-typed. “Rumor is that the Failing New York Times and Fake News CNN will be firing the reporters who made up the FAKE stories on the Iran Nuclear sites because they got it so wrong. Lets see what happens?”

It remains unclear whether the U.S. strikes significantly damaged Iran’s nuclear program — which, according to American intelligence organizations, did not involve an active effort to produce a nuclear weapon. “To me, it still appears that we have only set back the Iranian nuclear program by a handful of months,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said following a classified briefing on Thursday. “There’s no doubt there was damage done to the program. But the allegations that we have obliterated their program just don’t seem to stand up to reason.”

Complaints by the White House about the press during unpopular wars have a long history. As TV news increasingly showed the Vietnam War to be an intractable stalemate, if not an outright failure, President Lyndon Johnson complained about their coverage, “I can prove that Ho Chi Minh is a son-of-a-bitch if you let me put it on the screen,” he told a group of reporters, referring to the leader of North Vietnam, but said that the networks “want me to be the son-of-a-bitch.” His successor, Richard Nixon, was even more vitriolic about coverage of the war — and more succinct in his criticism. “Our worst enemy seems to be the press!” he barked in 1971.

In 1965, CBS News sent Morley Safer to Vietnam to cover the escalating American war. In July, Marines entered the village of Cam Ne and met stiff resistance, suffering three dead and four wounded. The next month, with Safer and a cameraman in tow, the troops set out for the area in armored vehicles. Safer recalled:

The troops walked abreast toward this village and started firing. They said that there was some incoming fire. I didn’t witness it, but it was a fairly large front, so it could have happened down the line.

There were two guys wounded in our group, both in the ass, so that meant it was “friendly fire.” They moved into the village and they systematically began torching every house— every house as far as I could see, getting people out in some cases, using flamethrowers in others. No Vietnamese speakers, by the way, were among the group with the flamethrower.

About 150 homes in Cam Ne were burned; others were bulldozed, as Marines razed two entire hamlets. Artillery was then called in on the wreckage. According to reports, one child was killed and four women were wounded. In actuality, many more may have died. Safer’s segment, “The Burning of Cam Ne Village,” sparked public outrage.

The Defense Department demanded CBS recall Safer from Vietnam, and Johnson called CBS President Frank Stanton. “Are you trying to fuck me,” the U.S. president barked. “Who is this?” Stanton asked, according to reporting by David Halberstam and others. Johnson replied, “Frank, this is your president and yesterday your boys shat on the American flag.”

A year later, Safer wrote a newspaper column about a visit to Saigon by Arthur Sylvester, the assistant secretary of defense for public affairs. Per Safer, Sylvester laid into the press:

“I can’t understand how you fellows can write what you do while American boys are dying out here,” he began. Then he went on to the effect that American correspondents had a patriotic duty to disseminate only information that made the United States look good.

A network television correspondent said, “Surely, Arthur, you don’t expect the American press to be the handmaidens of government.”

“That’s exactly what I expect,” came the reply.

Sylvester also told the reporters: “Look, if you think any American official is going to tell you the truth, then you’re stupid. Did you hear that? Stupid.” 

Sylvester later denied the “handmaiden” comment, but others present backed Safer. “Sylvester engaged specific correspondents in near name-calling, twice telling Jack Langguth [of The New York Times] he was stupid,” another attendee noted. “At one point Sylvester actually made the statement he thought press should be ‘handmaiden’ of government.”

In his press conference, Hegseth called on journalists to publish stories lauding troops for doing their jobs, asking rhetorically if outlets had written on the difficulty of flying a plane for 36 hours, manning a Patriot missile battery, or executing mid-air refueling.

“Time and time again, classified information is leaked or peddled for political purposes to try to make the president look bad. And what’s really happening is you’re undermining the success of incredible B-2 pilots and incredible F-35 pilots and incredible refuelers and incredible air defenders who accomplish their mission,” he groused. “How about we celebrate that?”

“Premising entire stories on biased leaks to biased publications trying to make something look bad,” Hegseth, a former Fox News personality, griped. “How about we take a beat, recognize first the success of our warriors, hold them up, tell their stories, celebrate that, wave an American flag, be proud of what we accomplished.”

The Intercept followed up with the Pentagon to ask if Hegseth would help facilitate this type of reporting. A Pentagon spokesperson instead offered the opportunity to speak with Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson off the record.

When The Intercept called to set up a time to speak with Wilson, a Pentagon spokesperson refused to do so. “Kingsley will reach out to you if she’s got anything to provide you,” said the official. “I would just stand by. That’s the best thing I can offer you right now.”

The Office of the Secretary of Defense refused to provide further clarification about Hegseth’s views on the role of the press and how the media ought to cover him, the president, and the military. “We have nothing more to provide,” a spokesperson said after providing nothing.

Hegseth is, notably, calling on the press to celebrate a war which Americans are overwhelmingly against. Americans disapprove of the strikes on Iran 56 percent to 44 percent, according to a CNN/SSRS poll conducted after the strikes. An even greater number distrust Trump’s decision-making on the use of force in Iran, with 58 percent saying the strikes will make Iran more of a threat to the U.S. and only 27 percent believing the attacks will lessen the threat.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday found only 39 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s handling on the Israel–Iran war, while 53 percent disapprove.

Hegseth’s antagonism toward the news media began well before Thursday’s press conference. Since his appointment, he has conducted a war on whistleblowers despite the fact that he inadvertently shared detailed attack plans — of far more import than the DIA report because they preceded military strikes — with a journalist on a messaging app.

Hegseth has reportedly accused high-ranking military officers of leaks and threatened to subject them to polygraph tests.

Joe Kasper, Hegseth’s former chief of staff, called out “unauthorized disclosures of national security information involving sensitive communications with principals within the Office of the Secretary of Defense” and threatened that parties found responsible would be “referred to the appropriate criminal law enforcement entity for criminal prosecution,” in a March memo.

Speaking in April with quasi-journalist Megyn Kelly, another former Fox News host, ex-Hegseth aide Colin Carroll said that the secretary and his team have been “consumed” by his leaky Department of Defense. “If you look at a pie chart of the secretary’s day, at this point, 50 percent of it is probably a leak investigation,” Carroll said.

The FBI is now investigating how the DIA report became public. “We are doing a leak investigation with the FBI now, because this information is for internal purposes — battle damage investigation — and CNN and others are trying to spin it to try and make the president look bad when this was an overwhelming success,” Hegseth told reporters.

At his Thursday press conference, Hegseth urged the media to do more to herald American exceptionalism, at least in terms of military prowess.

“How about we talk about how special America is, that we — only we — have these capabilities? I think it’s too much to ask, unfortunately, for the fake news,” said Hegseth in aggrieved tones. “So, we’re used to that, but we also have an opportunity to stand at the podium and read the truth of what’s really happening.”

The post Pete Hegseth Is Mad the Media Won’t Celebrate U.S. War With Iran appeared first on The Intercept.