Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth left CNN seething with rage Thursday morning as he took to the Pentagon press room and, standing next to Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dan Caine, tore the liberal media a new one for this days-long disinformation campaign using anonymous sources to falsely claim U.S. intelligence has determined the weekend airstrikes on Iranian nuclear sites were a massive failure.
Regarding the sources who spoke to Deep State tool Natasha Bertrrand, Hegseth said whomever did this was “irresponsible” and “had an agenda to try to muddy the waters” with “a linchpin assumption” that was of low confidence from the Defense Intelligence Agency. As for the press, Hegseth excoriated them for “cheer[ing] against Trump so hard” as though it’s “in your DNA and in your blood.”
Hegseth came out swinging from the get-go:
He added the liberal media are always “searching for scandals” and have thus undercovered “historic moments like recruiting” across the board because it’s happening “under President Trump’s leadership” and thus “the press corps doesn’t want to write about it.”
The Defense Secretary then turned the wick up on CNN and its allies for the leak and distortion of the DIA report:
This went on (click “expand”):
But here’s what other folks are saying. The DIA that put that report out says “this is a preliminary, low confidence report and will continue to be refined as additional intelligence becomes available.” How about the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission? “The devastating U.S. strikes on Fordow destroyed the site’s critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable.” Have any of these quotes made their way into The New York Times or The Washington Post? MSNBC, CNN? Any of these quotes? How about this one? This is a new one from the UN, the United Nations. No friend of the United States, or certainly Israel often. Here’s the head of the U.N. Atomic Energy Agency this morning, Rafael Grossi: “U.S. and Israeli strikes caused enormous damage to Iran’s nuclear sites.” Don’t take my word for it. How about the IDF’s chief of staff? “I can say here that the assessment is that we significantly damaged the nuclear program, setting it back by years.” I repeat, years. The Iranian foreign minister, the spokesman, “our nuclear installations have been badly damaged, that’s for sure.” I’m sure that’s an understatement. John Ratcliffe, the director of the CIA, putting out a statement just last night: “CIA can confirm that a body of credible intelligence indicates Iran’s nuclear program has been severely damaged by recent targeted strikes. This includes new intelligence from a historically reliable” — very different than preliminary assessment with low confidence — he’s saying “historically reliable and accurate source and method that several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years. CIA continues to collect additional reliably sourced information to keep appropriate decision makers fully informed.” How about DNI Tulsi Gabbard yesterday. She writes, and I quote, “new intelligence confirms what POTUS has stated numerous times. Iran’s nuclear facilities have been destroyed.” Institute for Science and International Security president David Albright: “Overall, Israel and U.S. Attacks have effectively destroyed UN — Iran’s centrifuge enrichment program.” Time and time again, I can go down the list. Those that understand, those that see, those that do proper assessments recognize that what the United States military did was historic.
Arguably, this was Hegseth’s strongest point that the liberal media instinctively go negative against Trump, no matter THE ISSUE:
Moving to the Q&A, Hegseth argued the reason for a change in posture about declaring late Saturday’s strikes a success was in part due to “a great deal of irresponsible reporting based on leaks, preliminary information in low confidence.”
“Again, when someone leaks something, they do it with an agenda and when you leak a portion of an intelligence assessment, but just a little portion, just a little portion that makes it seem like maybe the strike wasn’t effective, then you start a news cycle, whether it’s The Washington Post or Fox News or CNN or MSNBC, you start a news cycle that starts to call into question the efficacy,” he added.
Hegseth also said more about this train of thought to The Washington Times’s Mike Glenn (click “expand”):
Well, I can tell you what the what the chairman told me in The Situation Room and reminded us all, which is alongside what you just said, sir, is that the first — first reports are almost always wrong. They’re almost always incomplete, right? You — anything — whether it’s the squad level operation or a strategic level operation, the initial reflections you get are coming at you at — at a — at a high rate of speed from a lot of different sources. So your job is to step back and assess them. And that’s why we’re urging caution about putting it — premising entire stories on biased leaks to biased publications, trying to make something look bad. 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? And in the meantime, I can assure you the chairman, his staff, the intelligence community, our staff and others are doing all the assessments necessary to make sure that mission was indeed successful.
The most heated exchange came later on between Hegseth and his former Fox News colleague, Jennifer Griffin (click “expand”):
GRIFFIN: Do you have certainty that all the highly enriched uranium was inside the Fordow mountain, or some of it, because there were satellite photos that showed more than a dozen trucks there two days in advance. Are you certain none of that highly enriched uranium was moved?
HEGSETH: Of course, we’re watching every single aspect. But, Jennifer, you’ve been about the worst. The — the one who misrepresents the most intentionally What — what the President says.
GRIEFFIN: I don’t think that’s fair, sir. I — I —
HEGSETH:. I’m familiar.
GRIFFIN: — I’m worried about the ventilation shafts on Saturday night. And in fact, I was the first to describe the B-2 bombers, the refueling, the entire mission with great accuracy, so I — I take issue with that.
HEGSETH: I appreciate you acknowledging —
GRIFFIN: You have issued —
HEGSETH: — that this was the first operation — The most successful mission based on operational security that this department has done since you’d be here.
GRIFFIN: I did. I absolutely did.
HEGSETH: And I appreciate that. So we’re looking at all aspects of intelligence and making sure we have a sense of what was where.
Following that tussle, Hegseth laid waste to this insane question about gender from the AP’s Tara Copp, telling her this administration won’t “play your little games” by “obsess[ing]” race and gender in this department”:
NewsNation’s Kellie Meyer closed out the Q&A by asking if the Pentagon would commit to releasing the final DIA report, whenever that would be. She also was the only report to voice her admiration for the airmen and women involved over the weekend:
To see the relevant transcript from the June 26 Pentagon presser, click here.
