Hegseth slams ‘anti-Trump press’ as Iran war setbacks mount

It was the morning after a day when America’s military operation against Iran was not going well.

President Donald Trump scolded our Israeli allies for bombing a major Iranian gas field. While US and Israeli sources objected to Trump’s insistence that he did not approve the attack in advance, Trump shared, “THERE WILL BE NO ATTACK BY ISRAEL ANYMORE.”

Middle East oil shipments continued to be paralyzed as US allies such as Britain and France rejected Trump’s call to defuse Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, saying they did not want a military escalation.

As oil prices soared with the country producing almost no new jobs in the past six months, the Federal Reserve chairman said the economic outlook was “uncertain.”

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This was the background to which Secretary of War Pete Hegseth began his press conference early yesterday morning by bashing the media.

“We know that the dishonest and anti-Trump press will stop at nothing to belittle progress, increase every cost, and question every step. Unfortunately, TDS is in their DNA. They want President Trump to fail.” Trump was talking about Imbalance Syndrome.

But if you were to magically erase all news about these recent events, they would become so real that they would shake the world economy and crash financial markets.

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It was a jarring note, as if the lack of optimistic headlines was at the root of the problem.

It’s a familiar theme from Hegseth, who says media outlets turn developments like the deaths of American soldiers into front-page news to make Trump look bad.

The former “Fox & Friends Weekend” co-host also sprayed other targets, including “ungrateful allies” in Europe and Joe Biden, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

News of President Donald Trump’s second term has been largely negative. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Now let’s assume for the sake of argument that the Pentagon chief is right.

The coverage of this president, especially in his second term, has been overwhelmingly negative, whether justified or not, and that can certainly seep into reporting and analysis about Iran.

So on which planet would journalists want America to lose the war against the world’s leading terrorist state, responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians?

In fact, even those in the media who question the president’s decision to attack Iran—in the absence of clear evidence that religious dictators are on the verge of developing nuclear weapons—say the United States won the war handily.

There is no doubt that the world’s most powerful army has destroyed Iran’s defenses. Tehran’s ability to use drones to strike back at Americans in surrounding Arab countries (with help from Russia) is relatively weak, but still has the potential to cause death and damage.

And now Iran has managed to stop oil traffic in the strait. No matter how it is conveyed, all of this is news.

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Former CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr had this to say about Hegseth on my “Media Buzzmeter” podcast:

“I think he would 100 percent prefer to publish glowing news about President Trump’s policies and efforts in this war. He doesn’t want any criticism… The job of the news media in wartime is to report all the news. And I think there’s something more important than the soldiers and their welfare and safety, which he claims is number one on his list.”

Confirming the request to increase the defense budget by 200 billion dollars, Hegseth’s most important comment was that there would be no “nation-building quagmire” or “democracy-building exercise” in Iran. This may turn out to be true, but it underscores the long shadow cast by the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq; In this invasion, the so-called pushover cost the lives of more than 4,000 Americans.

Hegseth said there would be no “nation-building quagmire” or any “democracy-building work” in Iran. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Hegseth, who yesterday called on the “patriotic” press to “thank” Trump for attacking Iran, was of course broadcasting to the boss. Online, the president accused “Extremely Unpatriotic ‘News’ Organizations of spreading ‘LIES’ about the war and said some of them should be ‘brought up on the charge of Patriotism.’

However, yesterday, when Trump was taking questions at his meeting with the Japanese prime minister, he spoke seriously about the situation in Iran and did not make any reference to the media reports.

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He called the military attacks an “excursion,” acknowledging the huge spike in oil prices by saying: “I thought it would be worse – much worse, actually.” The president said work is “ahead of schedule… It’s not bad and it will be finished very soon.”

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If this is the case, no amount of negative news will change public perception. But in the meantime, journalists need to continue asking thought-provoking questions about this war and take on the pressure from the Trump team and their allies.