Pete Hegseth Would Prefer Reporters ‘Wave an American Flag’ Than Ask Him Questions

The Defense Secretary held a press conference Thursday morning to answer questions about the attack on Iran, then threw a temper tantrum when reporters asked questions about the attack on Iran. 

By Lauren Tousignant  |  June 26, 2025 | 12:06pm
Photo: Screenshot Politics
Pete Hegseth Would Prefer Reporters ‘Wave an American Flag’ Than Ask Him Questions

If there’s one thing about the Trump administration, they love a crash out. Trump regularly crashes out on Truth Social, Propaganda Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt regularly crashes out from behind the podium, and anti-immigration ghoul Stephen Miller regularly crashes out on TV. But on Thursday morning, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivered one of this administration’s top-five crash outs so far.

This week, someone leaked an initial classified assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency about the U.S. attack on three of Iran’s nuclear sites over the weekend. The assessment said Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile was moved ahead of the strike, and that the attack only set back their nuclear program by a couple of months. Obviously, this goes against Trump’s multiple Truth Social posts insisting the attacks “obliterated” and “demolished” the sites.

As expected, Trump said the leak was fake and that all the news agencies that reported on the leak were also fake. His administration quickly fell in line; in statements on Wednesday, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard both agreed that yes, the leak was fake, and actually, the attacks destroyed Iran’s nuclear facilities and set the country’s nuclear program back “years.”

This brings us to Thursday morning, when Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine held a joint press conference about the attack to address the media’s questions. But neither Hegseth nor Caine offered any new information about the mission. Instead, Caine kept awkwardly looking to Hegseth to answer for him, which Hegseth was more than happy to do at every opportunity. The defense secretary scolded the media for not writing stories about “how hard it is to refuel in mid-air,” kept repeating Gabbard and Ratcliffe’s statements, and wished that reporters could just be patriotic when the U.S. drops bombs on another country. 

“Because you, and I mean specifically you, the press, and you, the press core, because you 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, you have to cheer against the efficacy of these strikes,” Hegseth said at one point, adding that the press is taking “half truths, spun information, leaked information” to then “spin it, spin it in every way we can, to try and cause doubt and manipulate the public mind over whether or not our brave pilots were successful.” At least he said “pilots” and not “our boys” this time.

“How many stories have been written about, I don’t know, how hard it is to fly a plane for 36 hours? Has MSNBC done that story? Has Fox?” he continued, ending this specific response with, “How about we talk about how special America is?” Barf.

When a reporter asked if the leak had caused the administration to “rethink the intelligence process or the dissemination [of information]?” Hegseth pretty much admitted he can’t handle the pace of the situation room as part of a rambling monologue about why intelligence is very hard and why the media makes it so much harder. Sad!

“The initial reflections you get are coming at you at a high rate of speed from a lot of different sources, so your job is to step back and assess them,” he said. “And that’s why we’re urging caution about premising entire stories on biased leaks to biased publications, trying to make something look bad.” I’ll add that this reporter led his question with, “Anybody who’s read a battalion S2 report after a fight knows the initial report is usually wrong, sometimes grossly so,” which is to say, it was a softball question that was less of a question and more of an affirmation of Hegseth’s insistance that the mission was star-spangled spectacular.

“How about we take a beat?” Hegseth concluded. “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.”  Journalism 101: Don’t ask questions!

Then, when Fox News’ national security correspondent, Jennifer Griffin, asked Hegseth if he was sure that “none of that highly enriched uranium was moved?” he responded to his former colleague, “Jennifer, you’ve been about the worst. The one who misrepresents the most intentionally.” Nice!

Hegseth also said “Trump directed the most complex and secretive military operation in history,” (sure), said the CIA director’s sources are “highly credible” because they’ve given “credible intelligence,” (amazing), and claimed that by reporting on the Trump adminsitration, the press is missing “historic moments” like the Pentagon recruiting more people for the Army and Navy (journalistic malpractice!).

I bet all those reporters were wishing they were Iran’s relocated enriched uranium.

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