Sometimes it’s easy to tell when someone is overwhelmed.
Alarm bells rang when Donald Trump chose a Fox News weekend co-host with no Pentagon experience to lead the Defense Department.
It wasn’t just Pete Hegseth’s lack of experience that was the problem. Hegseth was known more for his rumors about drinking and mistreatment of women than for his technical or administrative skills.
Placing someone like Pete Hegseth in charge of the U.S. military seemed like a looming problem, because when Donald Trump inevitably came to the Secretary of Defense with one of his poorly thought out ideas, Pete Hegseth lacked the knowledge, experience, and independence to point out this president’s drawbacks.
Hegseth was exactly what Donald Trump wanted, and the Secretary of Defense’s war briefings highlight the consequences of Trump’s choice.
On Thursday, Hegseth held another press conference on the Iran war, and it went off the rails.
Hegseth resumes his attacks on the free press. The defense secretary claimed the press was suffering from what’s called Trump derangement syndrome, which isn’t real.
Second. Hegseth said:
I am here today to speak to you, the American people, not through filters, not through reporters, not through cable news. A dishonest, anti-Trump press will stop at nothing. We know it at this point: minimize progress, magnify every cost. And question every step.
Unfortunately, TDS is in their DNA. They want President Trump to fail. But you, the American people, know better. Yes, there are journalists in front of me, but they are not our audience today. This is you, the good, honest and patriotic American people. You, the tax-paying worker. God-fearing American Patriots. The media here, and not all, but a lot of it wants you to think that just 19 days into this conflict we are somehow heading towards an endless abyss, an eternal war or a quagmire.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
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Hegseth also demanded that U.S. allies thank Trump for starting a war they didn’t want.
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