Sec. Hegseth Rips the Media for Trying to ‘Leak and Spin’ that Iran Strikes Were Unsuccessful

Hegseth: “How many stories have been written about how hard it is to, I don’t know, fly a plane for 36 hours? Has MSNBC done that story? Has Fox? Have we done the story how hard that is? Have we done it two or three times so that American people understand? How about how difficult it is to shoot a drone from an F-15 or 16 or F-22 or F-35? Or what it’s like to man a Patriot battery? Or how hard it is to refuel midair? Giving the American people an understanding of how complex and sophisticated this mission really was. There are so many aspects of what our brave men and women did that because of the hatred of this press corps are undermined because you people are trying to leak and spin that it wasn’t successful. It’s irresponsible. And folks in this room are privy to that information because of the proximity here in the Pentagon. It’s an important responsibility and 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 accomplished their mission, set back a nuclear program in ways that other presidents would have dreamed. How about we celebrate that? How about we talk about how special America is, that only we have these capabilities? I think it’s too much to ask, unfortunately, for the fake news. 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. And the reality is you want to call it destroyed. You want to call it defeated. You want to call it obliterated. Choose your word. This was an historically successful attack. We should celebrate it as Americans. And it gives us a chance to have peace, a chance to have a deal, an opportunity to prevent a nuclear Iran, which is something President Trump talked about for 20 years and no other presidents had the courage to actually do.”