President Donald Trump likes to project strength and power, so whenever he’s questioned by reporters about issues he doesn’t like or doesn’t want to answer, he generally devolves into name calling and belittling.
Now Defense chief Pete Hegseth, pulling a page from Trump’s own playbook, exploded on a reporter over a question about war crimes related to Trump and Hegseth’s unapproved and ongoing deadly war on Iran, calling the journalist “disingenuous” for asking a perfectly legitimate question.
On Wednesday, June 10, after the U.S. resumed bombing raids on the Islamic State for shooting down an Army helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz a few days earlier, Hegseth bashed a reporter for asking a whether targeting civilian infrastructure in the country would qualify as a war crime.
The reporter asked why hitting Iran’s bridges and electrical grid, or civilian infrastructure, would not be a war crime.
An angry Hegseth accused the journalist of offending the U.S. military.
“Well, it’s precisely the kind of disingenuous question that I’m used to from the media, impugning the motives of the folks on our side who are incredibly professional and incredibly effective,” Hegseth furiously responded.
“We will hit them hard, on our terms, on the targets that improve the environment for us to operate in and undermine the capabilities that Iran wants to have,” he claimed.
“They’ve been tap, tap tapping. You can see when someone’s trying to tap, tap, tap on a deal. Instead, they’re gonna have tap, tap, tap bombs dropping on key facilities in Iran from the United States of America,” Hegseth threatened.
U.S. Central Command seemed to contradict Hegseth’s offensive strategy and even admitted the U.S. military had not destroyed all off Tehran’s military capabilities revealing in a social media post on Wednesday that the new bombing raids were “‘self-defense strikes’ that targeted Iran’s surveillance capabilities, communications systems and air defense sites.”
Trump has repeatedly crowed about wiping out all those systems in the early days of the war after launching, along with Israel, the surprise military campaign on Iran on Feb. 28 as the United States and the Islamic Republic were still negotiating a nuclear treaty.
Trump wrote on his Truth Social media platform early Thursday, June 11, that the U.S. will be hitting Iran “VERY HARD TONIGHT” and threatened to take control of “Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points.”
The president then appeared on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” bragging that the U.S. “dropped $250 million worth of bombs” on Tehran on Wednesday June 11 and threatened a “bigger, more powerful” campaign on Thursday, according to The Hill.
“They’re really in submission. They just don’t know it yet,” he insisted.
Social media called out Trump and Hegseth over their blundering boondoggle of a war and their efforts to make it sound like they’re in control.
“It’s a humiliation ritual to have to experience these guys in power” an X user pointed out.
This poster was more critical of Hegseth, “When you lie your voice rises a few octaves and you stutter, @SecWar @PeteHegseth
Another was simply disgusted, “Ugh… that’s so cringe.”
Still others piled on. “The entire war is a crime. Secretary of War Crimes Kegsbreath belongs in chains in the war crimes dock at The Hague.”
Shortly after appearing on Fox and making those threats, Trump backed down on seizing Tehran’s oil industry. Later Thursday, June 11, Trump crowed about a breakthrough in peace talks to end the war saying he has called off new military strikes, The Associated Press reported.