Sometimes it’s easy to tell when somebody is in over their head.
Alarm bells rang when Donald Trump picked a Fox News weekend co-host with no Pentagon experience to lead the Department of Defense.
It wasn’t just Pete Hegseth’s lack of experience that was the problem. Hegseth was more known for rumored issues with alcohol and abuse of women than he was for any sort of technical or administrative competence.
Putting someone like Pete Hegseth in charge of the US military looked like a problem waiting to happen, because when Donald Trump inevitably came to the Secretary of Defense with one of his poorly thought-out ideas, Pete Hegseth would lack the knowledge, experience, and independence to point out the downsides to this president.
Hegseth was exactly what Donald Trump wanted, and the Secretary of Defense’s war briefings are laying bare the consequences of Trump’s choice.
On Thursday, Hegseth held another Iran war press conference, and it went off the rails.
Hegseth resumed his attacks on the free press. The Secretary of Defense claimed that the press has something called Trump Derangement Syndrome, which isn’t a real thing.
Sec. Hegseth said:
I stand here today speaking to you, the American people, not through filters, not through reporters, not through cable news spin. A dishonest and anti-Trump press will stop at nothing. We know this at this point, to downplay progress, amplify every cost. And call into question every step.
Sadly, TDS is in their DNA. They want President Trump to fail. But you, the American people know better. Yes, there are reporters in front of me, but they are not our audience today. It’s you, the good, decent, patriotic American people. You the hardworking tax paying. God-fearing American Patriots. The media here, and not all of it, but much of it wants you to think just 19 days into this conflict that we’re somehow spinning toward an endless abyss or a forever war or a quagmire.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
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Hegseth also demanded that US allies thank Trump for starting a war that they didn’t want.
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