He spends far too much time being angry and defensive. He “hollers” at almost everything and everyone. Gosh and golly, we wonder why he does this constantly. There are many reasons we can think of. Macho man, Secretary of “War”, afraid of being fired, but he has the power and doesn’t want to give it up, no matter how often he messes up. There has to be more to the list than that, but those are some of the “high” points (or low ones), depending on the point of view. With appreciation to Raw Story:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth insulted and cut off ABC News reporter Luis Martinez during a press briefing on Wednesday morning after the Senior Pentagon journalist put Gen. Dan Caine on the spot with a probing question about the Iran war. After earlier calling another reporter “rude” for attempting to ask a question during the press availability, Hegseth broke from his usual habit of calling on friendly reporters from conservative outlets to allow Martinez to ask the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff about the Iran ceasefire.
Well, then. Aren’t journalists supposed to ask questions of the military regarding a war? That would make sense, “from the horse’s mouth”, yes? Apparently, Hegseth doesn’t think that way. His reputation is sliding down, down, down. Flubs that are obvious to the layman do not do him a bit of good. So, why did he jump in?
“First, a question to the general,” the ABC journalist began. “Sir, in your personal opinion, were the risks of the Strait of Hormuz being closed because of the conflict? Were they mitigated early enough in part of the decision-making process that led up to the decision to take action against Iran? And in your opinion, is Iran in control of the Strait of Hormuz? We just heard the secretary say that Iran is letting ships through.” He continued by asking, “In your opinion, sir, how can the US ensure safe passage?”
Speaking to Hegseth, he asked, “And also, you said earlier that the president ‘chose mercy,’ but you yourself had said three weeks ago that we will give no quarter; no quarter to Iranian troops. How do you correlate those two?” Hegseth shot back, ”I try to be nice up here, but you did listen to what I said, right? I laid out the objectives. We believe we accomplished them. And it’s a historic military victory. And President Trump has the option, as the commander in chief, to compel an adversary to the table, which is precisely what he did.”
Hmmm. The questions to General Caine seem pretty straightforward. Was the Strait being closed included in the plans? (We know it darn well it should have been.) Did they consider the Strait to be closed because of the attacks on Iran? Or some other reason? He’s military. They do know how to plan. So what was included, because it certainly did seem to take “us” by surprise.
Now onto Hegseth. That was an extremely astute question. Mercy vs no quarter. You notice that Hegseth didn’t actually answer the question? He tried to deflect by attacking the reporter. He’s learned that very well from Trump. And the rest is honestly word salad, again, learned well from Trump. Not to mention it was in no way a “historic military victory”. We didn’t learn a darn thing from him.
Given his chance to answer, Caine replied, “There’s a lot in that question. I’d love to take that offline and answer it, but it was… I’m struggling to find exactly what your question was. And that’s probably me, not you. Okay?” As Martinez attempted to re-frame his question, Hegseth sneered, “It was an indictment framed as a question. So, you’re forgiven for not understanding,” to Caine before turning to another reporter with “Go ahead.” As Martinez protested, Hegseth snapped, “No, you’ve had your chance.” In a following segment, MS NOW’s Jonathan Lemire called the back and forth a “complete meltdown” by Hegseth.
Melty guy is melting. He’s very good at it. Why doesn’t he ever think of how ridiculous he sounds with all his overreacting? It’s defensive, and we listed a couple of reasons above in the intro. He’s just so pumped up with his Secretary of “War” nonsense that he doesn’t see how bad he appears. There was certainly nothing worth remembering that he did in the Iran war. Our side was a failure, a flop, an embarrassment. Hegseth’s in charge of the military. He proves every day that he is not the right choice for the job. Good grief.
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