WASHINGTON — White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt gave a fiery defense of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth Wednesday when asked about his remarks suggesting news outlets were using six US military deaths in the Iran war to make Trump “look bad.”
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“Is it the position of this administration that the press should not prominently cover the deaths of US service members?” CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked — shortly after Leavitt announced that Trump would attend the dignified transfer ceremony for the initial war dead.
“No. It’s the position of this administration that the press in this room and the press across this country should accurately report on the success of Operation Epic Fury and the damage it is doing to the rogue Iranian regime that has threatened the lives of every single American in this room,” Leavitt retorted.
“If the Iranian regime had their choice, they would kill every single person in this room. And so we can all be very grateful that we have an administration and that we have men and women in our armed forces who are willing to sacrifice their own lives for the rest of us in this room and for every American across the country.”
Collins interjected, “But Secretary Hegseth was complaining that it was front-page news about these six service members who were killed.”
“That’s not what the secretary said, Kaitlan. And that’s not what the secretary meant, and you know it!” Leavitt replied as the exchange grew heated.
“You know you’re being disingenuous. We’ve never had a secretary of defense who cares more.”
As Collins read Hegseth’s quotes, Leavitt defended him again.
“The press does only want to make the president look bad. That’s a fact. Especially you — no, listen to me — especially you and especially CNN,” Leavitt proclaimed.
“The secretary of defense cares deeply about our warfighters and our men and women in uniform. He travels all across this country to meet with them, to connect with them. And your network has hardly ever probably reported on that.”
Leavitt indicated during the briefing that Trump’s trip to the dignified transfer event at Dover Air Force Base is still being scheduled.
“President Trump intends to attend the dignified transfer of these American heroes to stand in grief, alongside their families,” she said.
The Pentagon on Wednesday afternoon identified four of the six killed as Army Reserve Capt. Cody Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Florida; Sgt. 1st Class Noah Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Nebraska; and Sgt. Declan Coady, 20, of West Des Moines, lowa.
Trump rates Iran war a ‘15’ out of 10
Trump told reporters Wednesday afternoon that the war was going well — after the Pentagon announced that twice as many bombs fell as during George W. Bush’s 2003 “shock and awe” blitz on Iraq.
“We’re going to continue to do very well on the war front, to put it mildly,” he said at an event focused on generating more electricity for artificial intelligence.
“Somebody said on the scale of 10, where would you rate it? I said about a 15. And we’re going to continue to do well. We have the greatest military in the world by far.”
Trump said “we’re in a very strong position now, and their leadership is just rapidly going — everybody that seems to want to be a leader, they end up dead. And it’s an amazing thing that’s taking place before your eyes, because for 47 years, we were pushed around, and we shouldn’t have been.”
The president said: “Their missiles are being wiped out rapidly. Their launches are being wiped out. They’re attacking their neighbors… And you know, it’s really a nation that was out of control.”
Trump justified the war by saying that “when crazy people have nuclear weapons, bad things happen.”
Leavitt said at her briefing moments earlier that “Iran’s murderous terrorist leaders are paying for their crimes against America. And they are paying in blood,”
“Future generations of Americans will look to this moment as the moment where the specter of a nuclear armed Iran ended,” she predicted.
Leavitt said that special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner offered Iranian negotiators last Thursday a “generous” path toward peaceful nuclear energy, but were rebuffed.
“US negotiators offered to lift crippling sanctions on Iran and even provide nuclear fuel to Iran at no cost to support a civil nuclear power program,” she said.
“They additionally had the opportunity to accept US support as an investor in potential projects to develop peaceful nuclear energy together under a mutually agreed upon framework. Yet in response, Iran would have to forfeit their enrichment capacity once and for all. But Iran rejected — they accepted none of these generous and unprecedented offers by the United States. Simply put, they refused to say yes to peace.”
Leavitt confirmed that the timing of the strike was inspired by a phone call from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Trump last Monday in which he said there would be an opportunity to assassinate Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Saturday.
“I think it was important with respect to the timeline. But I think the president, prior to that phone call, had a good feeling that the Iranian regime is going to strike United States assets and our personnel in the region,” she said.
“As for where the Ayatollah was going to be, that obviously had an impact on the timeline of the operation, but not quite the president’s decision in its entirety.”
