It was the morning after a day when the American military campaign against Iran had not gone particularly well.
President Donald Trump rebuked our Israeli allies for bombing a major Iranian gas field. “NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL,” he posted, even as U.S. and Israeli sources disputed Trump’s insistence that he had not approved the attack in advance.
Mideast oil shipments remained paralyzed as such U.S. allies as Britain and France refused Trump’s appeal to neutralize Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, saying they didn’t want a military escalation.
As oil prices soared, with the country producing virtually no new jobs over the previous six months, the Federal Reserve chairman said the economic outlook was “uncertain.”
That was the backdrop when War Secretary Pete Hegseth began an early-morning news conference yesterday by slamming…the media.
“A dishonest and anti-Trump press will stop at nothing, we know 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.” He was referring to Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Yet if you magically wiped out all the coverage of these latest events, they would be no less true, rocking the world economy and puncturing the financial markets.
It was a jarring note, as if the lack of upbeat headlines was at the root of the problem.
This is a familiar theme of Hegseth’s, who has said media organizations are turning such developments as the deaths of American service members into front-page news to make Trump look bad.
The former “Fox & Friends Weekend” co-host sprayed other targets, including “ungrateful allies” in Europe, and Joe Biden, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Now let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that the Pentagon chief has a point.
The coverage of this president, especially in the second term, has been overwhelmingly negative, whether justified or not, and that could certainly seep into the reporting and analysis on Iran.
But on what planet would journalists want America to lose the war against the world’s leading terror state, which is responsible for the deaths of so many thousands of innocent civilians?
In fact, even those in the media who question the president’s decision to attack Iran right now – with no clear-cut evidence that the religious dictators are on the verge of developing nuclear weapons – say the U.S. is easily winning the war.
The world’s most powerful military has decimated Iran’s defenses, no question about it. Tehran’s ability to use drones to strike back (with Russian help) against Americans in the surrounding Arab countries is relatively feeble, but still capable of inflicting death and damage.
And right now, Iran has succeeded in choking off oil traffic in the strait. All this is news, no matter how it’s reported.
Barbara Starr, the former CNN Pentagon correspondent, said this about Hegseth on my “Media Buzzmeter” podcast:
“I think he would much rather have 100 percent news coverage that is glowing of President Trump’s policies and efforts in this war. He doesn’t want any criticism… The job of the news media in wartime is to cover all the news. And I don’t think there’s really anything more important than the troops, which he claims is number one on his list, and their welfare and their safety.”
The most significant comment by Hegseth, who confirmed a request to boost the defense budget by $200 billion, was that there would be “no nation-building quagmire” in Iran, “no democracy-building exercise.” That may turn out to be true, but it underscores the long shadow cast by the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq, in which a supposed cakewalk wound up costing more than 4,000 American lives.
In appealing to the “patriotic” press yesterday to “thank” Trump for attacking Iran, Hegseth was, of course, broadcasting to the boss. Online, the president has accused “Highly Unpatriotic ‘News’ Organizations of pushing ‘LIES’ about the war, and said some should be ‘brought up on Charges for TREASON.’”
But yesterday Trump soberly described the situation in Iran while taking questions during a meeting with Japan’s prime minister, making no reference at all to the media’s reporting.
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He called the military attacks an “excursion,” acknowledging the huge spike in oil prices by saying: “I thought it would be worse – much worse, actually.” The president said things are “ahead of schedule… It’s not bad, and it’s going to be over with pretty soon.”
If that’s the case, no amount of negative coverage will change the public perception. In the meantime, though, journalists need to keep asking probing questions about this war and take the heat from the Trump team and its allies.
