Category: Pete Hegseth
Trump crushes ‘obnoxious’ reporter at White House briefing: ‘It’s always the same thing with you!’
President Donald Trump berated a journalist who pressed him on the lethal attacks on suspected narco-terrorist boats near Venezuela.
Critics of the president say the military strikes are unlawful and unethical, but the administration has defended the actions as necessary and legal defensive acts to protect the American people.
‘Let me just tell you, you are an obnoxious — actually a terrible reporter.’
ABC News reporter Rachel Scott asked Trump if he was going to order Department of War Sec. Pete Hegseth to release video of the order to strike the boats, when the president grew angry with her insistence on the question.
“Are you committed to releasing the full video?” she asked.
“Didn’t I just tell you that?” the president fired back.
“You’re the most obnoxious reporter in the whole place. Let me just tell you, you are an obnoxious — actually a terrible reporter. And it’s always the same thing with you!” he added. “I told you, whatever Pete Hegseth wants to do is OK with me.”
Video of the president’s comments were posted to social media.
Scott posted her version of the interaction on social media.
“I asked President Trump if he would release the full video from the second strike on Sept 2nd,” she wrote. “Just days ago the president said he would have ‘no problem’ doing that. But now, he denies saying that. And is not committing to releasing it.”
The president’s opponents allege that a second strike on the survivors on a drug-trafficking boat could be prosecuted as a war crime, but the administration has defended the decision.
RELATED: US strike against military targets in Venezuela could begin at any moment: Report
The president may have been referring to an argument he had with the same reporter in July 2024, ahead of the election, at the National Association of Black Journalists.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been asked a question in such a horrible manner. The first question. You don’t even say, ‘Hello, how are you?’ … I think it’s disgraceful that I came here in good spirit,” he said at the event.
He later continued to lash out at the reporter during the event.
“Look, if I came onto a stage like this and I got treated so rudely as this woman treated me,” Trump said. “Very rude. That was a nasty — that wasn’t even a question. She didn’t ask me a question. She gave a statement.”
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‘Lawful and needful’: Navy admiral dispels Hegseth’s alleged ‘kill them all’ order during drug-boat strike
Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth remains on offense, as another military official stands up in defense of the infamous boat strike against alleged drug traffickers.
The Washington Post published a story claiming that Hegseth ordered Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley to “kill them all” during a September 2 strike on alleged drug boats, insinuating that the alleged order amounted to a war crime.
‘I saw two survivors trying to flip a boat, load it with drugs.’
Bradley echoed remarks made by Hegseth and members of the administration defending the strike and calling the Post’s reporting into question.
Lawmakers exiting the Thursday-morning meeting with Bradley reaffirmed that the accusations levied against Hegseth and his Pentagon were unfounded, claiming there was “no such order.”
RELATED: Trump’s boat strikes may leave one Venezuelan drug-smuggling pirate haven in ruins
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
“The first strike, the second strike, and the third and the fourth strike on September 2 were entirely lawful and needful, and they were exactly what we would expect our military commanders to do,” Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas said as he was exiting the classified briefing.
“Admiral Bradley was very clear that he was given no such order, to give no quarter or to kill them all,” Cotton added.
RELATED: Turns out that Hegseth’s ‘kill them all’ line was another media invention
Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Cotton went on to describe the footage of the strike that was shown to the lawmakers.
“I saw two survivors trying to flip a boat — loaded with drugs, bound for the United States — back over so they could stay in the fight,” Cotton said. “And potentially, given all the context we heard, of other narco-terrorist boats in the area coming to their aid.”
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The media just told you their 2026 strategy: ‘Lies, but better!’
Let me explain what the New York Times just did to the Washington Post over Thanksgiving weekend. The Post tried to turn Secretary of War Pete Hegseth into a war criminal for blowing up maritime drug runners. But the attack didn’t gain traction — partly because Republicans are getting better at starving these narratives of oxygen.
So the New York Times read the room, climbed to the top rope, and elbow-dropped its own ideological ally to prevent serious blowback against the propaganda press. The Times wasn’t defending truth. It was defending future lies. The ability to run effective psyops in 2026 was on the line. And when the Times pretends to be an ombudsman, the calculus is always political.
You think sweating out one red-state special election against a hellish candidate who despises her own constituents is bad? Wait until November 2026.
Don’t kid yourself: No ethical journalism happened here. The Times simply concluded, “We will sell no psyop before its time.” They weren’t going to let DataRepublican or Steve Baker rack up millions of views muckraking the Post’s latest collapsing narrative. So the Gray Lady hit the panic button and aborted the mission.
What should we learn from this? The temptation on the right will be to ask why the corporate left-wing press broke ranks on the eve of maybe flipping a Tennessee district Donald Trump won by 22 points to a Democrat who is on tape saying she hates her own city and its constituents.
But that question misses a foundational truth I repeat constantly on my show: Worldview is destiny. And outside the biblical worldview, every worldview boils down to a will to power.
With that hermeneutic, you can see exactly what the Times leaders are doing. They’re thinking far past Tennessee. They’re signaling that they have an entire arsenal of new lies ready to deploy to steal the midterms. It’s that Don Draper meme — hands outstretched, smirking: “Lies … but better!”
Remember: The godless do not have limiting principles. Why wouldn’t they lie if lying helps them capture power? It doesn’t matter whether it’s godless atheism, godless occultism, or godless Islam. Where the one true God is absent, the father of lies dances to a raucous tune. Hell has denominations, too.
But in the biblical worldview, the hallmark of everything is repentance, redemption, and restoration. You know a tree by its fruit. So if you want to discern whether something reflects the kingdom of God or the spirit of the age, the first question isn’t “do I like this person?” or “is this how I would do it?” The first question is: Does it produce repentance, redemption, and restoration?
Look at the Charlie Kirk memorial. Several people spoke whom no one expected to have deep, serious thoughts about Christianity. Yet the event unmistakably pointed people toward repentance, redemption, and restoration. That’s the kingdom of God. Don’t focus on the proxy on the outside. Focus on what God is doing on the inside. That’s the through-line from Genesis to Revelation.
The spirit of the age rejects all of it. It is will to power, front to back. Which means you cannot analyze the opposition the same way you analyze our side.
RELATED: How GOP leadership can turn a midterm gift into a total disaster
rudall30 via iStock/Getty Images
Sure, Republicans won that Tennessee special election by nine points. But they lost the Nashville precinct — the same place the Democrat said she hated. That’s how cults behave. And that’s why political messaging on the right must account for the environment normie voters live in — the tension between two very different kingdoms vying for their attention.
The normie voter either doesn’t know about those kingdoms or doesn’t care. He just wants what he wants: an economy that boosts his bottom line and border and anti-crime policies that keep him safe. Voters want elections to be about them.
That’s why Hegseth taking out foreign drug traffickers instinctively sounds like a pretty good deal — something even the New York Times could grasp, if only for tactical reasons.
So here’s the math going forward: Leftists can lie all they want — and sometimes lie badly, as we just saw — but the GOP will still lose if it fails to fix the economy and security.
You think sweating out one red-state special election against a hellish candidate who despises her own constituents is bad? Wait until November 2026. With better lies behind her and normie voters feeling betrayed by lukewarm people in power, she — and people like her — will absolutely win.
Turns out that Hegseth’s ‘kill them all’ line was another media invention
Under his authority as commander in chief, the president can blow up pretty much anybody on Earth whom he deems a national security threat. He does not need permission from Congress, the media, or a panel of self-appointed commentators. The missile strikes on drug-running vessels operated by a designated terrorist group are lawful, routine, and predictable. What made the episode explosive was that it enraged exactly the faction that always reacts this way: the political left.
Impeachment is the only real consequence available to the administration’s critics, and after two failed efforts, that prospect does not keep President Trump awake at night. Republican control of the House makes even a symbolic attempt unlikely.
It is time to put a moratorium on the online laws-of-armed-conflict ‘experts’ who materialize whenever a strike hits a target they sympathize with.
So the disloyal opposition defaults to its remaining weapon: information warfare. Media outlets, activist networks, and hostile bureaucrats have been carpet-bombing the information space with false claims designed to sow dissension among the ranks and mislead the public.
The country needs a president who can act decisively in defense of national security, without media gatekeepers, rogue judges, or partisan lawmakers running armchair military campaigns from the sidelines. The “Seditious Six” tried to undermine the president’s authority and cast doubt on lawful orders. The Washington Post attempted to turn that fiction into fact by quoting anonymous sources with unverifiable claims.
The central allegation is that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth issued an order to “kill everybody” on the vessel. The Post framed it this way: “Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a spoken directive, according to two people with direct knowledge of the operation. ‘The order was to kill everybody.’”
The headline amplified the accusation: “Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all.”
A “spoken directive” means no record. The quote is a paraphrase. Nothing indicates that the source actually heard the Hegseth say those words. This is an anonymous, secondhand characterization of an alleged statement — precisely the sort of raw material the Post loves to inflate into scandal.
Even if the words had been spoken, the context would determine legality. If a commander asks, “How big a bomb do we drop on the enemy location?” and the answer is, “Use one big enough to kill everybody,” that exchange would not be criminal. It is a description of the force required to neutralize a hostile asset.
If these anonymous sources truly believed the secretary issued an illegal order, they were obligated to report it through the chain of command. Their silence speaks louder than any paraphrase. The most plausible explanation is that someone misunderstood — or deliberately distorted — an aggressive statement by Hegseth and nothing more.
The United States targets terrorists. The implication behind the Post’s story is that survivors remained after the first strike and that either the secretary or JSOC ordered a second engagement to kill them. No evidence supports that claim. No one outside the direct participants knows what the surveillance picture showed or what tactical conditions existed immediately after the first blast.
RELATED: White House names names in new ‘media bias tracker’ in wake of ‘seditious’ Democrat video
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
President Trump stated publicly that Hegseth told him no order was given to kill survivors. The fact that U.S. forces recovered two survivors from the submersible drug vessel undercuts the Post’s narrative even more. Pete Hegseth is far more credible than Alex Horton and the newsroom that elevated this rumor.
It is time to put a moratorium on the online laws-of-armed-conflict “experts” who materialize whenever a strike hits a target they sympathize with. They insist that the presence of wounded combatants instantly transforms a hostile platform into a protected site and that destroying the vessel itself becomes a war crime. Even the New York Times — no friend of the administration — punctured that claim:
According to five U.S. officials … Mr. Hegseth’s directive did not specifically address what should happen if a first missile failed to accomplish all of those things … and his order was not a response to surveillance footage showing that at least two people on the boat survived the first blast.
The mobs demanding Hegseth’s scalp will be disappointed. The voters who supported this administration expected firm action against terrorist cartels and open-ocean drug networks. Another hostile vessel was reduced to an oil slick, and most Americans see that as a success.
Woke ‘Franklin the Turtle’ publisher and Democrats lose their minds after Hegseth shares hilarious meme
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth shared a meme on Sunday depicting the eponymous star of the children’s book franchise “Franklin the Turtle” and the television adaptation “Franklin” dressed as an American soldier, perched on the side of a Bell UH-1 helicopter, and firing a rocket-propelled grenade at maritime drug-runners.
The AI-generated illustration, shared after lawmakers from both parties expressed concerns over American strikes against suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean Sea, was made to look like the cover of a book in the series, complete with a title — “A Classic Franklin Story: Franklin Targets Narco Terrorists.”
‘We doubt Franklin the Turtle wants to be inclusive of drug cartels … or laud the kindness and empathy of narco-terrorists.’
The viral meme, which Hegseth captioned “for your Christmas wish list” and had over 25.6 million impressions on X on Wednesday, evidently enraged various liberal media personalities and Democrats as well as the Toronto-based publisher of the Franklin books.
Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) also complained about the meme, stating on the Senate floor, “He wants to be taken seriously, but yesterday he posted a ridiculous tweet of a cartoon turtle firing on alleged drug traffickers — a sick parody of a well-known children’s book. This man is a national embarrassment.”
Kids Can Press said in a statement, “Franklin the Turtle is a beloved Canadian icon who has inspired generations of children and stands for kindness, empathy, and inclusivity.”
RELATED: Trump’s boat strikes may leave one Venezuelan drug-smuggling pirate haven in ruins
Photo by Rick Madonik/Toronto Star via Getty Image
“We strongly condemn any denigrating, violent, or unauthorized use of Franklin’s name or image, which directly contradicts these values,” added the Canadian publisher.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell responded to the publisher’s condemnation, stating, “We doubt Franklin the Turtle wants to be inclusive of drug cartels … or laud the kindness and empathy of narco-terrorists.”
Unfortunately for Kids Can Press and Democratic critics, their condemnations of the fictional turtle’s enlistment in MAGA memes appear to have only helped fuel the desire by trolls to depict Franklin in other provocative fake titles including, “Franklin Guards the Woman’s Locker Room,” “Franklin Gets Falsely Accused of War Crimes,” “Franklin Assists with 20 Million Deportations,” “Franklin Explains What Fauci Deserves,” and “Franklin Learns about George Floyd’s Autopsy.”
One fake book cover titled “Franklin Gets a New Job” features an image of the turtle, this time dressed up as a Department of Homeland Security agent, arresting the eponymous Latin American star of the animated children’s show “Dora the Explorer.”
Another fake cover titled “Franklin and Pete Hegseth Laugh at Communists” features an image of the war secretary and the turtle riding their bikes past four slovenly leftists.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) also got in on the fun.
Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a former CIA analyst who was among the Democratic lawmakers who urged the military last month to “refuse” allegedly illegal orders from the Trump administration, called on Hegseth to resign on Tuesday in the wake of a report claiming that the war secretary ordered SEAL Team 6 to leave behind no survivors in a recent boat strike.
Luna responded with a fake Franklin cover titled “Franklin Shows His Classmates How to Identify a Spook.” The fake cover features an image of the turtle directing his fellow woodland critters’ attention to an apparent caricature of Slotkin on a chalkboard.
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‘Ridiculous charade’: Bill O’Reilly torches Democrat senator over ‘seditious’ political stunt
Bill O’Reilly ripped into Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona over his involvement in left-wing lawmakers’ most recent political stunt.
Kelly and five other Democratic senators put out a video calling on military members to disobey “unlawful” orders from the commander in chief, President Donald Trump. Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, who reportedly orchestrated the video, admitted herself that she is not aware of any “unlawful” orders issued by the administration.
‘If you’re a responsible legislator, you don’t make things up.’
Kelly, who has an extensive military background, came under fire alongside his colleagues, with Trump and his allies branding the video “seditious.”
“I think the whole thing is contrived,” O’Reilly said. “I’m disappointed with Sen. Kelly. I think that he made a huge mistake by getting involved with this ridiculous charade.”
Because Kelly is a retired Navy commander, the Democratic senator is still subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, landing him an investigation from the Department of War.
“All servicemembers are reminded that they have a legal obligation under the UCMJ to obey lawful orders and that orders are presumed to be lawful,” a DOW statement reads. “A servicemember’s personal philosophy does not justify or excuse the disobedience of an otherwise lawful order.”
O’Reilly said Kelly’s irresponsible involvement in the Democrats’ political stunt was purely motivated by partisan affiliation.
“If you’re a responsible legislator, you don’t make things up,” O’Reilly said. “So if you don’t have an illegal order, then why are you talking about an illegal order? For what? What is the reason?”
“There’s only one,” O’Reilly added. “To embarrass Trump. To whip up hatred against Trump. That’s why they did it. I guess they didn’t have anything else to do on Monday.”
RELATED: ‘Canary in a coal mine’: Ousted speaker warns against the rising risk of GOP House resignations
Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Kelly’s military background should have prevented him from such a public misstep, according to O’Reilly.
“But why would Kelly, who has a distinguished record both in the military and in Congress, why would he be part of it?” O’Reilly asked. “What’s the up side? And then, when all hell breaks loose, you weren’t expecting that backlash? … If they didn’t, they should retire.”
“What are you, 7 years old? When you go in there and tell the U.S. military not to obey orders because they may be ‘unlawful,’ you’re going to get push back.”
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Exclusive: Sen. Blackburn introduces bill that would bar military ‘leftists’ from disrespecting Trump in key way
Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee introduced key legislation on Friday to ensure that military bases respect their commander in chief.
Blackburn introduced the Respect the Chief Act in response to reports of military bases failing to display portraits of President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. In response to the bases and military officials who may be motivated by ideology rather than tradition, Blackburn’s legislation would formally require the portraits to be displayed, according to bill text obtained exclusively by Blaze News.
Rather than allowing this tradition to be carried out at the discretion of commanders, who sometimes may be ‘leftists,’ Blackburn decided to take matters into her own hands.
“The president of the United States is the Commander in Chief, and chain-of-command boards at America’s military bases should reflect current leadership,” Blackburn told Blaze News.
“The Respect the Chief Act would ensure military bases continue this long-standing tradition and prevent leftists from disrespecting the chain of command.”
RELATED: Exclusive: Republican senator introduces bill slashing funds to anti-American governments
Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images
Blackburn’s legislation came in response to the suspension of Colonel Sheyla Baez Ramirez, a commander at Fort McCoy who failed to install photos of Trump, Vance, and Hegseth at the base back in April.
Following the scandal, Blackburn recognized the lack of formal federal statutes and regulations that require these customs to be upheld. Rather than allowing this tradition to be carried out at the discretion of commanders, who sometimes may be “leftists,” Blackburn decided to take matters into her own hands.
RELATED: Democrat senator makes stunning admission about Obamacare failures
Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
In addition to mandating the display of the portraits of the president, vice president, and secretary of war, Blackburn’s bill would require the separate military branches within the Department of War to submit reports to the executive branch confirming that all displays of leadership reflect the current chain of command.
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The Best Birthday Present for the Marine Corps
As the Marine Corps approaches its 250th birthday, the best gift the administration and Congress could give it would be…
