The Trump administration can’t stop complaining about the media
Hegseth, in particular, keeps suggesting that the press wants the U.S. to lose the war in Iran.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had another combative press conference on Thursday, this time calling the media “dishonest” and saying they had Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Since the start of the war, more than a dozen American service members have been killed. Whenever that fact is mentioned in reporting, Hegseth and others in the Trump administration become angry, saying the press is focusing on the negatives and are doing so to make Trump look bad.
On Thursday, Hegseth again lashed out at the media, saying, “Yes, there are reporters in front of me, but they are not my audience today. 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.”
Related Knowledge Center: The White House vs. the press
Whether it’s the Des Moines Register’s publication of an unfavorable election poll, a routine edit of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, or the Associated Press’s decision in its authoritative stylebook to continue to use “Gulf of Mexico,” Donald Trump and the White House have used executive authority and legal reprisals in an effort to punish and suppress press coverage that runs contrary to the administration’s preferred narratives.
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