Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s hand-waving defense of the reported killing of two survivors clinging for their lives to a purported drug boat attacked on his orders in early September was dismantled on MS NOW Wednesday morning.
During a nationally televised Donald Trump Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the embattled Pentagon chief tried to swat away responsibility for what is being called a war crime by alternately blaming it on the “fog of war” and then saying he left the room before the second attack that is now headed for a congressional inquiry.
Addressing Hegseth’s snapping at reporters as he tried to deflect blame, “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough lit up the Trump appointee by reminding him of what he said right after the attack.
After sharing a clip of a former Fox News colleague and friend of Hegseth’s, calling what happened a war crime, the MS NOW host exclaimed, “You were the man! Okay, man, you were there! You admitted you knew everything about four strikes.” “Are you telling me there was a first strike and you said, ‘I'm going to go up to my office and play Parcheesi? I'm bored with this.’ No!” he continued.
“You stayed there for the four strikes. You know you did. So now you're saying, ‘Oh, fog of war.’ Fog? I don't ... one strike, four strikes. It's a fog."
“No, you told everybody,” he insisted. “You told America the morning after the attack. You knew everything about it. You were there. You saw it yourself.”