Hegseth 'is going to feel pressure' to keep Trump from looking bad: insider

Despite triumphant proclamations from Donald Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the surprise attack on Iran was a rousing success, there are concerns within the White House that blow-back is coming.

According to a report from Politico, not everyone in the administration was on board with the bombing of three sites in Iran linked to uranium enrichment.

Add to that, Trump made some broad statements about the damage done and now it falls to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to make it look like the president came out on top.

As Politico's Dasha Burns, Nahal Toosi and Jack Detsch reported on Sunday, "President Donald Trump was triumphant Saturday night during his Oval Office address but within the administration the mood was less sanguine as officials braced for a potential Iran counterattack."

According to one insider, “We don’t know how much this is going to get us into something protracted. Right now the message is we want to get rid of the nuclear capacity and focus on negotiations.”

Another person who took part in the White House debate offered that there are legitimate fears of a retaliatory "mass casualty event," and confessed, "There’s a lot of risks here for escalation,” before adding, "there’s going to be more pressure on the United States to get involved.”

As for Hegseth, the ball is now in his court

According to Politico, "Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth 'is going to feel pressure and somehow prove that the strikes are as successful as Trump claimed they are,”'the person added, saying that the Pentagon assessed this year that the U.S. military would need to do 30 days of sustained strikes to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, owing to their underground depth and spread out layout."

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