Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth jumped in to defend Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine’s explanation on where the war in Iran was headed on Monday morning and then complained about the line of questioning from reporters in the room.
Having earlier complained about “fake news,” the former Fox News personality became incensed about reports the war could drag on longer than two weeks first hinted at, and now four weeks.
“I heard the question about four weeks is the typical NBC sort of gotcha type question.” he shot back at NBC's Courtney Kube. “President Trump has all the latitude in the world to talk about how long it may or may not take: four weeks, two weeks, six weeks. It could move up. It could move back.”
“We're going to execute at his command the objectives we've set out to achieve,” he lectured. “And what he has shown is an ability to do that other presidents can't quite seem to have the aperture to do. Well, I mean, Joe Biden didn't even know what he was doing is to look for opportunities and off ramps and escalations for the United States that creates new opportunities to execute what we need on our own timeline.”
“So you can play games about four weeks, five weeks,” he sneered. “He has all the latitude, and I'm glad he does because there's no better communicator than our president expressing those things.”