White House's 'Call of Duty' style war hype videos 'offensive' to slain troops: analyst

An analyst on Thursday described the White House's recent video game-style hype videos as "distasteful" following the recent deaths of six American service members in the war against Iran.

The videos, which have a similar presentation and style to the popular game "Call of Duty," have been posted on the White House and Department of Defense's social media accounts and have been produced to "set the narrative" and appeal to President Donald Trump's base, which includes gamers, CNN anchor Dana Bash reported.

CNN senior political analyst Nia-Malika Henderson described why the videos might have instead raised questions after the first American casualties since the military strikes started Saturday in Iran, plus the estimated 1,100 Iranians who have died.

"I think this is in keeping with the way Pete Hegseth is also talking about the war," Henderson explained. "He of course, had a press conference yesterday talking about utter dominance, talking about the war, likening it to a football game, I think was one of the analogies that he used. And it's part of the sort of the bro culture that Donald Trump used to win. It's part of Pete Hegseth, why he's the secretary of war and why it's not the you know, the Department of Defense anymore. So it's part of the selling of the war, and we'll see if it's effective."

How Americans actually view the war is not yet clear, she said.

"Theshock and awe part of it isalways part of the initialselling of it — the utterdominance of the Americanmilitary," Henderson said. "'Best military ever inthe history of the world.' We getthat right. And you also couldsee that the White Houseobviously understands media,understands social media. Thisis a president who is watchingthe coverage of this war on histelevision set every day andtrying to program it right. Andso I think that that's part ofit, it's part of why they wereso high on the sinking of thatnaval vessel, which apparentlywas just sort of a ceremonialvessel and hyping it up. Solisten, this is a White House that is good at the hype."

But that hype could be insensitive to military families, Henderson argued.

"I think listen, if you were partof the families who have lost Americans — six Americans havedied — this is quite distastefulto liken war to a video gamebecause, you know, these aresoldiers' lives who are at risk," Henderson added. "And so to liken them to afootball game or a video game, Ithink is offensive to a lotof people."