Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was confronted over how he feels and whether he’s on a “power trip” when he rages about extreme violence in his briefings.
The Pentagon chief was giving his briefing on the war in Iran alongside Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine when he called on TMZ, a new member of the Pentagon press corps.
Hegseth has largely stopped taking questions from longtime national security and Pentagon reporters and surrounded himself by pro-MAGA media, but in this case, he threw a question to an unfamiliar face.
“I’ve heard you talk a lot about bombing people and places, and when you give these orders to carry out this extreme level of violence, what’s going through your mind and your body?” asked Jacob Wasserman. “Do you have like an adrenaline rush? Are you scared? Do you feel like you’re on a power trip? Just walk us through and paint us a picture of what it feels like, mentally and physically.”
Hegseth quickly responded that it was a “very TMZ question.”
“My only thought process is to ensure that our war fighters have everything they need to be successful, defeat and destroy the enemy, and they come home,” the defense secretary said.
“I want them to feel empowered, to have every authority they need, within our rules and within our law to bring maximum violence to the enemy because war is violent,” Hegseth added. “War requires doing difficult things, but I want our people to feel empowered, so it’s our guys that come home and their guys that do not.”
The questions about a power trip and adrenaline rush come as Hegseth has exhibited extreme aggression when talking about war, using numerous catch phrases like “locked and loaded” and touting “lethality.”
There has been fierce debate over whether Hegseth has the temperament to lead U.S. forces since Trump chose him. Since then, he’s fired more than a dozen top military officers and repeatedly attacked the media on camera.
He’s even portrayed as an alcohol-chugging, insult-throwing figure played by Colin Jost on Saturday Night Live.
But after Hegseth threw a question to TMZ at Friday’s briefing, he then allowed another reporter from the same tabloid news organization to ask a second one.
“You changed the Department of Defense to the Department of War. Would you consider changing the name again to the Department of Peace since that’s what we’re all after?” TMZ’s Charlie Cotton asked.
“Well, that’s the pursuit. It’s a great question, actually,” Hegseth said. “You go from defense to war because you want to be proactive about peace through strength.”
The defense secretary has repeatedly said that the U.S. has been carrying out strikes around the globe since Trump took office in pursuit of peace.
“When you fight a war the right way, the idea is on the other side, you bring about peace,” he claimed. “That is what we’d like to see the most.”
He went on to point out that he had made a video arguing that the U.S. military should win the Nobel Peace Prize every year because he believes it’s a “guarantor of the safety and security” around the world.
Trump announced last year that he was changing the name of the Defense Department, and the administration has referred to it as the Department of War ever since, but officially changing the name would require an act of Congress.
