Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth went on a rant, attacking Democrats as “reckless” and “defeatist” as they blasted the Trump administration over getting the U.S. stuck in Iran with no clear exit plan.
The former Fox News host turned defense secretary was triggered by Democrats calling Donald Trump’s war a “quagmire.”
“My generation served in a quagmire in Iraq and Afghanistan, years and years of nebulous missions and utopian nation-building that led us to nothing,” Hegseth said. “The way you stain the troops when you tell them two months in, two months in, congressman. You should know better. Shame on you. Calling this a quagmire two months in.”
Hegseth was directing his wrath at Democratic Rep. John Garamendi, who spent his time questioning the top Trump official, tearing into the Trump administration’s war in Iran.
“The president has gotten himself and America stuck in the quagmire of another war in the Middle East,” Democratic Rep. John Garamendi berated Hegseth. “He’s desperately trying to extricate himself from his own mistakes.”
The California congressman accused the defense secretary of lying about the war from day one and the administration of misleading the public. He did not actually pose any questions.
It didn’t sit well with Hegseth, who was forced to sit in his chair and take the criticism. When it was a GOP member’s turn to grill him, Hegseth managed to take some time to fire back.
“You call it a quagmire, handing propaganda to our enemies. Shame on you for that statement, and statements like that are reckless to our troops,” Hegseth ranted. “Don’t say, ‘I support the troops on one hand,’ and a two-month mission is a quagmire.”
“Who are you cheering for here? Who are you pulling for?” Hegseth continued. “Our troops are doing incredible work.”
Garamendi was careful to laud U.S. service members while targeting leadership, but the defense secretary was not done.
“They’ve done incredible things for the entirety of this mission and achieved incredible battlefield successes, and you sit there and go on TV for your clickbait about quagmires. It underlines the mission.”
“Your, your, your hatred for President Trump blinds, blinds you to the truth of the success of this mission and the historic stakes that the president is addressing, which the American people support,” he raged, stumbling over his words.
Recent polling shows that the majority of Americans oppose military action against Iran.
It comes as the president has struggled to get a peace deal with Iran despite announcing an indefinite ceasefire while the U.S. blockades the Strait of Hormuz.
“Iran can’t get their act together. They don’t know how to sign a nonnuclear deal,” Trump complained in the middle of the night post on Wednesday with an AI-generated image of him under the caption, “No More Mr. Nice guy.”
When pressed on when the war would end, Trump blew past the six-week timeline he previously set and has more recently insisted it would be “soon.”
Later in the hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Chrissy Houlahan asked Hegseth how many months he estimates it will take for the war to wrap up.
“As the president has stated, you would never tell your adversary,” Hegseth said.
