Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth melted down so badly during his congressional hearing on Wednesday that even the committee’s Republican chairman had to calm him down.
As the self-styled “Secretary of War,” 45, was grilled by Democratic members on the House Armed Services Committee about he and President Donald Trump’s highly unpopular war on Iran, one question prompted the hawkish former Fox & Friends Weekend host to fly off the handle.
Pennsylvania Rep. Chris Deluzio pressed the defense secretary about the U.S. Army service members who survived the March 1 drone strike in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait, and told CBS News earlier this month that their unit was “unprepared to provide any defense for itself.”
New York Rep. Pat Ryan, a former Army intelligence officer, had brought up the wounded soldiers a few minutes before Deluzio and had questioned why Hegseth’s public addresses since then had contradicted their reports.
“We all just heard pretty powerful reporting, courtesy of Mr. [Pat] Ryan, from many of our wounded troops who were injured in the attack in Kuwait,” Deluzio, 41, said. “Your spokesperson, Sean Parnell, in response to that reporting, said it was ‘not true.’ Do you agree with that? That he was calling these guys liars?”
The congressman referred to Parnell’s March 3 post on X, where he claimed an initial report from the outlet about the “makeshift office space” where the troops were killed was “not true.”
“I’m not calling our troops liars, and I don’t know if what you’re representing is correct or not,” Hegseth replied. “I’ll take you at your word on that.”
The Cabinet secretary then rambled about how his military had taken “every effort possible” to “ensure the defense of our troops” before the congressman tried to get him back on track to answer his initial question.
“I’m gonna pause you there,” the former U.S. Navy officer told Hegseth as he tried to get a word in.
“Was our concern that something could get through? Absolutely,” Hegseth interrupted. “But no. You’re disparaging me that I don’t care about the passing of—"
“I’m asking you whether you think they’re liars or not,” Deluzio interjected. “That’s what I asked you.”
“No. You and you are disparaging me saying that I don’t care about the passing of our troops,” Hegseth replied, pointing at Deluzio and Ryan, two Democratic veterans on the committee.
“Nope. I asked if you thought they were liars,” Deluzio said.
“That’s disparaging and smearing in every way. Nobody cares more about the fate of our troops. Nobody cares about the health of our troops. Nobody wants to bring them more than I do,” Hegseth said, pointing at himself.
The committee’s Republican chairman, Alabama Rep. Mike Rogers, tried to calm the Cabinet member’s heightening ire with multiple interjections of “Mr. Secretary.”
“I understand, but he controls the time. He controls the time. You get to control your answer,” Rogers, 67, told Hegseth.
Reached for comment on Hegseth’s remarks about the Port Shuaiba strike, the Pentagon said that “the incident is under investigation,” and referred the Daily Beast to Parnell’s March 3 post.
In the 60 days since the U.S.-Israeli joint offensive against Iran began on Feb. 28, 13 American service members have been killed and hundreds more have been wounded as a result of the conflict, according to the Pentagon.
As the conflict that the president initially estimated to take “four to six weeks” stretches into its ninth, and U.S. ships’ blockade of the Strait of Hormuz as an indefinite ceasefire continues, it’s unclear when Trump’s war will finally be put to rest.
