White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt engaged in a heated exchange with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins after Collins took War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s remarks out of context.
The confrontation followed Hegseth’s comments during a Pentagon briefing about Operation Epic Fury and media coverage of U.S. military operations against Iran.
“We control their fate.”
“But when a few drones get through or tragic things happen it’s front page news.”
“I get it, the press only wants to make the president look bad, but try for once to report the reality,” he said.
Hegseth was referring to an Iranian strike on a U.S. military installation in Kuwait that killed six American service members and wounded several others.
The attack occurred in the early hours of the operation at a staging area.
During the White House briefing Collins raised the issue and accused Hegseth of complaining that coverage of the deaths was front-page news which Leavitt rejected.
“That’s not what the secretary said and you know it.”
“You know you’re being disingenuous,” Leavitt snapped.
Collins then quoted Hegseth, saying, “He said, ‘tragic things happen.’”
Collins then continued the quotation with, “’It’s front page news.’”
Leavitt again accused Collins of taking the remarks out of context.
Leavitt Confronts CNN
Leavitt launched into a lengthy critique of CNN and its coverage of the Trump Administration.
“The press only wants to make the president look bad, especially you and especially CNN!”
“The Secretary of War cares deeply about warfighters, he travels everywhere to meet and connect with them.”
“Your network has probably hardly ever reported that,” Leavitt continued.
“You and your network know that you take every single thing this administration says and tries to use it to make the president look bad.”
“That is an objective fact.”
“If you’re trying to argue right now that CNN’s overwhelming coverage is not negative of President Donald Trump?!
I think the American people would tend to agree, and your ratings would tend to disagree with that as well!”
The briefing took place amid heightened attention on U.S. military actions in the region.
Earlier the same day Hegseth and other Pentagon officials provided updates on progress against Iranian capabilities while acknowledging the casualties.
U.S. officials also released new footage of strikes on Iranian targets, including the sinking of an Iranian naval vessel off the coast of Sri Lanka.
Hegseth noted that Iranian air and missile defenses had been severely degraded and were expected to lead to complete air superiority for allied forces in the coming days.
