As everyone knows, on Saturday, Donald Trump approved a massive strike on Iran, taking out several nuclear facilities.
This was a 37-hour bombing run for our pilots, carried out perfectly, yet the media and some Democrats are questioning the effectiveness of the strike after a "leaked" assessment report that appeared to be premature.
Thursday morning, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth unleashed on the mainstream media.
If you have not yet seen the footage from the strike, I highly recommend you spend some time on YouTube checking out the videos, as it is rather impressive.
This was a different type of strike, as the bomb is actually a two-part bomb. The first part breaks the surface to open a hole for the second part of the bomb, which enters through the hole created to detonate well below the surface.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Caine explained, “Unlike a normal surface bomb, you won’t see an impact crater because they’re designed to deeply bury and then function.”
In all, three sites were taken out, including the Fordow site, which is believed to be the main nuclear facility for Iran.
Not long after the strike, there was an assessment report leaked that questioned the damage of the strikes, suggesting that at two of the facilities, only the entrances were caved in, leading to the sites potentially coming back online in a few months if Iran could dig through the rubble and open the entrances.
Trump went nuclear on the media for running with the report, later claiming the sites were “completely and totally obliterated,” as well as suggesting that the initial report was likely leaked by a low-ranking intelligence official with an ax to grind against Trump.
Iran eventually came out to say that the sites were “badly damaged,” but that was about as far as they would go; however, the assessments I have seen since do not paint a promising picture for Iran’s nuclear program.
Trump, on Wednesday, stated, “Israel is doing a report on it now, I understand, and I was told that they said it was total obliteration. You know they have guys that go in there after the hit, and they said it was total obliteration. I believe it was total obliteration.”
That brings us to Hegseth, who was livid over the reports, so he called a press conference early Thursday morning to call out the media.
He stated, "You, the press, specifically you, the press corps, because you cheer against Trump so hard. It's like in your DNA and in your blood to cheer against Trump because you want him not to be successful so bad. You have to cheer against the efficacy of these strikes. You have to hope maybe they weren't effective."
As you guys know, I am not necessarily a fan of Hegseth as our secretary of Defense, as I believe he is in over his head, but he is very good with the media (I would have fully supported him as a spokesman for the Pentagon), but he hit the nail on the head here.
The problem here is twofold. First, there is always the race to be first instead of right in the media, and the media should have been more patient regarding the reports until all assessments had been completed. Second, as Hegseth hinted, Trump Derangement Syndrome is running rampant in the media, and they start salivating when they think they have something on Trump. All we want is the truth. Not spin, not an invented narrative, and I doubt anyone reading this would mind waiting a day or two if it meant getting an accurate report instead of speculation from the mainstream media.
