U.S. Military veteran Paul Rieckhoff ripped Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth for displaying “conduct unbecoming” after he lashed out at his former Fox News colleague Jennifer Griffin for asking about U.S. bombings of Iran’s nuclear websites.
“He appears to be like rattled, he clearly appears to be like thin-skinned, he’s extraordinarily aggressive and unstable, and he’s attacking the press,” Rieckhoff informed CNN. “We want him to assault our enemies. I want he attacked Vladimir Putin as aggressively as he assaults CNN and others.”
Hegseth is one in every of a number of officials in Donald Trump’s administration, including the president himself, who has lashed out at journalists in current days after a leaked initial assessment contradicted Trump’s claims that Saturday’s bombings in Iran “completely obliterated” the nation’s nuclear services.
Following a categorized briefing Thursday, Democratic senators largely appeared skeptical of the bombings including Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who mentioned the strikes “solely set again the Iranian nuclear program by a handful of months.”
Rieckhoff, founder and CEO of the political advocacy group Impartial Veterans of America, underscored that Hegseth has continued to “conflate the warfare with the soldiers” whereas main the Pentagon.
“It’s one thing we labored exhausting as a nation throughout partisan traces to separate after Vietnam, to separate the politics from the folks and so they have melded the two together,” mentioned Rieckhoff, who served within the Iraq Struggle.
He agreed with CNN’s Abby Phillip who, earlier in this system, argued that Trump officers are utilizing the navy to “defend” the commander in chief.
“As a result of the press is asking exhausting questions of our president doesn’t imply something in regards to the troops,” Rieckhoff mentioned.
“It’s completely separate and so they’re utilizing it persistently as a really harmful defend, which continues to politicize our navy, which is their playbook now, which could be very, very harmful,” he added.
Rieckhoff acknowledged that he doesn’t know whether or not the nuclear websites had been “obliterated” in Iran.
“However I do know what’s being obliterated — the Structure,” he mentioned earlier than knocking Congress for failing to meet its “accountability to rein in” a president participating in fight and urging Trump to make his case to the folks first.
He continued: “There’s an outdated adage: first commit the nation, then commit the troops. If you do it backwards, that is the form of stuff that begins to occur.”
