Hegseth brands media ‘Pharisees’

The US defense secretary has once again slammed ‘unpatriotic’ journalists over Iran war coverage

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has once again attacked the press, accusing journalists of producing an “endless stream of garbage” in their coverage of the Iran conflict and comparing the Pentagon media pool to the Pharisees, a Jewish group in the Bible who often clashed with Jesus.

Hegseth, a former Fox News host appointed by US President Donald Trump to lead the US Department of Defence, has repeatedly clashed with the press more than a year into his tenure.

Hegseth’s latest comments follow critical coverage of his “CSAR 25:17” reading at the Pentagon prayer service, which was labeled “fake” due to its similarity to the fictional passage from Ezekiel recited by Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction.

“I just can’t help but notice the endless stream of garbage, the relentlessly negative coverage you cannot resist peddling, despite the historic and important success of this effort and the success of our troops,” Hegseth said at a Pentagon briefing Thursday. “Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what side some of you are actually on.”

“The Pharisees – the so-called and self-appointed elites of their time – they were there to witness, to write everything down, to report,” he added. “But … even though they witnessed a literal miracle, it didn’t matter, they were only there to explain away the goodness in pursuit of their agenda.”

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Hegseth said reporters are “just like these Pharisees,” adding that political hostility toward President Trump “blinds” them to “the brilliance of our American warriors.”

The Pentagon chief had previously accused media outlets of producing “fake news.” In March, he criticized the “dishonest and anti-Trump press” for trying “to downplay progress, amplify every cost and call into question every step.” Later that month, Hegseth said journalists highlighted US casualties in the Iran war “to make the president look bad,” including the six US Army reservists killed in an Iranian attack on an operations center in Kuwait.

Hegseth’s latest remarks come as Trump and officials in his administration have increasingly framed aspects of the Iran war in biblical terms and used references to the Bible in public statements about the conflict and related military actions.

Multiple US military commanders have reportedly offered religious interpretations of the attack on Iran, with the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) saying some described Trump as a harbinger of the Second Coming and the conflict as a “signal fire” for Armageddon. Separately, Trump shared an AI-generated image of himself as a Christ-like figure healing a man, which drew online criticism.