Secretary of War Pete Hegseth rebuked an NBC News reporter Wednesday who interrupted and shouted a question after Hegseth called on Daily Caller White House correspondent Reagan Reese.
Senior NBC News correspondent Courtney Kube interrupted Reese’s question to ask her own on Iran launching missiles, shouting from across the room. Hegseth quickly turned to stop her and snap back, “Excuse me, why are you so rude?”
“Just wait. I’m calling on people,” Hegseth said before turning back to Reese and allowing her to continue uninterrupted.
Hegseth also said under his breath that Kube was being “so nasty.”
Reese asked Hegseth if the administration had been prepared to wipe out Iran entirely if a deal had not been made by the 8 p.m. deadline on Tuesday. Hegseth said the military was ready to target Iran’s infrastructure, bridges and power plants, and that Iran knew what the U.S. was capable of.
“Like I said, we had a target set, locked and loaded. Infrastructure, bridges, power plants,” Hegseth said. “Remember, this is a terror regime, a military regime, use all these things for dual use to fund their military, to fund their terror campus. We had a lot of legitimate targets. They knew exactly the scope of what we were capable of.”
He added that Iran’s understanding of what could happen if the U.S. went forward with the attack is what “brought them the place” where they were ready to deal,.
“We hit some military targets on Kharg, which is a bit of a signal. They can’t defend it,” he said. “So Iran ultimately understood their ability, their future to produce, to generate power, to fuel their terrorist regime was in our hands, was in President Trump’s hands.”
English