Trump and his defence boss have created a 'cult of personality'
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
US strikes on Iran have dominated headlines this week, in a fast-moving news story that grew stranger by the minute. Trump even shouted: 'They don't know what the f*** they're doing'.
Today, Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth gave a speech at the Pentagon that came across as more of a condescending lecture, slamming the press for their coverage of the attacks on nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz and Esfahan.
Through gritted teeth, Hegseth told reporters: 'The assessment is that we significantly damaged the nuclear program, setting it back by years, I repeat, years. What the United States did was historic.'
Furrowing his brow, the defence chief added: 'But because you – and I mean specifically you, the press – because you cheer against Trump so hard… You want him not to be successful so badly that you have to cheer against the efficacy of these strikes.
'You hope maybe they weren't effective, the way the Trump administration has represented them isn't true, so you make half-truths, spin leaked information into every way you can to try to cause doubt and manipulate the public mind.'
Hegseth's remarks were one of the most brutal attacks on the press from a senior official in Trump's second term so far.
But the most interesting part isn't the words, an expert has said — it's the focus of their wrath.
Ian Garner, historian and propaganda analyst at the Pilecki Institute in Warsaw, told Metro it's telling to see Trump and Hegseth go on the attack, not against Iran, but against the media.
'This has been coming back since his first presidential run. To me, it's extremely authoritarian,' he said.
'The authoritarian approach is to say that the real enemy, the much more frightening enemy, is the enemy within.'
For Hegseth and Trump, that 'enemy' is the press, which they claim has undermined a military mission simply by reporting on evidence coming out of the Pentagon.
Media outlets that reported on new intelligence from the US suggesting the attacks in Iran did not destroy the nuclear facilities were publicly humiliated by Trump.
For the President and his Defence Secretary, who hailed them as 'one of the most successful military strikes in history', this was a betrayal. @metrouk
The White House has released a video of Donald Trump with the title 'Daddy's Home'. The nickname comes after Nato's secretary general Mark Rutte has hailed Donald Trump as 'Daddy' for dropping the F-bomb live on TV over alleged ceasefire violations in Israel's war with Iran. Former Dutch PM Mark Rutte praised the US president, saying: 'Sometimes daddy has to use strong words.' #donaldtrump #daddy #worldnews #usnews ♬ Hey Daddy (Daddy's Home) – Usher
But Mr Garner points out: 'To suggest the media is somehow undermining a military mission by reporting on evidence, can't possibly affect the reality of that mission.
'The way Trump and Hegseth have interacted with the public and media tells us is something much more important: that this conflict is much more about spectacle and performance and giving domestic audiences a show of strength from the White House and the Pentagon than achieving any particular strategic target.'
The heart of this performance? Trump himself. A growing number of Americans are seeing him as the true commander-in-chief, Mr Garner argues.
'The idea here is that power seems to emanate from this one political figure, from Donald Trump himself, which is eerily reminiscent of cults of personality we've seen elsewhere.
'And yet, the spectacle and the performance are delivered in such an obvious way that it is really clear to any intelligent observer that this is truly a cult of personality.' More Trending
The media spectable unfolded after the US unleashed more than a dozen bombs on two Iranian nuclear facilities, the Fordow Fuel Enrichment plant and the Natanz Enrichment Complex.
But the revelation that the US may not have fully eliminated the centrifuges of the sites and highly enriched uranium is quickly becoming an issue for Trump and his 'cult of personality' – as well as the media reporting on it.
But it's not Trump's first fight with the media. He became famous in his first campaign for slamming what he called the 'fake news media' for spreading lies.
In 2017, it was found that one in four of Trump's tweets at the time contained fake news.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
MORE: Trump's administration doubles down on Iran attacks and says they were '15 years in the making'
MORE: Six places which could be safe if World War Three erupts – including two in UK
MORE: How close was Iran to making a nuclear bomb and what's really going on with Israel's nuclear program?
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
33 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Trump makes case for ‘big, beautiful bill' and cranks up pressure on Republicans
Donald Trump convened congressional leaders and cabinet secretaries at the White House on Thursday to make that case for passage of his marquee tax-and-spending bill, but it remains to be seen if his pep talk will resolve a developing logjam that could threaten its passage through the Senate. The president's intervention comes as Senate majority leader John Thune mulls an initial vote on Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' on Friday, ahead of a 4 July deadline Trump has imposed to have the legislation ready for his signature. But it is unclear if Republicans have the votes to pass it through Congress's upper chamber, and whether any changes the Senate makes will pass muster in the House of Representatives, where the Republican majority passed the bill last month by a single vote and which may have to vote again on a revised version of the bill. Trump stood before an assembly composed of police and fire officers, working parents and the mother and father of a woman he said died at the hands of an undocumented immigrant to argue that Americans like them would benefit from the bill, which includes new tax cuts and the extension of lower rates enacted during his first term, as well as an infusion of funds for immigration enforcement. 'There are hundreds of things here. It's so good,' he said. But he made no mention of his desire to sign the legislation by next Friday – the US Independence Day holiday – instead encouraging his audience to contact their lawmakers to get the bill over the finish line. 'If you can, call your senators, call your congressmen. We have to get the vote,' he said. Democrats have dubbed the bill the 'big, ugly betrayal', and railed against its potential cut to Medicaid, the federal healthcare program for low income and disabled people. The legislation would impose the biggest funding cut to Medicaid since it was created in 1965, and cost an estimated 16 million people their insurance. It would also slash funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), which helps Americans afford food. Republicans intend to circumvent the filibuster in the Senate by using the budget reconciliation procedure, under which they can pass legislation with just a majority vote, provided it only affects spending, revenue and the debt limit. But on Thursday, Democrats on the Senate budget committee announced that the parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, had ruled that a change to taxes that states use to pay for Medicaid was not allowed under the rules of reconciliation. That could further raise the cost of the bill, which the bipartisan Joint Committee on Taxation recently estimated would add a massive $4.2tn to the US budget deficit over 10 years. Such a high cost may be unpalatable to rightwing lawmakers in the House who are demanding aggressive spending cuts, but the more immediate concern for the GOP lies in the Senate, where several moderate lawmakers still have not said they are a yes vote on the bill. 'I don't think anybody believes the current text is final, so I don't believe anybody would vote for it in it's current form. We [have] got a lot of things that we're working on,' Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, a top target of Democrats in next year's midterm elections, told CNN on Wednesday. In an interview with the Guardian last week, Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski declined to say how she would vote on the bill, instead describing it as 'a work in progress' and arguing that the Senate should 'not necessarily tie ourselves to an arbitrary date to just get there as quickly as we can'. Democrats took credit for MacDonough's ruling on the Medicaid tax, with Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer saying the party 'successfully fought a noxious provision that would've decimated America's healthcare system and hurt millions of Americans. This win saves hundreds of billions of dollars for Americans to get healthcare, rather than funding tax cuts to billionaires.'
Daily Mail
37 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Fox News star Brit Hume turns on former colleague Pete Hegseth for outburst over Iran bombing intel
Brit Hume jumped to the defense of his Fox News colleague Jennifer Griffin and slammed former co-worker Pete Hegseth for their clash over the Iran bombing. Hegseth clashed with much of the press in his briefing on the strikes after several outlets claimed they had only set back Iran's nuclear facilities by months rather than decimating them. However, he shared particular scorn for Fox's National Security Correspondent Griffin, saying: 'Jennifer, you've been about the worst, the one who misrepresents the most intentionally what the President says.' Hume, a longtime fixture at the network, defended Griffin in a week where Tucker Carlson joined the parade of former Fox News anchors giving friendly fire her way. 'I have then, have had and still have, the greatest regard for her. The attack on her was unfair,' Hume said, criticizing Hegseth. He said the attack was not deserved and Griffin's 'professionalism, knowledge and experience at the Pentagon is unmatched.' Hegseth, a former weekend host for Fox News before being tapped to run the Department of Defense for Trump, was openly hostile to the media during a Thursday morning press conference at the Pentagon. The entire briefing was seemingly held to push back on reports indicating that Operation Midnight Hammer - the name of the weekend bombing mission - was ineffective. Griffin, a veteran Pentagon reporter who's been with the channel for decades, asked Hegseth to clarify whether Iran's already enriched uranium was destroyed by the U.S. strikes. 'There's nothing that I've seen that suggests that what we didn't hit exactly what we wanted to hit in those locations,' the Pentagon secretary responded cagily. Griffin then asked: 'That's not the question, though. It's about highly enriched uranium. Do you have certainty that all the highly enriched uranium was inside the Fordow mountain, or some of it?' 'There were satellite photos that showed more than a dozen trucks there two days in advance? Are you certain none of that highly enriched uranium was moved?' 'Of course, we're watching every single aspect,' Hegseth responded before bizarrely turning on his old colleague. 'But Jennifer, you've been about the worst, the one who misrepresents the most intentionally what the President says.' The veteran Pentagon reporter immediately interjected, highlighting to Hegseth how she was the first journalist to reveal how the operation targeted the nuclear facility's ventilation shafts and more. 'I was the first to report about the ventilation shafts on Saturday night, and in fact, I was the first to describe the B-2 bombers, the refueling, the entire mission, with great accuracy,' the Fox News correspondent retorted. 'So I take issue with that,' she added. Satellite imagery showed trucks arriving at the Fordow nuclear facility just days before the strikes, leading to questions about whether the Iranians moved their enriched uranium to another location before the U.S. bombs were dropped. 'I'm not aware of any intelligence that I've reviewed that says things were not where they were supposed to be — moved or otherwise,' Hegseth later told another reporter. Multiple sources familiar with an initial battle damage assessment told CNN and the New York Times that the strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities only set back the country's nuclear program by a few months. 'It is preliminary,' Hegseth said of the leaked assessment on Thursday. 'It points out it is not coordinated with the intelligence community at all, there is low confidence in this report, there are gaps.' The bigger issue, according to Hegseth, is the unpatriotic media. 'You cheer against Trump so hard, it's like in your DNA and blood,' Hegseth charged the reporters in the room. 'You have to cheer against the efficacy of these strikes.' 'Your people are trying to leak and spin that it wasn't successful, it's irresponsible.' The Pentagon secretary also invoked statements from CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Both intelligence chiefs put out statements on Wednesday night stating that the damage done to Iran's nuclear sites will take 'years' to rebuild. 'CIA can confirm that a body of credible intelligence indicates Iran's nuclear program has been severely damaged by recent targeted strikes,' Hegseth said. It came just days after Carlson admitted he wanted her out when he worked at Fox News, referring to her as 'the deepest of the deep state.' As Trump announced a ceasefire - one Carlson reacted to by tweeting: 'Thank God' - he released an episode of his show where he continued to question his ex-employers coverage, zeroing in on Griffin, the network's Chief National Security Correspondent. 'Jennifer Griffin is, even by the standards of Pentagon employees, she's not technically an employee of the Pentagon. She's a shill, obviously, for the deepest of the deep states. But she's like a parody. She's like parody. It's like the whole thing,' Carlson said. Carlson and fellow former Fox host Clayton Morris joked about Griffin's water-carrying for the 'deep state.' 'The crazy thing is Jen Griffin is a liar, but also very liberal, true Trump hater, to the point where I complained about her and I really tried not to complain about other people at Fox when I worked there,' he said. 'She was discrediting the channel, she was such a Trump hatter, and it was emotional.' He even went to one of his superiors at the network and suggested Griffin wasn't helping. Carlson said he asked: 'She's an idiot. She doesn't tell the truth. She misleads our viewers. And she's like a screaming liberal who hates Trump, who our viewers love. So what are we getting out of this?' The response he got from the network was that 'you could not touch Jennifer Griffin.' Morris noted that Griffin has an office at the Pentagon, suggesting she may be presenting bias in her coverage based on how close to her sources she is.
The Independent
38 minutes ago
- The Independent
More Americans now favor providing undocumented migrants pathway to legal status over deportation, poll finds
More Americans now favor providing undocumented migrants a pathway to legal status over deportation, a new poll finds. The sentiment was backed by 64 percent of those surveyed and that percentage has increased since President Donald Trump entered office, according to the Quinnipiac University poll of registered voters, while 31 percent said they preferred deportation. Respondents were asked for their preference out of the two options 'if [they] had to choose.' Six months ago, the same poll found that 55 percent favored providing undocumented migrants with a pathway to legal status in the U.S. Among Democrats, 89 percent chose to offer legal status compared to 31 percent of Republicans, who favored deportation. It comes as the Trump administration has launched a sweeping anti-immigration agenda, aiming to carry out what it says is the largest mass-deportation operation in America's history. The administration has cranked up the pressure on federal agencies and increased arrest and deportation targets. As a result, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been in the spotlight as they carry out raids across the country. In total, 59 percent of those polled said they disapprove of the way the president is handling deportations, while 39 percent said they approve. And 56 percent of voters disapprove of how ICE is doing its job, according to the poll, while 39 percent said they approved. The vast majority of Democrats disapprove (89 percent) while Republicans largely approve (77 percent). On how the president is handling immigration issues as a whole, 57 percent of Americans said they disapprove, compared to 41 percent who approve. Only 7 percent of Democrats approve, compared to 86 percent of Republicans. More than 56,000 people are being held in immigration detention, the highest level in years and what may be an all-time record. There were 56, 397 people in immigrant detention as over June 15, according to a Syracuse University database. with roughly 59,000 immigrants behind bars — or 140 percent of the agency's ostensible capacity to hold them.
