White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt criticized CNN’s Kaitlan Collins in Wednesday’s press briefing, who asked about comments made by War Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier in the day in which he called out the press for making the deaths of US soldiers in Operation Epic Fury front-page news while neglecting to report on other aspects of the operation.

Collins asked, “You just mentioned that the President is going to attend the dignified transfer for these families. Given what Secretary Hegseth said this morning, is it the position of this administration that the press should not prominently cover the deaths of US service members?”

 

In an early morning press conference, Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth had criticized the press for wanting to “make the president look bad.” Hegseth said, “Sure, Iran will still be able to shoot some missiles and still be able to launch one-way attack drones at civilian targets, and their proxies will attempt to attack our embassies, bases and soft targets. They are terrorists, after all, and they need to target civilians because they can’t fight toe-to-toe.” He added, “This is what the fake news misses. We’re taking control of Iran’s airspace and waterways without boots on the ground. We control their fate. But when a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it’s front-page news. I get it, the press only wants to make the president look bad, but try for once to report the reality.”

Responding to Collins, Leavitt said, “no, it’s the position of this administration that the press in this room and the press across the country should accurately report on the success of Operation Epic Fury and the damage it is going to the rogue Iranian regime that has threatened the lives of every single American in this room.”

“if the Iranian regime had their choice, they would kill every single person in this room. And so we can all be grateful that we have an administration and that we have men and women in our armed forces who are willing to sacrifice their own lives for the rest of us in this room and for every American across the country and for every troop that is based in the Middle East.”

Collins claimed that Hegseth was complaining that the six deaths that occurred at a Kuwaiti operations center were front page news, to which Leavitt said, “that’s not what the Secretary said, Kaitlan, and that’s not what the Secretary meant, and you know it.”

“You know you are being disingenuous. There is not—we’ve never had a Secretary of Defense who cares more,” Leavitt began, before being cut off by Collins reading out a portion of Hegseth’s quote.

Leavitt replied, “the press does only want to make the president look bad. That’s a fact.” She added after the room questioned, “listen to me. Especially you, and especially CNN. And the Secretary of Defense cares deeply about our war fighters and our men and women in uniform. He travels all across this country to meet with them, to connect with them. And your network has hardly ever, probably, reported on that.”

She later added, “you and your network know that you take every single thing this administration says and try to use it to make the president look bad. That is an objectable fact … if you’re trying to argue right now that CNN’s overwhelming coverage is not negative of President Donald Trump, I think the American people would tend to disagree, and your ratings would tend to disagree with that as well.”