Hegseth 'doubling down on Trump's blasphemy' with 'holy war' talk about Iran: analyst

CNN's Brian Stelter called out Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for using religion to justify attacks on the free press.

The Pentagon chief focused much of his weekly update Thursday morning on attacking media coverage of the Iran war, but Stelter told "CNN News Central" that Hegseth seemed to be "doubling down" on President Donald Trump's self-aggrandizing use of religious language.

"Hegseth revealed how he's feeling with four words," Stelter said. "He said, 'I just can't help,' and then he went on his rant against the press. He said, 'I can't just help, I can't help myself.' He had to get it out, and that's been true from the secretary of defense over and over and over again during this war. He always seems to need to let out his anger and bitterness about the American media, which is so weird because he was a member of the media for decades."

"You know, he was a host on Fox News," Stelter added. "He knows how the media works. He knows the reality about how this war has been covered. He knows the American media has celebrated U.S. military victories and has pressed for more information in order to tell those stories more fully."

Stelter noted with alarm that Hegseth has been leaning even harder into the religious language he's been using to frame the conflict, which the media analyst said was made even more alarming by the president seemingly doing the same.

"But it's really notable today how he seems to be speaking in terms of a holy war," Stelter said. "It's interesting, too, this coming on the same week that Trump depicted himself as Jesus. But the insinuation from Hegseth was that doubting Trump or being skeptical of the war is like doubting Christ. He's essentially making it sound like to question the war is to question the true will of God."

"He's doubling down on the blasphemy of Trump likening himself to Jesus," he continued. "So I, as a Christian, I found it deeply offensive to hear this morning, as someone who wrote two books about Hegseth's old home, Fox News, it struck me as just really insecure and as a journalist, I just find myself wondering if you have such an amazing story to tell about military victories, why don't you tell it more fully? Why don't you share more video, open up more soldiers and airmen and marines to interviews? Why don't you provide more access to the press in order to be able to tell those stories?"

"He seems more inclined to use these press conferences to portray himself as a warrior in a battle of good versus evil, with the press being evil," Stelter added. "But I think we always have to remind ourselves in these conversations that every single poll we've seen in the United States shows widespread opposition to the war, and the messaging coming from the White House and the pentagon has not changed that, and I wonder if that's really what's so frustrating for Hegseth. American people are not with him on this crusade, and nothing that he has said from these podiums has changed that for the last almost two months."

- YouTube youtu.be