The authoritarian aspirations of Donald Trump have manifested in innumerable ways during his occupation of the White House. He has been resolutely averse to complying with federal law and the Constitution. He has refused to acknowledge the role of either Congress or the courts as co-equal branches of the American republic. And he has made it his mission to alienate America’s international allies, while embracing its sworn enemies.

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This has been painfully apparent in the four days since Trump launched his reckless, unjustified, and illegal war against Iran. There has already been a tragic loss of life of American troops. Not to mention hundreds of innocent Iranians. And all because of Trump’s obsession with war mongering and desperate craving to be perceived as a macho man, despite his personal resume of cowardice and the weakness of envy.

SEE THIS: Trump Reveals His OCD (Obama Compulsive Disorder) Played a Role in Launching a War Against Iran

Taking his cues from Trump, the Secretary of Toy Soldier War, Pete Hegseth, held a press harangue on Wednesday morning to provide his update on the regress of the Iran war, that nobody in the Republican Party or crony MAGA media will admit is a war. During his extending rant, Hegseth made his feelings known about both the fallen soldiers under his command and the media that reports on their fates. He whined that…

“This is what the fake news misses. We’ve taken 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. The terms of this war will be set by us at every step.”

Notice that Hegseth himself refers to this as a war. Then he goes on to characterize the death of American troops as merely that “tragic things happen.” That’s true. Tragic things happen when incompetents whose prior experience was hosting weekend programs on Fox News are put in charge of massive military bureaucracies. But rather than taking responsibility for it, Hegseth blames the media for giving it the proper attention that fallen heroes deserve on the front pages and opening segments of their reporting.

However, to Hegseth, “reporting the reality” of these tragedies is just the media’s attempts “to make the president look bad.” Trust me…Trump doesn’t need any help from the media to look bad. But Hegseth is outraged because reporting that Americans have died in this regime’s war of choice and vanity can’t be spun as something positive for Dear Leader Trump.

Making matters worse, when Trump’s Propaganda Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, was asked about Hegseth’s callous remarks, she took the same position…

Kaitlan Collins of CNN: Given what Hegseth said this morning, is it the position of this administration that the press should not prominently cover the deaths of U.S. Service members?
Leavitt: 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 doing to the rogue Iranian regime that has threatened the lives of every single American in this room. […]

The press does only want to make the president look bad. Especially you, and especially CNN […] You and your network know that you take every single thing that this administration says and tries to use it to make the president look bad. That is an objectable (sic) fact.

Leavitt personally insults Collins, while literally saying that the job of the press is to report only “the success of operation Epic Fury” (aka Epstein Fury), not the reality. Because the reality has the unfortunate, albeit accurate, side effect of hurting Trump’s objectively abysmal reputation. And she flagrantly lies that it’s a fact that “every single thing” the administration says is used by CNN to make him look bad. Has she never seen Scott Jennings, Ben Ferguson, Batya Ungar-Sargon, Ari Fleischer, and many more of CNN’s Trump-fluffers?

Leavitt conveniently fails to mention Trump’s Ministry of Propaganda, Fox News, where she spends more time than she does at her White House office. And Fox News has also been regurgitating the Trump regime’s talking points about Iran, while downplaying the bad news. For instance, Fox’s Emily Compagno recently gushed that Trump “is a president that does not take the loss of those six American lives lightly. He takes it with the gravitas it deserves.” For the record, here is the “gravitas” that Trump expresses for the loss of life…

RELATED STORIES:

• Trump’s Ego Takes Priority Over National Security in an Iran Team Meeting Photo that He Tweeted
• Trump Just Posted the Real Reason that He Started a War with Iran, and It’s Truly Insane
• Trump Threatens to Start a War with Iran Because They’re Doing What He Wants to Do In the U.S.

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