Lawrence O’Donnell questioned Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s commitment to sobriety after the Fox News host-turned-politician claimed that President Donald Trump’s attack on Iran’s nuclear sites was the most historically successful military operation.
“The Last Word” host eviscerated Hegseth on Thursday night’s episode. “Pete Hegseth was reported to have had such a severe drinking problem while working as a weekend morning host at Fox, that he promised Republican senators that he would not drink if they voted to confirm him as secretary of defense,” O’Donnell said as he eased his way into dragging Hegseth. “So we’re just going to have to assume that Pete Hegseth was stone-cold sober today when he said something that sounds like it belongs in the great Comedy Central TV series ‘Drunk History.’”
That’s when O’Donnell played a clip of Hegseth’s remarks in question, statements the secretary made during a press conference at the Pentagon on Thursday where he addressed Trump’s instructed airstrikes, and condemned the media’s coverage of it, specifically the news reports about the leaked Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report.
“Let’s listen against to the stupidest lie ever told by a secretary of defense,” O’Donnell said.
“President Trump directed the most complex and secretive military operation in history,” Hegseth said during the conference, which O’Donnell’s played in a clip.
While O’Donnell acknowledged that he is not the first secretary in the country’s history to lie in order to protect their plans and tactics for wars, he pointed out that Hegseth was merely spewing false information that can literally be proven as such.
“A presumably sober Pete Hegseth actually said ‘Donald Trump directed the most complex and secretive military operation in history’ … Donald Trump directed nothing. Donald Trump said, ‘Go,’ to a plan that has been in place for many, many years,” O’Donnell explained, noting that the Defense Department is highly aware and prepared to launch attacks at any given time. “The Defense Department is filled with attack plans and war plans that it usually never uses but always knows how to execute. Bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities is something that the Defense Department has known how to do for as long as Iran was suspected of possibly developing nuclear weapons.”
O’Donnell then compared the strategy behind former President Barack Obama’s mission to take down militant leader and Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden and praised Obama for his listening skills as a leader.
“President Obama could have done it, simply by saying, ‘Go.’ President Obama authorized the mission that took out Osama bin Laden, but that mission was designed by military professionals and was directed by military professionals,” O’Donnell said. “After President Obama listened to the plan and simply said, ‘Go.’ That’s the way it works, and that was a much more complex and secretive military operation than the bombing run Donald Trump publicly talked about before he authorized. There was nothing secretive about the possibility that Donald Trump might approve the bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities. Donald Trump publicly said that he might do that.”
He went even further with more examples of presidents he says actually took a more reserved, private and proper approach.
“Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not publicly say that he might approve an invasion of Normandy on D-Day in World War II, sometime in the next two weeks — there’s nothing secretive about a president saying ‘I might order the bombing sometime in the next two weeks, and there is nothing complex about a single bombing run over a country that has no air defenses left because Israel took them out already.”
Before he carried on with outlining the country’s history of secret and strategically-planned attacks, he threw in some quick but slick shade at Hegseth’s over his false statements.
“Pete Hegseth promised Republican senators that he would not drink if he became secretary of defense, but he did not promise that he would not sound drunk,” O’Donnell said. “The single most complex and secretive military operation in history was, in fact, the D-Day invasion that has been the subject of hundreds of books, dozens and dozens of movies, none of which can capture the full complexity of the years of preparation and planning and the secretive, intense discipline that made D-Day the successful turning point in World War II that it was.”
He continued: “Pete Hegseth tried to steal all of that and hand it to Donald Trump. Pete Hegseth tried to defend Donald Trump’s claim that Iran’s nuclear facailities were obliterated by the bombing. No one in the American military has made that claim.”
Between slamming Hegseth’s false claims, the Trump administration’s misleading statements about Iran’s nuclear facilities being destroyed, his spar session with veteran Fox National Security Correspondent Jennifer Griffin and his seemingly intentional decision to evade acknowledging the women who participated in the bombing mission, O’Donnell just called him a “liar.”
“Well, he was a paid liar for Fox, so of course he can use any word he wants now that he’s Donald Trump’s appointed liar at the Defense Department,” O’Donnell concluded. “America was offered an opportunity today for all of us to do an intelligence assessment of Pete Hegseth. And for most observers, once again, Pete Hegseth failed that intelligence assessment.”
You can watch the full “The Last Word” segment in the video above.
