While speaking to reporters at the White House on Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivered one of the Trump administration's sharpest rebukes yet of U.S. allies in Europe, accusing them of being "ungrateful," as he defended the administration's military campaign against Iran and its broader foreign policy posture.
The remark came during a forceful opening statement in which Hegseth also lashed out at the press, arguing that critics were misrepresenting the war's trajectory and trying to frame it as another open-ended conflict. He insisted the operation remained narrowly focused and under control, saying, "Our objectives, given directly from our America-first president, remain exactly what they were on day one."
