CNN’s Stelter Hits ‘Weird’ Hegseth Rant Attacking Press and Comparing Trump to Jesus: ‘Deeply Offensive As a Christian’

CNN Chief Media Analyst Brian Stelter ripped Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s “weird” rant attacking the press and casting them as Pharisees” to President Donald Trump’s Jesus. Christ, that is.

Hegseth held a joint press conference on Tuesday morning alongside Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine to update the Pentagon press corps on the Iran war.

Secretary Hegseth invoked the Bible and again compared Trump directly to Jesus in an opening rant attacking the press as “Pharisees” trying to hang Jesus/Trump with misconduct charges when they were actually performing a miracle.

On Thursday’s edition of CNN News Central, Stelter told co-anchor John Berman it was “weird” for Hegseth to attack the press when he spent so many years as a media personality himself and should know better.

He also ripped the religious connotations, calling them “blasphemy” and “deeply offensive”:

CNN MEDIA ANALYST JOHN BERMAN: Hegseth revealed how he’s feeling with four words. 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 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 host on Fox News. He knows how the media works. He knows the reality about how this war has been covered. He knows the American media has celebrated US military victories and has pressed for more information or tell those stories more fully.

But it’s really notable today how he seems to be speaking in terms of a holy war. 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.

So 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 to 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.

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.

JOHN BERMAM: It’s certainly hard to separate what he said today from the images that President Trump pushed out of himself as Jesus, although he said it was as a medical worker.

And it is worth noting, and I am no New Testament expert, admittedly, that by comparing the press to the Pharisees, he was basically comparing to the press, to the people who undermined Christ. So there’s that.

Watch above via CNN News Central.

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