‘I Never Said That’: Biden Spox Bristles When Fox News Reporter Asks If Pentagon Still Believes Iran Not Connected to Hamas Attack

Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich lobbed some pointed questions at White House spokesman John Kirby at Tuesday’s press briefing, causing him to forcefully exclaim at one point, “I never said that!”

“[The U.N. Secretary General] said that it’s important to recognize that the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum,” Heinrich began. “The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation, they’ve seen their lands steadily developed by settlements… it goes on. That statement infuriated a lot of Israelis. I want to know if the administration disagrees what he said.”

“The president has spoken very clearly and I think very forcefully on who’s to blame here for October 7th,” Kirby answered. “It’s Hamas. It’s not the Israelis, it’s not the innocent Israeli people that were slaughtered going to a music festival. It was Hamas. They planned this thing for many months, maybe even as long as a year. Hamas is to blame, Hamas is to blame.”

Heinrich continued, “On that note, is the assessment still the same that Iran did not directly play a role in this attack?”

“I never said that Iran did not play a role,” Kirby responded. “What we’ve said — and there’s been no change — what we’ve said, Jacqui, is Iran is certainly complicit here. Without them, there is no Hamas; without them there’s no Hezbollah; without them, there’s no militia groups firing rockets at our troops in Iraq and Syria.

“And as I said yesterday up here, we recognize Iran’s monitoring all these events, and in some cases they’re encouraging some of these attacks, no question about it. Now…we still haven’t seen any direct specific intelligence that says that they were…participating or directing the attacks of October 7th. But, as I said, broadly complicit, no question about that. And I’m sure that our Israeli counterparts will, in due, time take a harder look at the intelligence picture and what might have been missed, what gaps there were, but I’ll let them speak to that.”

Watch the clip above via CNN.