Pro-Trump Reporter Presses Hegseth on Israel ‘Taking Advantage of the US’

Pro-Trump Gateway Pundit correspondent Jordan Conradson pressed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth over what he called Trump voters’ concerns that Israel is “taking advantage of” the United States with respect to the war with Iran.

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 as the Iran war enters its tenth day.

Conradson cited reports of Israeli strikes on Iranian oil assets as he asked for a “message” to MAGA supporters who are wary of Israel:

GATEWAY PUNDIT WHITE HOUSE AND PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT JORDAN CONRADSON: Secretary, thank you. Jordan Conrad from the Gateway Pundit.

Axios reported, citing U.S. and Israeli sources, that the U. S. was not happy with strikes on 30 fuel depots in Iran.

While this is anonymous sourcing, you know, it seems kind of congruent with what President Trump said yesterday that there’s certain spots they don’t want to hit relating to energy infrastructure that would take a long time to rebuild.

And, you know, whether this reporting is true or not, what’s your message to Americans, those who supported the President, and those who aren’t really in favor of this war and who worry that Israel might be taking advantage of the U.S.’s backing?

…

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE PETE HEGSETH: Well, I would just state by saying Israel has been a really strong partner in this effort.

Where they have different objectives, they’ve pursued them. Ultimately, we’ve stayed focused on ours.

But what Iran has felt is the power of the world’s two most powerful air forces. In that particular case, those weren’t our strikes or that objective, or that wasn’t our necessarily our objective.

But the president has made it clear to those concerns that we’re not getting pulled in any direction. We’re leading. The president is leading. He’s determining where we want to go, what the outcome will be, what the end state is, with a very keen eye.

And I understand those concerns because I’ve heard from a lot of people who went through, I went through 20 years of those wars myself, worried about getting dragged in, worried about mission creep, worried, about nation building or democracy expansion.

That’s never the perspective the president has pursued on this.

Just because previous presidents and previous secretaries have decided to just pour more resources and more people in toward some unguided end state doesn’t mean that’s the way the world needs to look today.

In fact, the American people voted for a different approach, but what the president also stated from the beginning was Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon. And it’s one thing to say it. It’s easy to say, anybody can say that. I mean, Barack Obama said that, but to do something about it takes courage and resolve.

But in that courage and in that resolve, you can also be very scoped in what you’re trying to execute to ensure that the sacrifice of Americans, American treasure, American lives, all of those properly meet the objective that you’re trying to accomplish.

And certainly, as someone I talked out front about what the Iranians have done to our generation, yes, we’re clear-eyed about it, but my job is to keep it scoped, given the directive of the president to accomplish the mission.

Watch above via MS NOW.

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