‘WTF?’ Dan Abrams Slams Trump Administration’s Attacks on Media for Reporting Soldiers’ Deaths

Mediaite founder Dan Abrams called out Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s attacks on the media’s coverage of Iran on Wednesday, slamming the secretary for “insulting” the fallen U.S. service members in his attempts to blame news outlets for negative reporting on the conflict.

Since the start of President Donald Trump’s ongoing U.S. military operation in Iran on Saturday, at least six American servicemembers have been killed in the fighting. Trump has predicted that there would be more to come, as Iran continues to launch massive numbers of retaliatory drone strikes on U.S. and Israeli targets.

During a joint press conference for the Pentagon press corps on Wednesday morning, Hegseth claimed that the media’s focus on U.S. service members’ deaths in Iran – making their passing “front page news”– was intended to make President Donald Trump “look bad.”

Abrams spoke out against the secretary’s comments on Wednesday’s edition of The Dan Abrams Show on SiriusXM, calling out the administration for going after the media in an attempt to combat the “weak support” for their campaign in Iran.

“Now what you’re seeing is with the death of six U .S. soldiers and weak support for this across the country, the administration is starting to go after its favorite target, the media,” Abrams said. “It’s all the media’s fault, right? It’s the media’s fault that we’re talking about soldiers who were killed.”

After playing a clip of Hegseth’s remarks, Abrams said the secretary was degrading the slain service members, claiming the American people needed media coverage of the events to weigh their support for the operation.

“It’s horrible, terrible, the idea the media would want to focus on American soldiers who gave their lives,” Abrams said sarcastically. “Seriously, man. WTF? That is so insulting to the people, put aside the media, the soldiers who were killed, and by the way, they’re 18 or so who were severely injured. It matters. Doesn’t mean that therefore this was a disaster. It means that this choice has consequences and there are going to be prices to pay, and it is for the public, and it ought to be for Congress, to engage in that cost-benefit analysis to be able to say, ‘Is it worth it?'”

Abrams also chastised White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt over similar comments she made at Wednesday’s briefing, attacking the media, pointing out the need for media coverage of all elements of the conflict in the face of the Trump administration’s “inconsistent case” for the campaign in Iran.

“And by the way, just minutes ago, same thing from Karoline Levitt, right? Blame the media,” he said. “This is about the media coverage of this. I mean, you know, considering the fact that the president has made a totally inconsistent case to the country on this, the fact that he calls it a war, others call it a war, then Mike Johnson says it’s not a war, and it’s this sort of like, ‘Well, we can’t let them blank when we were told that we already obliterated their nuclear ambitions.’ It’s like, ‘Wait, what?’ So it’s understandable that there’s confusion about what our goals are. That’s not the media’s fault.”

Abrams closed out his commentary by making clear, “I want them to succeed. I want us to succeed. I want there to
be a good outcome.”

Watch above via The Dan Abrams Show.

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