OUCH: Elite Media Implode Over Hegseth Comparing Them to Pharisees in the Bible

Curtis Houck
April 16th, 2026 11:59 AM

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Secretary of War Pete Hegseth triggered the liberal, elite media Thursday during his open remarks at a Pentagon briefing as he lambasted the relentlessly negative coverage of the U.S. war with Iran, comparing them to the Pharisees in the Bible who worked to undermine Jesus at every turn. Specifically, Hegseth noted the Pharisees opposing Jesus’s healing of a man on the Sabbath.

He offered a lengthy series of remarks before this warning Iran to continue negotiating with the U.S. and not violate the ceasefire before he turned his ire to the press: “Speaking of choosing wisely, a note to the press, to the press corps, to the American media, as I just can’t help but notice the endless stream of garbage, the relentlessly negative coverage you cannot resist pedaling.”

Hegseth stated plainly that it has been “hard to figure out what side some of you are actually on” and it’s “incredibly unpatriotic” amid this “historic and important success” against the Islamist regime.

After noting some in the press worked to explain away the Biden administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal, he invoked Mark 3 as he heard the passage of Jesus healing the man with the withered hand preached this past Sunday.

This point, of course, was the press are like the Pharisees always seeking to cast aspersions on the U.S. military and President Trump and thus are “completely blind[ed]...from the brilliance of American warriors” (click “expand”):

This past Sunday, I was sitting in church with my family, and our minister preached from the book of Mark, the third chapter. And in the passage, Jesus entered a synagogue and healed a man with a withered hand. The Pharisees came to watch, and as the Scripture reads, they came to see whether he, Jesus, would heal him — or he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him. You see, the Pharisees, the so-called and self-appointed elites of their time, they were there to witness, to write everything down, to report. But their hearts were hardened. Even though they witnessed a literal miracle, it didn’t matter. They were only there to explain away the goodness in pursuit of their agenda. As the passage ends, the Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel against him how to destroy him. I sat there in church and I thought, our press are just like these Pharisees. Not all of you, not all of you, but the legacy, Trump-hating press. Your politically motivated animus for President Trump nearly completely blinds you from the brilliance of our American warriors. The Pharisees scrutinized every good act in order to find a violation, only looking for the negative. The hardened hearts of our press are calibrated only to impugn. I would ask you to open your eyes to the goodness. The historic success of our troops, the courage of this President, and this historic moment for a deal that could end the Iranian nuclear threat, the incredible battlefield victory laid before your eyes, the not one, but two incredible rescue missions. Miracles, you might say, or a locked in blockade.

Before giving way to the Joint Chiefs Chairman, Hegseth said this negativity and disgust with the lack of business as usual extends to a lack of attention on the “historic recruiting numbers.”

“[I]n the press, you only seek the negative earning each and every day the fake news label. But the American people, with goodness in their hearts, see past the Pharisees in our press. They see the goodness you watching. You see the goodness. They see the success. They see the reality...[t]hey see the incredible feats that our troops accomplish every single day,” he concluded.

Of course, CNN’s Brian Stelter was the rhetorical line leader in this tsunami of meltdowns, taking to CNN News Central to reject the premise the legacy media are rooting for the U.S. to fail and Iran to win, arguing “he knows the reality about how this war has been covered” and the press are simply “press[ing] for more information in order to tell...stories” of heroism “more fully.”

Stelter — who said Hegseth’s remarks were “deeply offensive to hear” “as a Christian” — added Hegseth brought up Scripture as a “doubling down on the blasphemy of Trump, likening himself to Jesus...in a battle of good versus evil, with the press being evil.”

“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,” he bragged.

The Guardian’s Jeremy Barr — who recently tweeted journalists shouldn’t respond to critics if they hurt their feelings — whined: “Reminder: Pete Hegseth, who mercilessly bashed the mainstream media today, has been invited to sit at the CBS News table at a dinner next weekend honoring the First Amendment. (Still unclear whether he’s attending or not.)”

Former Fox News host-turned-Resistance warrior Gretchen Carlson proved Hegseth’s point, sounding almost David Frenchian: “As a Christian how dare you use religion to shame those who simply ask questions.”

She went further in a follow-up

Retweeted by CBS’s resident Karen (Margaret Brennan), Reuters’s Idrees Ali huffed: “The job of the Pentagon press corps, like all reporters, is to report accurately (which is exactly what is happening) and not cheerlead U.S. military operations.”

Cryin’ Adam Kinzinger’s wife also melted down, arguing America is, in fact, losing the war with Iran and thus Hegseth’s use of Scripture is “a coping mechanism—driven by pressure, failure, and the creeping realization that he’s in over his head.”

When it came time for questions, Hegseth called on five conservative or non-legacy media reporters and, as we’ve seen from the old guard, it doesn’t matter that their questions are probing and substantive. The fact that they’re allowed to exist in such prominence makes them unacceptable voices.

Here were the lead-off exchanges from One America News’s Alexandra Ingersoll and Real America Voice’s David Zere. See if you can spot whether these are softballs:

 

Our friend and 2023 MRC Bulldog Award winner Mary Margaret Olohan of The Daily Wire had a series of questions, including wanting an update on the reportedly incapacitated (and gay) new ayatollah:

Before someone else asked a question about China to close out the Q&A, the great Jerry Dunleavy at Just The News asked Hegseth to respond to the vile smear being hurled that President Trump’s Iran policy has been dictated to him by Israel:

His other question concerned lessons learned from Operation Epic Fury, including the circumstances surrounding how each of the 13 U.S. soldiers died:

To see the relevant transcript from the April 16 Pentagon briefing, click here.

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