Journalist says Pete Hegseth stacked the deck at press conference with MAGA reporters

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stacked the deck with friendly correspondents at his press conference on the start of military operations against Iran.

The defense secretary and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, took questions for about 13 minutes Monday morning in the administration's first public comments to reporters since the U.S.-Israeli military operations began over the weekend, but CNN's Brian Stelter reported that MAGA-friendly outlets dominated the proceedings.

"If you're wondering about who was at today's Pentagon press conference, here's some context," Stelter posted on X. "The Pentagon has severely restricted access to info in the past year. Pete Hegseth credentialed a MAGA media 'press corps' last fall after traditional news outlets rejected new press pass rules that media lawyers said criminalized routine reporting. The MAGA crew does relatively little reporting, so most coverage of the US military is now happening from outside the Pentagon's five walls."

"Journalists from some traditional outlets were allowed to attend this morning's press conference with Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine," he added. "But Hegseth only answered Q's from his chosen outlets. I'm told he had a pre-selected list of questioners, and all the reporters were in assigned seats, so he knew who to call on."

However, one reporter who wasn't on Hegseth's list managed to slip a question through, and the Pentagon chief erupted.

"When NBC's Courtney Kube tried to get a question in anyway and said, 'President Trump put a four-week timeline on it — are you saying that is wrong?,' Hegseth dismissed it as a 'typical NBC sort of 'gotcha' type question.'"

Hegseth insisted to Kube that President Donald Trump had no constraints on his authority to order military operations for as long as he liked.

"President Trump has all the latitude in the world to talk about how long it may or may not take," Hegseth said. "Four weeks, two weeks, six weeks – it could move up, it could move back. We're gonna execute at his command ... Joe Biden didn't even know what he was doing."

Among the MAGA-friendly correspondents at the press conference was conservative activist Brandon Stratka, who was present at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct.

"I’m at the Pentagon this morning for a briefing with @SecWar @PeteHegseth on the Iran strikes," Stratka posted. "Session starts in 10 minutes."