By Katherine Tinsley
3:15pm PDT, Jun 30, 2025
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Lawrence O'Donnell claimed Pete Hegseth has struggled with substance abuse: "Pete Hegseth was reported to have had such a severe drinking problem while working as a weekend morning host at Fox, that he promised Republican senators that he would not drink if they voted to confirm him as secretary of defense," the journalist alleged. "So we're just going to have to assume that Pete Hegseth was stone-cold sober today when he said something that sounds like it belongs in the great Comedy Central TV series Drunk History."
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Lawrence O'Donnell accused Pete Hegseth of not telling the truth when he discussed targeted airstrikes in Iran: "Let's listen against to the stupidest lie ever told by a secretary of defense," O'Donnell said. He then shared a clip of Hegseth saying Donald Trump "directed the most complex and secretive military operation in history."
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Lawrence O'Donnell noted how the Defense Department knows about and is prepared for launch attacks: "A presumably sober Pete Hegseth actually said, 'Donald Trump directed the most complex and secretive military operation in history.' … Donald Trump directed nothing. Donald Trump said, 'Go,' to a plan that has been in place for many, many years," he said. "The Defense Department is filled with attack plans and war plans that it usually never uses but always knows how to execute. Bombing Iran's nuclear facilities is something that the Defense Department has known how to do for as long as Iran was suspected of possibly developing nuclear weapons."
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Lawrence O'Donnell noted how Donald Trump and his administration's approach differed from Barack Obama's: "President Obama could have done it, simply by saying, 'Go.' President Obama authorized the mission that took out Osama bin Laden, but that mission was designed by military professionals and was directed by military professionals," O'Donnell said. "After President Obama listened to the plan and simply said, 'Go.' That's the way it works, and that was a much more complex and secretive military operation than the bombing run Donald Trump publicly talked about before he authorized. There was nothing secretive about the possibility that Donald Trump might approve the bombing of Iran's nuclear facilities. Donald Trump publicly said that he might do that."
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"Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not publicly say that he might approve an invasion of Normandy on D-Day in World War II sometime in the next two weeks — there's nothing secretive about a president saying, 'I might order the bombing sometime in the next two weeks,' and there is nothing complex about a single bombing run over a country that has no air defenses left because Israel took them out already," Lawrence O'Donnell continued.
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Lawrence O'Donnell doubled down on his alcoholism claims about the Secretary of Defense: "Pete Hegseth promised Republican senators that he would not drink if he became secretary of defense, but he did not promise that he would not sound drunk," he said. "The single most complex and secretive military operation in history was, in fact, the D-Day invasion that has been the subject of hundreds of books, dozens and dozens of movies, none of which can capture the full complexity of the years of preparation and planning and the secretive, intense discipline that made D-Day the successful turning point in World War II that it was."
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Lawrence O'Donnell claimed Pete Hegseth attempted to credit Donald Trump for the Department of Defense's years of work: "Pete Hegseth tried to steal all of that and hand it to Donald Trump," he said. "Pete Hegseth tried to defend Donald Trump's claim that Iran's nuclear facilities were obliterated by the bombing. No one in the American military has made that claim."
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Pete Hegeth was a Fox News personality before joining Donald Trump's cabinet: "Well, he was a paid liar for Fox, so of course he can use any word he wants now that he's Donald Trump's appointed liar at the Defense Department," Lawrence O'Donnell concluded his lengthy rant. "America was offered an opportunity today for all of us to do an intelligence assessment of Pete Hegseth. And for most observers, once again, Pete Hegseth failed that intelligence assessment."
