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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is getting shredded online for a rare press conference in which he implied he was just following President Donald Trump’s orders to defend his wartime actions.
Hegseth held the press conference — his first one in six months — after Republican Congressman Thomas Massie, who has emerged as a fierce Trump critic, introduced articles of impeachment against the Pentagon chief.
The articles filed Monday accuse Hegseth of unlawfully waging war in Iran and Yemen, capturing former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and striking suspected drug trafficking boats.
“Iran, the cartels, Maduro, Yemen — every one was a lawful operation ordered by the commander-in-chief, then ordered by myself, notified to Congress, and executed by American warriors who did their jobs,” Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon Tuesday morning.
Independent journalist Aaron Rupar summed up Hegseth’s comments as “he was just following orders, you see” in a post on X — prompting a flurry of ridicule.
“Worked great at Nuremberg,” Rick Wilson, co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, sarcastically replied. Wilson was referring to the series of trials where Nazi leaders were convicted of crimes they committed under German dictator Adolf Hitler.
