BREAKING: Pete Hegseth reveals ‘low confidence’ assessment leaker had ‘an agenda,’ blasts CNN’s ‘fawning coverage’

Hegseth appeared at the Pentagon, where he started the conference on the topic of the NATO summit earlier this week, where President Donald Trump committed 32 countries to spending 5 percent of GDP on defense. "We're here this morning because in hunting for scandals all the time, in trying to find wedges and spin stories, this press corps misses historic moments. You miss historic moments like 5 percent at NATO."

"I was in the closed door briefing, I wish there could have been cameras in there when you heard the prime ministers and presidents of other countries to a man and to a woman, looking at President Trump and saying, 'This, never could have happened,' ... but here we are because of your leadership."

He went on to address Iran, "Let me read the bottom line here. President Trump directed the most complex and secretive military operation in history, and it was a resounding success, resulting in a ceasefire agreement and the end of the 12-Day War."

Hegseth added that "fake news CNN" and other outlets spread claims and "fawning coverage" of a preliminary assessment, which said "in writing that it requires weeks to accumulate the necessary data to make such an assessment."

"It's not been coordinated with the intelligence community at all. There's low confidence in this particular report," he added, saying that there are wide gaps in the report and that there were "multiple linchpin assumptions" used to draft the report, meaning that if any of those assumptions are false, the whole report falls apart.

"Again, this is preliminary, but leaked because someone had an agenda to try to muddy the waters and make it look like this historic strike wasn't successful," Hegseth added. Later, he cited intelligence that the nuclear sites had been "obliterated."

"How about the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission?" Hegseth said, "'The devastating US strikes on Fordow destroyed the site's critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable.' Have any of these quotes made their way into the New York Times or The Washington Post, MSNBC, CNN?"

"How about this one? This is a new one from the UN, the United Nations. No friend in the United States or certainly Israel often. Here's the head of the UN Atomic Energy Agency this morning, Rafael Grossi. 'US and Israeli strikes caused enormous damage to Iran's nuclear sites.'"

"How about the IDF Chief of Staff? 'I can say here that the assessment is that we significantly damaged the nuclear program, setting it back by years,'" Hegseth said, adding, "I repeat years."

Earlier this week, CNN, citing sources leaking the "low confidence" preliminary assessment, claimed that intelligence suggested the strikes only set the nuclear program by months, something that the president as well as the administration have harshly disputed.

"Those that understand, those that see, those that do proper assessments, recognize that what the United States military did was historic," Hegseth added, then ripping into the press more, saying that it is in their "DNA" and "blood" to "cheer against Trump" in his successes.

"How many stories have been written about how hard it is to, I don't know, fly a plane for 36 hours. Has MSNBC done that story? Has Fox?" Hegseth added, "Have we done the story how hard that is. Have we done it two or three times? So the American people understand about how difficult it is to shoot a drone from an F-15 or F-16 or F-22 or F-35 or what it's like to man a patriot battery, or how hard it is to refuel midair, giving the American people an understanding of how complex and sophisticated this mission really was."

"There are so many aspects of what our brave men and women did that—because of the hatred of this press corps—are undermined because your people are trying to leak and spin that it wasn't successful. It's irresponsible."