This article, authored by Nicole Silverio is republished under the Creative Commons “CC BY-NC-ND” license with permission from The Daily Caller News Foundation.
A reporter for TMZ asked Secretary of War Pete Hegseth Friday if he got an “adrenaline rush” when ordering military strikes.
TMZ DC reporter Jacob Wasserman asked Hegseth during a Pentagon briefing how he feels when he orders military strikes on Iran. Hegseth, who joked that his question was “very TMZ,” said that his priority was ensuring that service members have all the resources they need to be successful in their mission and safely come home.
NEW: Secretary of War Hegseth shuts down reporter's provocative question:
— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 24, 2026
REPORTER: "When you give these orders to carry out this extreme level of violence, what's going through your mind and your body? Do you have, like, an adrenaline rush? Are you scared? Do you feel like… pic.twitter.com/JdQmyKXfuF
“I’ve heard you talk a lot about bombing people and places,” Wasserman said. “And when you give these orders to carry out this extreme level of violence, what’s going through your mind and your body? Do you have like an adrenaline rush? Are you scared? Do you feel like you’re on a power trip? Just walk us through and paint us a picture of what it feels like mentally and physically.”
“It’s a very TMZ question,” Hegseth said. “My only thought process is to ensure that our war fighters have everything they need to be successful, defeat and destroy the enemy, and they come home. I want them to feel empowered, to have every authority they need within our rules and within our law to bring maximum violence to the enemy. Because war is violent. War requires doing difficult things. But I want our people to feel empowered so it’s our guys that come home and their guys that do not.”
Hegseth also called on another TMZ reporter, Charlie Cotton, who asked if he would consider changing his department’s name to the “Department of Peace” because “that’s what we’re all after.”
“Well, that’s the pursuit,” Hegseth replied. “It’s a great question, actually. You go from Defense to War because you want to be proactive about peace through strength. And, really –– I gave a speech in front of generals about what the ethos of the War Department is all about because I wanted to go through every echelon of this department.”
TMZ has ramped up its political coverage as of late, including by photographing politicians such as Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham at Disney World around the same time he was calling for further military intervention against Iran. The outlet also caught Democratic California Rep. Robert Garcia at a luxury bar in Las Vegas during the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shutdown in March.
Newsmax’s Carla Babb stated on X that the majority of the reporters at the briefing do not regularly cover the Pentagon.
Hegseth indicated at the briefing that the U.S. was not “anxious” to reach an agreement with Iran to end the conflict and said that the U.S. Navy’s blockade of Iranian vessels and ports would remain in place for as long as it was needed. He also argued that Operation Epic Fury, which was carried out by the U.S. and Israel on Feb. 28, delivered a “decisive military result” by preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
There have been disputes about Iran’s potential nuclear capabilities, including from former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) Joe Kent, who said in March that Iran was never on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon. The administration has also never pinpointed the so-called “imminent threat” that Iran posed to the U.S.
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