BURSTDefense Secretary Pete Hegseth attacked Jennifer Griffin, his former colleague at Fox News and a longtime member of the Pentagon press corps amid a broader push to discredit media outlets over reporting on intelligence laying out the extent of damages done by U.S. strikes to Iranian nuclear sites.
"Do you have certainty that all the highly enriched uranium was inside the Fordo mountain?" Griffin asked Hegseth during a contentious press conference early Thursday morning.
Griffin noted satellite imagery she said showed "more than a dozen trucks" at the site of the attacks "a few days in advance."
"Of course we're watching it," Hegseth said before attacking the reporter. "Jennifer, you've been about the worst. The one who misrepresents the most intentionally."
Griffin sat up in her chair to push back on Hegseth's attack.
"In fact, I was the first to describe the B-2 bombers, the refueling, the entire mission with great accuracy," she said. "So I take issue with that."
"I appreciate that," Hegseth replied.
The spat came as Hegseth admonished the press corps for its coverage of the strikes on the three Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend, arguing members of the media should be more focused on the details and danger of the mission carried out by U.S. service members rather than leaked intelligence showing the damage might not have been as severe as previously thought.
Trump and other top administration officials have dismissed what they are calling "early" intelligence that was leaked to outlets like CNN, the New York Times and Washington Post, leading the president and his allies to attack journalists who reported on the materiel.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters earlier this week that the individual who leaked the intelligence to journalists show "be in jail."
Griffin is a longtime Pentagon correspondent for Fox, known widely for her reporting on military and foreign affairs.
She earlier this spring reported on Hegseth's sharing of “classified” information via the Signal group chat with President Trump’s Cabinet members, citing sources at the time who told her it put "the joint force directly and immediately at risk."