Hegseth gives 2 questions to TMZ at ‘Operation Epic Fury’ briefing

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday let reporters with entertainment channel TMZ ask two questions during a press briefing focused on “Operation Epic Fury,” the U.S. military operation in Iran.

Hegseth started Friday’s press conference praising the timeline in which “Operation Epic Fury” has been carried out, which he said contrasted with the years fought by the U.S. in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

“[Those wars] all took years, decades, vague missions, shifting sands,” he said. “Little to show for it. ‘Operation Epic Fury’ has been laser-focused from the very start.”

After Hegseth took questions from several reporters, he picked TMZ correspondent Jacob Wasserman. Wasserman said that he and his colleague, Charlie Cotton, both had a question to ask. Hegseth, a former Fox News host, replied, “We’ll see,” which was met with some laughs.

“I’ve heard you talk a lot about bombing people and places, and when you give these orders to carry out this extreme level of violence, what’s going through your mind and your body?” Wasserman asked. “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.”

Hegseth initially said it was “a very TMZ question” before saying that his “only thought process is to ensure that our war fighters have everything they need to be successful, defeat and destroy the enemy and [that] 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,” he continued. “But I want our people to feel empowered so it’s our guys that come home and their guys do not.”

Cotton then asked Hegseth if, after President Trump signed an executive order telling the Pentagon to call itself the “Department of War,” he would consider changing the department’s name to the “Department of Peace” because “that’s what we’re all after?”

“Well, that’s the pursuit,” Hegseth answered. “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.”

He added that he once made a video about the Defense Department being “the one institution that should win the Nobel Peace Prize” because “we are the guarantor of the safety and security of –– not just of our country, but a lot of people in this world.”

Newsmax national security correspondent Carla Babb wrote on the social platform X shortly after the press briefing that it was “apparent the majority of reporters called upon at the Pentagon don’t cover the Pentagon regularly.”

She added that maybe “TMZ questions like that won’t happen if the reporters in the back, who’ve covered the Pentagon for years, get called upon? Please consider.”

The appearance of TMZ reporters at the Pentagon since the company opened what it has called its D.C. bureau comes after the military attempted to reshape its press corps. Most questions asked during Pentagon press briefings now come from right-wing media outlets. Reporters from more legacy and mainstream news outlets are almost never called on, and their questions left unanswered.

The Pentagon late last year tried to force media outlets to sign restrictive new rules for access to the building before it kicked out reporters who refused to sign it. A judge twice ordered the department to restore press access in response to a challenge from The New York Times

TMZ, known for its entertainment-focused news coverage and based in Los Angeles, is owned by Fox.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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