{"id":13544,"date":"2026-07-22T12:04:59","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T07:04:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=13544"},"modified":"2026-07-22T12:04:59","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T07:04:59","slug":"gary-peters-and-pete-hegseth-trade-verbal-blows-in-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=13544","title":{"rendered":"Gary Peters and Pete Hegseth Trade Verbal Blows in Hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"post-body\">\n<p>Secretary of Defense <strong>Pete Hegseth<\/strong> traded verbal blows on Tuesday with Sen. <strong>Gary Peters<\/strong> (D-MI), who deemed the secretary a \u201cfailure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hegseth testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Hegseth is asking to advance a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/politics\/watch-live-hegseth-caine-testify-on-trumps-funding-request-before-senate-as-iran-war-reignites\">supplemental funding package<\/a> for the ongoing Iran war, as 69% of Americans <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2026\/07\/16\/trump-approval-stuck-30s-post-ipsos-poll-shows\/\">disapprove<\/a> of the way President <strong>Donald Trump<\/strong> is handling the conflict.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. bombed Iran for the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/centcom-unleashes-a-10th-night-of-strikes-on-iran-as-trump-vows-revenge-for-soldier-deaths\/\">10th consecutive night<\/a>\u00a0on Monday after Iran strikes on Jordan\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/07\/20\/us\/iran-war-us-soldiers-killed-jordan-identified.html\">killed<\/a>\u00a0two active-duty U.S. Army soldiers over the weekend. Another U.S. soldier was killed in Iraq while disposing of an\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cgk417jp83po\">Iranian drone<\/a>. At least 17 U.S. soldiers have been killed since Trump and Israeli Prime Minister\u00a0<strong>Benjamin Netanyahu<\/strong>\u00a0launched the war in February.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSecretary Hegseth, despite your failure to win this war, you are back now before Congress asking for almost $70 billion in additional funding,\u201d Peters said during Tuesday\u2019s hearing. \u201cYou\u2019re asking the American people for a blank check because once again, the Trump administration\u2019s efforts have been an utter and complete failure to win this war to this point. So my question for you, Sir, is how is your strategy different than what we\u2019ve seen in the past?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think your characterization of this incredible effort as a failure, as reckless,\u201d Hegseth replied. \u201cAnd I think it\u2019s irresponsible, and I think it smears the sacrifice of the troops that are out there making on behalf of the American people to ensure that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon. Shame on you and others who call this a quagmire and a failure. And then you want to turn around and say you support the war fighter. Either you do, or you don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Peters subsequently objected to Hegseth\u2019s characterization of his remarks. Here is the remainder of their exchange before the senator\u2019s time expired:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>PETERS: Secretary Hegseth, did you if you listen to my comments, you would have heard me say how amazing our war fighters are.<\/p>\n<p>HEGSETH: I heard \u2018failure,\u2019 and the word\u2013 I heard exactly what you said.<\/p>\n<p>PETERS: I will tell you how I used the word \u2018failure\u2019 because I used the word \u2018failure\u2019 to their leaders. You, Sir, are the failure, not the men and women who are on that front line, not the men and women who hold up their honor with distinction. But if there\u2019s a lack of a winning strategy, they\u2019re in harm\u2019s way. Their leaders have failed them. And that\u2019s what\u2019s happening. We have political leadership. You, you don\u2019t have a strategy. You don\u2019t have a long term plan to actually win this war. Win the war! The men and women are going to be able to do it, but they need to have leadership! When will you show leadership?! When will you show leadership?!<\/p>\n<p>HEGSETH: Why don\u2019t you show some leadership and stand up to your fellow Democrats who won\u2019t fund the troops, who stand and play partisan politics while you don\u2019t give us the money?! You want to stand up here and talk about the troops, you won\u2019t show any political courage to actually fund our department because you have Trump derangement syndrome and can\u2019t actually commit to anything meaningful. So I put this on you, Senator.<\/p>\n<p>PETERS: Secretary Hegseth, you have trillions. You have over $1 trillion. You\u2019re asking for $1.5 trillion. It\u2019s not a question of money. It\u2019s a question of leadership and understanding what it takes to actually win.<\/p>\n<p>HEGSETH: Political cowardice of Democrats who won\u2019t fund the troops.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Watch above via CNN.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>New: The Mediaite One-Sheet &#8220;Newsletter of Newsletters&#8221;<\/strong><br \/>Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/subscribe\">Subscribe now!<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\nn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;\nn.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\nt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,\ndocument,'script','https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth traded verbal blows on Tuesday with Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), who deemed the secretary a \u201cfailure.\u201d Hegseth testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Hegseth is asking to advance a supplemental funding package for the ongoing Iran war, as 69% of Americans disapprove of the way President Donald Trump is&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Screen-Shot-2026-07-21-at-3-42-42-PM.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}