Retired Pentagon official accuses Trump of cover-up as new bombardment batters US ships

Donald Trump was accused by both MS NOW host and a former high-ranking Pentagon official of a cover-up after a skirmish between US forces and Iran on Thursday.

On “Morning Joe,” co-host Joe Scarborough excoriated the president, who dismissed the firefight as a “love tap” — leading retired Rear Admiral John. Kirby to make his bold accusation.

“How would the right-wing press, how would the media in general, respond if Iran were attacking U.S. ships and Joe Biden was calling it, quote, ‘love taps’ because he was so desperate to cave to the Iranians?” Scarborough prompted his guest.

“I think I would have been flayed,” Kirby, who served as the Pentagon spokesperson under Biden, replied. “I just would have been flayed up there at that podium if that had been President Biden's response to what we're seeing in the ceasefire violations. If he just shrugged it off, there's no way that I would have had any kind of leverage with the press or any kind of credibility up there to continue to defend that kind of approach.”

Scarborough asked, “Can you talk a little bit about that? The extent of those damages as far as you know, and again, what would have happened if the Biden administration had tried to cover up those Iranian attacks on Americans?”

“I'd say a couple of things on this, Joe, I'm really glad you brought that up, because it also goes to casualties as well,” Kirby replied. “But let me start with where you started: the questions. One, it's a political discussion. It's a political decision. I have no doubt that the folks in uniform and central command, Admiral Cooper, would want to be as transparent as he could, obviously, with protecting operational security and base security and safety. I get that. But I think these are political decisions not to admit that the damage has been more severe than they reported, not to admit that we have suffered more casualties, certainly in terms of wounded, than they're putting out publicly.”

“So this is a political decision,” he maintained. “And that happens in war. But it does compound the level of distrust that I think the American people are having about this war right now, and they weren't consulted; they weren't communicated with. They obviously, the polls will tell you they don't support this war. And so to try to minimize that lack of support, they are holding back information, only doing briefings once every 10 or 12 days and with very, very little information and no real questions from real reporters being asked in that briefing room. It's all an effort to, I think, confound the American people with respect to how this war is being fought.”

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