Hegseth blasts New York Times for publishing Taliban leader's 'revisionist garbage' as an opinion column
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Fox & Friends Weekend" host Pete Hegseth blasted the New York Times for publishing an op-ed that was written by the deputy leader of the Taliban who is wanted by the U.S. government.
“It's such garbage, revisionist garbage,” Hegseth told, “Fox & Friends.”
Hegseth went on to explain why he thinks the left-leaning paper published the op-ed.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“The New York Times has been rooting, oftentimes rooted, for America to fail,” Hegseth said.
“Look at Iraq, look at Abu Ghraib in 2012, [the Times] ran front-page articles for 32 straight days pointing out how evil and terrible the Americans are in a misinformation campaign against the Iraq War to make all of us there look like we’re the bad guys.”
NEW YORK TIMES SLAMMED FOR TALIBAN LEADER OP-ED: 'FEELS LIKE A LEAFLET FLYOVER'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“When everyone knows .001% of the conduct that was done in the war was the type that was done by Abu Ghraib. They want to smear us,” Hegseth said.
The paper was criticized by many, including its own Afghanistan correspondent, after publishing the opinion piece Thursday.
The opinion piece, headlined "What We, the Taliban, Want," was written by Sirajuddin Haqqani as the Trump administration is hoping to reach a peace deal with the Taliban that would end America's longest war and begin the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The Taliban said Monday a deal could be signed by the end of February.
“When our representatives started negotiating with the United States in 2018, our confidence that the talks would yield results was close to zero. We did not trust American intentions after 18 years of war and several previous attempts at negotiation that had proved futile,” Haqqani wrote to open the piece. “Nevertheless, we decided to try once more.”
Haqqani accused Americans of flip-flopping and moving the goalposts when it comes to negotiations, claiming that the group even kept the door open when President Trump called off talks.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}New York Times senior correspondent in Afghanistan Mujib Mashal blasted his employer on Twitter.
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Hegseth, a former Army National Guard officer who served in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay, stressed that the Taliban in Afghanistan has the most American blood on their hands of any group in the country.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“They invented the suicide bomber in Afghanistan. The Taliban will bring Afghanistan all the way backwards if they can,” Hegseth said.
Fox News' Brian Flood contributed to this report.