John Garamendi

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday called out a Democratic congressman from California for calling the Iran war a “quagmire” earlier in the morning.

Hegseth was appearing before the House Armed Service Committee on Wednesday to testify on the Defense Department’s budget when he addressed committee member Rep. John Garamendi of California.

“I hope you appreciate how reckless it is. When I said ‘reckless, feckless and defeatist’ of congressional Democrats at the beginning [of the hearing] that came after watching you say the same thing on CNN this morning: ‘a quagmire,’” Hegseth, who was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, told Garamendi.

“My generation served in a quagmire in Iraq and Afghanistan. Years and years of nebulous missions and utopian nation building that led us to nothing. The way you stain the troops when you tell them two months in, congressman, you should know better Shame on you. Calling this a quagmire two months in ...,” Hegseth continued.

The defense secretary accused Garamendi of “handing propaganda to our enemies.

“Statements like that are reckless to our troops. Don’t say ‘I support the troops’ on one hand and then ‘a two-month mission is a quagmire.’ That’s a false equivalation. Who are you cheering for here? Who are you pulling for?” Hegseth said.

“You sit there and go on TV for your clickbait about quagmires. It undermines the mission. Your hated for President Trump blinds you to the truth of the success of this mission ...,” the secretary added.

Earlier Wednesday, Garamendi appeared on CNN, where he criticized Hegseth and Trump.

“He lies every day. Gets up in the morning, lies and goes to bed at night lying,” Garamendi said of the president. “In between, there is just one statement after the other which is just foolish and not supported by any of the evidence. Secretary Hegseth does the same.”

Garamendi argued neither Trump nor Hegseth gave adequate rationales for going to war with Iran.

“The bottom line is that this is a war that has been conducted with chaos. This is a war that has been extraordinarily expensive, depleting our key munitions and depriving the Indo-Pacific of the assets it needs ... Bottom line is we’re stuck. America is stuck in another Middle East quagmire,” he said.

“Thank you, Mr. Trump. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. This is what you’ve done for the American people -- brought us back to another Middle East war.”