CNN critics berated the White House Thursday for splicing clips of actual strikes on Iran with scenes from the popular video game “Call of Duty.”

The White House is “reaching out to a very important, very big part of the population, including and especially those, I think that they consider their base — gamers,” said Dana Bash with Inside Politics, referencing the post that opens with a scene from the game.

Bash added that White House communications director Steven Cheung responded to the post, “Ws in the chat, boys!” — a gaming term when players do well they put “Win” in the chat field.

Nia-Malika Henderson said the video was “in keeping with the way Pete Hegseth is also talking about the war.”

“He of course, had a press conference yesterday talking about utter dominance, talking about the war, likening it to a football game, I think was one of the analogies that he used,” Henderson said of the Defense secretary. “And it’s part of the sort of the ‘bro culture’ that Donald Trump used to win. It’s part of Pete Hegseth, why he’s the secretary of war and why it’s not the you know, the Department of Defense anymore. So it’s part of the selling of the war, and we’ll see if it’s effective.”

Henderson added, “I think listen, if you were part of the families who have lost Americans — six Americans have died — This is quite distasteful to liken war to a video game because, you know, these are soldiers lives who are at risk.
And so, to liken them to a football game or a video game, I think is is offensive to a lot of people.”

Panelist David Sanger, with The New York Times, said he’s “never seen anything like this, that sort of takes the real footage and tries to basically suggest this is a game.”

Sanger continued, “It does fit in, and it also fits in with secretary Hegseth’s criticism of the press for making too much of the casualties.”

“Yeah, which and I think everybody would agree with this: Nobody’s making too much of casualties,” Bash said. “People who are reporting on it are honoring their service, the giving the ultimate sacrifice, not doing so to offend President Trump. It’s about the soldiers, not the commander.”

Watch the clip above via CNN.

The post CNN Critics Berate Trump WH For Splicing Real Clips of Iran Strikes With ‘Call of Duty’: Like ‘This Is a Game’ first appeared on Mediaite.

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