In his previous career as a TV news presenter, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth once had to try his hand at axe throwing live on air.

But instead of hitting the target a few yards away, the double-headed weapon flew wildly off course and struck a drummer in an army marching band.

The soldier survived (the axe hit his arm), even if the ego of the man who is now one of the Trump administration’s most controversial and gung-ho members was bruised.

That was 2015.

But over a decade later, as he oversees US military action in the Middle East, it’s still not entirely clear who Hegseth is chiefly aiming at – the Islamic Republic, or the ‘unpatriotic’ US media.

At an acrimonious Pentagon press conference on Friday, Hegseth (who prefers to be called Secretary of War) let fly at the latter, bitterly complaining that the Press wasn’t sufficiently behind the war effort.

‘The United States is decimating the radical Iranian regime’s military in a way the world has never seen before,’ said the bullish 45-year-old.

Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s new leader, was ‘wounded and likely disfigured’, he added bloodthirstly.

The mullahs, Hegseth said, were ‘underground, cowering – that’s what rats do’.

Language that fits perfectly with Trump’s decision to call the operation ‘Epic Fury’.

Previous US military operations in Afghanistan and Libya were called ‘Enduring Freedom’ and ‘United Protector’.

But that’s wimp talk to Hegseth, a former major in the National Guard whose tour of duty in war-torn Iraq reportedly convinced him that the US military needed to worry less about helping civilians and obeying international law, and to concentrate on killing the enemy.

‘Maximum lethality, not tepid legality,’ was how he described the strategy earlier this year.

‘Violent effect, not politically correct.’ The silver-haired ex-pundit is furious that the media isn’t playing along with his beligerent rhetoric.

On Friday, he claimed a report from broadcaster CNN that the Trump administration had underestimated the war’s impact on the Strait of Hormuz – where oil tankers are being hit by Iranian forces – was ‘patently ridiculous’.

Americans can decide whether CNN or Hegseth is the more patently ridiculous party.

But, given polls show most US voters don’t support the conflict, critics believe the Secretary of War would be better advised to tone down the vitriolic tone.

In fact, some believe that President Trump – who recently sacked his similarly hawkish and self-promoting Homeland Security Secretary, Kristi Noem, after her botched immigration raids became a liability to him – is only too happy for Hegseth to soak up all the criticism as he’ll be a convenient fall guy if it goes horribly wrong in the Middle East.

But then the eccentric Hegseth, who claims he hasn’t really washed his hands in ten years as ‘germs are not a real thing’, was always a controversial choice for high office.

A graduate of Princeton University, Hegseth won a Bronze Star serving in Iraq and Afghanistan where he earned a reputation as a competent and committed officer.

But his private life is rather....