White House's 'Call of Duty' style war hype videos 'offensive' to slain troops: analyst

An analyst on Thursday described the White House's recent video game-style hype videos as "distasteful" following the recent deaths of six American service members in the war against Iran.

The videos, which have a similar presentation and style to the popular game "Call of Duty," have been posted on the White House and Department of Defense's social media accounts and have been produced to "set the narrative" and appeal to President Donald Trump's base, which includes gamers, CNN anchor Dana Bash reported.

CNN senior political analyst Nia-Malika Henderson described why the videos might have instead raised questions after the first American casualties since the military strikes started Saturday in Iran, plus the estimated 1,100 Iranians who have died.

"I think this is in keeping with the way Pete Hegseth is also talking about the war," Henderson explained. "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. 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."

How Americans actually view the war is not yet clear, she said.

"The shock and awe part of it is always part of the initial selling of it — the utter dominance of the American military," Henderson said. "'Best military ever in the history of the world.' We get that right. And you also could see that the White House obviously understands media, understands social media. This is a president who is watching the coverage of this war on his television set every day and trying to program it right. And so I think that that's part of it, it's part of why they were so high on the sinking of that naval vessel, which apparently was just sort of a ceremonial vessel and hyping it up. So listen, this is a White House that is good at the hype."

But that hype could be insensitive to military families, Henderson argued.

"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," Henderson added. "And so to liken them to a football game or a video game, I think is offensive to a lot of people."