Reporter Asks State Department Official Point Blank: ‘Who Is In Charge Of The Lebanon Portfolio?’

During Thursday’s State Department press briefing, Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Pigott answered questions about the State Department's focus on Lebanon.

Transcript

00:00Yes.

00:01Thanks, Tommy.

00:01Two questions for you.

00:02Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel acknowledged a short time ago that the Israeli security

00:07establishment has been providing weaponry to a rival gang, rival to Hamas.

00:14Number one, was that done in coordination with the American government?

00:17And number two, is it in line with American policy in Gaza?

00:21Well, look, I have nothing to preview on that.

00:23I'll take back the specifics, see if we can get more of an answer on that.

00:25What I can say is our approach and our policy remains that we stand with Israel and we stand

00:29for peace.

00:30And those are our goals that we want to see.

00:32Second question, it's kind of a different way of asking the question that was asked the

00:36other day.

00:37Who's currently in charge of the Lebanon portfolio here at State?

00:40Well, I mean, we see a whole host of people that are involved in this issue.

00:43Who oversees it?

00:44I mean, I have no personnel announcements to really announce at this time, but what I can

00:47say, yeah.

00:49Who oversees it?

00:50I mean, we have a whole host of different people that are involved in this.

00:52I mean, we see members of Ambassador Wyckoff's team.

00:54We see different members of the Bureau.

00:55We have a whole host of experts here at the State Department that are involved in this.

00:59Yes.