Hegseth Defends Iran Strikes, Slams Media Over Intel Leak

A combative Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth forcefully defended the U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear program, calling them a “resounding success” and attacking the media for reporting on early intelligence assessments suggesting the strikes may not have fully destroyed Iran’s enrichment facilities.

Hegseth, a former Fox News contributor, used a Thursday morning press conference to deliver a blistering and extended attack on the press, lashing out at CNN, The New York Times and other outlets. In his rebuke, he accused them of distorting a preliminary Defense Intelligence Agency report that suggested the strikes only set back Iran’s nuclear program by months, and blasted them for what he framed as a bias against President Donald Trump.

"Because you cheer against Trump so hard — in your DNA and in your blood, cheer against Trump — because you want him not to be successful so bad, you have to cheer against the efficacy of these strikes,” Hegseth chided reporters at a Pentagon briefing. “You have to hope maybe they weren't effective."

"Whether it's fake news CNN, MSNBC or The New York Times, there's been fawning coverage of a preliminary assessment," Hegseth said. "I've had a chance to read it. Every outlet has breathlessly reported on a preliminary assessment."

Hegseth echoed Trump’s claim that the mission resulted in a “total obliteration” of Iran’s nuclear program and framed questions about the outcome of the strikes as an affront to the pilots who carried them out. “We should celebrate it as Americans,” Hegseth said. “Choose your word: destroyed, defeated, obliterated.”

Preliminary intelligence reportedly concluded that core components of Iran’s nuclear program remain intact and that its uranium stockpile was moved before the strike. Hegseth didn’t directly rebut any of its conclusions but noted that it had been labeled “low confidence” and that the press had exaggerated its significance.

The White House has launched an investigation into how the classified assessment reached the press, with Hegseth confirming that the Pentagon and FBI are probing the breach. Hegseth said the report had been “leaked because someone had an agenda to try to muddy the waters and make it look like this historic strike wasn't successful.”

Hegseth, whose tenure has been saddled with multiple controversies, has had cold relations with the press. He has sharply limited media access inside the Pentagon, upending decades of precedent by confining reporters to designated areas and restricting unescorted movement.

The U.S. launched Operation Midnight Hammer late Saturday, targeting several of Iran’s key nuclear sites with the aim of neutralizing Tehran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon. The mission involved seven B-2 stealth aircraft and a guided missile submarine, and marked the first combat use ever of the 30,000-pound GBU-57 bunker busting bomb, with 14 dropped on the Fordo facility and other sites.

Contrasting with Hegseth’s confrontational approach during the briefing, Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine delivered a more measured, lengthy walk-through of the operation, describing the years of planning, bunker buster development and intelligence gathering by the Pentagon’s lesser-known Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which tracked Fordo’s construction over 15 years.

“This was the brightest explosion that I've ever seen. It literally looked like daylight,” Caine said, quoting one of the pilots involved in the mission.

While Caine deferred questions on the final damage assessments to the intelligence community, he said the weapons worked as intended and praised the troops involved in planning and carrying out the attack, as well as the defense of Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar from Iranian missile attacks this week in response.

Asked if he'd been pressured by Trump or other administration officials to make a more optimistic public appraisal of the attacks, Caine said he hadn't. Caine had said at a separate post-strike press conference on Sunday that initial reviews found “extremely severe damage and destruction.”

"I've never been pressured by the president or the secretary to do anything other than tell them exactly what I'm thinking," Caine said Thursday.

Two of Trump’s top intelligence chiefs issued statements on Wednesday claiming that new intelligence indicates Iran’s nuclear facilities were “destroyed” in U.S. airstrikes over the weekend. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard posted on X that “New intelligence confirms what @POTUS has stated numerous times: Iran’s nuclear facilities have been destroyed.”

The Senate is scheduled to receive a classified briefing on Iran this afternoon, with the House to follow on Friday. Lawmakers in both parties have voiced frustration over the lack of prior consultation from the administration with them before striking. Democrats have claimed that the administration is manipulating the intelligence to fit its narrative.

“This is part of the Trump reality distortion field,” House Armed Services ranking member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) said Wednesday on CNN. “He says, look, it's all done, we dropped one bomb, and in one day, peace in the Middle East has been achieved, all good. … But the facts aren't really that hard to suss out here. It is pretty clear that one bombing campaign was not going to obliterate or destroy Iran's nuclear weapons program.”

Hegseth, just back from the NATO summit in The Hague with Trump, also used the Pentagon briefing to highlight what he called a "game-changing and historic" achievement of the alliance agreeing to ramp up defense spending to 5 percent of their GDPs. He said the moment was overshadowed by the media’s focus on controversy.