In his first month on the job, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth promised it “would be the most transparent administration ever,” offering a sharp contrast with the previous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that critics said had been shrouded in secrecy and misleading public statements.
Now, as the American-led war against Iran enters its sixth month, the administration is offering the public less information about the conflict and its direction, even as the costs continue to mount.
More than 50,000 American troops remain deployed in the Middle East. Some 18 U.S. service members are dead, hundreds more are injured or wounded. Mr. Trump has launched several efforts at diplomacy with Iran, most recently this weekend. And Congress has been asked to approve another $67 billion to cover the costs of the campaign.
Yet Pentagon press briefings to reporters and the public have largely disappeared — the last one was in early May. Lawmakers in both parties say even they have struggled to obtain detailed briefings from an administration increasingly relying on statements from President Trump and social media posts to inform the public on the war.
Mr. Trump talks almost daily about the war in sweeping and optimistic terms, while granular details about troop movements, casualties and battle damage are rarely conveyed. On Friday at Camp David in Maryland, he said the Iranian Navy has been “obliterated,” the Air Force has been “obliterated” and Iran has some missiles left, “but far fewer than they had four or five months ago.” That’s a version of the same assessment he has given since as far back as March.
The Defense Department under Hegseth’s tenure has substituted regular press briefings with polished battlefield videos. U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East, does post videos on X showing U.S. strikes with some information about the types of targets hit, but those videos do not offer comprehensive details on the war. It has left reporters, lawmakers and the public trying to assemble the war from scattered fragments.
The status of the war itself has frequently shifted. The war’s first month was marked by heavy U.S. bombardments, demands from Mr. Trump for Iran to unconditionally surrender and predictions by the president that the conflict would last four to five weeks. In early April, hours after warning a “whole civilization will die,” Mr. Trump struck a temporary ceasefire with Iran.
By mid-June, the U.S. and Iran agreed to keep hostilities paused for 60 days and launch negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, with Mr. Trump commending Iran’s leadership as “very rational.” But less than a month later, after Iran struck commercial ships, Mr. Trump declared the ceasefire “over” and ordered almost two weeks of nightly attacks.
This weekend, Mr. Trump considered ordering an intense bombing campaign against Iranian energy infrastructure, but he called the strikes off after conversations with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince late Saturday evening and said he was looking to “rapidly make a DEAL” with Iran. He warned the U.S. is still “locked and loaded.”
Separately, building a coherent picture is made more difficult because Iran has a media blackout. There is almost no footage coming out of Iran and there are no U.S. ground troops for journalists to embed with, leaving the public with few options to understand how the war is progressing.
“The Department of War and U.S. Central Command has consistently provided comprehensive updates to the world on the United States’ strikes and operations in Iran,” chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell told CBS News when asked if the Pentagon was planning to resume regular briefings on the war.
“President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have been constantly providing updates directly to the media and the American people online, delivering clear, unfiltered insight into our objectives and decisive actions.”
Discontent among lawmakers
Republican Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio said “the administration could be sharing more with Congress” in an Aug. 2 interview on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
“I don’t think anybody’s satisfied with the level of information that we’re receiving, although it is a dynamic conflict,” Turner said.
Secretary Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine did appear publicly before the Senate Appropriations Committee in late July to explain the request for the $67 billion. The two did not lay out the president’s strategy for the war.
Caine was asked by Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana what would happen if the U.S. cut its losses and ended the conflict. He demurred in his answer. Kennedy sharply told both men that he needed more “straight talk” and “straight answers.”
The rare public rebuke by a Republican lawmaker drew attention. Days later on “Face the Nation” on July 26, Kennedy said that pressure had earned him a private meeting with Caine.
“I’m having breakfast next Wednesday with General Caine,” he said. A U.S. official later confirmed the breakfast conversation about war had indeed occurred.
Joseph Holstead, Caine’s spokesperson, told CBS News in a statement that “The Chairman regularly meets with members of Congress from both parties; both at the members’ request and as a regular part of his commitment to maintain trusting relationships with the national security partners who represent the American people and provide the Joint Force with the resources and authorities required to protect America.”
A Pentagon official told CBS News on Friday the department regularly briefs members of Congress.
Last October, Hegseth ordered Pentagon officials to obtain prior approval from the Defense Department’s legislative affairs office before communicating with Capitol Hill.
“Unauthorized engagements with Congress,” the Pentagon memo said, “no matter how well-intentioned, may undermine Department-wide priorities critical to achieving our legislative objectives.” Prior to the order, it was common for service chiefs and commanders to directly engage with lawmakers without first asking Pentagon permission.
“We all need to do a better job messaging,” Kennedy said. He noted the irony that while Mr. Trump speaks frequently in public about the war, he does not share detailed information with lawmakers.
“He grows anxious when he has an unexpressed thought. He’s not always disciplined in his messaging,” Kennedy said. He urged Caine, Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio or CIA Director John Ratcliffe to give either a speech or a long press conference to explain why the U.S. launched its war against Iran and “why we’re still there.”
A CBS News poll from late July shows that 67% of Americans want the war to end now, down from 78% in June when the truce agreement was announced. The survey showed broad approval of the president’s perceived goals — 86% want to open the Strait of Hormuz, 76% want to stop Iran’s nuclear programs — but the American people feel “uncertain” or “frustrated” with how the war is going. Some 76% said the conflict has been harder than the Trump administration expected.
Previous administrations have also tried to paint a rosier picture of wars. For instance, reporting from The Washington Post found that U.S. officials over the course of 18 years in Afghanistan gave optimistic updates on the war, even when there was little progress.
Lack of information-sharing across the administration
The lack of information-sharing by this administration extends beyond the Pentagon.
The State Department halted its daily briefings on U.S. foreign policy last year, which cut off what had been a way for countries around the world to gauge the direction of the world’s leading superpower.
Rubio, who also serves as national security adviser, has answered questions from the press. He had been the go-to foreign policy voice for the administration on Sunday public affairs shows. Since the war began, he has not done any Sunday interviews.
Multiple lawmakers from both parties told CBS News that while they do have the cellphone number for Rubio, their former colleague, they choose to use it sparingly and would hope he will come to the Hill for a formal briefing. Lawmakers said some other officials in the administration will privately provide guidance in an unofficial way, though they do not want information to be characterized as a briefing.
The White House has leaned on U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz to appear on television to explain the shifting positions between diplomacy and combat despite the fact that the international community at the U.N. is largely uninvolved with the Trump policy plans.
To get a detailed briefing on June’s truce agreement and the diplomatic work being done by the Trump administration, Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana had to get into a yelling match with the president himself during a closed-door Republican luncheon in late June.
Cassidy and four other Republicans had just voted for a resolution giving Congress the ability to halt the Iran war. In Cassidy’s retelling, Mr. Trump lambasted them. Cassidy shouted back that he had not been briefed.
“You deny me that information, and I’m going to be frustrated, because my job is to serve with the information I have before me,” Cassidy told “Face the Nation” the next day. “I need to know to serve my people and my state and my country. As it turns out, I got a briefing afterwards.”
That argument earned him a phone call from special envoy Steve Witkoff and a private Situation Room briefing.
The president’s two lead diplomats on Iran are Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is not a U.S. government employee, but they rarely speak to the press. Ironically, it was Hegseth, who prefers to be referred to as the Secretary of War, who publicly made the case for the short-lived framework for diplomacy known as the memorandum of understanding on “Face the Nation” on June 14.
“The negotiations business is not really mine,” he said, though he argued the deal would be solid and backed by credible use of force.
Pentagon press access limited
Under Hegseth, the Pentagon has dramatically cut down access for the press. The number of traditional news outlets reporting from the Pentagon plummeted in 2025 after media organizations, including CBS News, declined to agree to the administration’s new restrictive press policies.
CBS News reported the administration is also considering limiting what information the public can get through the Freedom of Information Act.
Since the war began, the Pentagon has appeared slow to disclose injuries. After several Iranian attacks last month, including one that killed three soldiers, the Pentagon initially referred questions on injuries to a website that had not been updated in days and did not include the recent deaths.
When four of the recent deaths disappeared from the website, the Pentagon blamed a “data disruption” for the error. The deaths were later placed under “Overseas Operations Casualties” — separate from 14 other service members who had been killed during the war with Iran. Those were under Operation Epic Fury, the Pentagon’s name for the war when it began.
Some 268 wounded service members are also listed under Overseas Casualty Operations. Almost 700 have been wounded when added with the numbers in Operation Epic Fury.
During a press briefing in April, Hegseth said, “Operation Epic Fury was a historic and overwhelming victory on the battlefield, a capital V military victory.”
Mr. Trump nodded to Iran’s persistence during remarks at Camp David, saying: “Most people would have given up, they haven’t. So I give them credit for that. I mean, they’re known as being tough, they’re tough.”
Now, five months on, the U.S. has redoubled its efforts to end the war he said America had already won.