US President Donald Trump has announced that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, alongside top military representatives, will hold a major news conference at the Pentagon on Thursday morning.
The event, scheduled for 8 a.m. EST, comes amid a heated dispute over the effectiveness of recent US airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities and the media coverage that followed.
Trump made the announcement on his Truth Social platform, stating the conference aims to “fight for the dignity of our great American pilots.”
According to Trump, the B-2 bomber pilots who carried out the mission spent 36 hours flying through enemy territory and believed their operation was a legendary success.
However, they were reportedly upset after reading reports from CNN and The New York Times, which cited US intelligence assessments suggesting the strikes only set back Iran’s nuclear program by a few months, rather than causing total destruction as initially claimed by the administration.
Trump and Hegseth have both criticized these media reports as “fake news,” arguing that the stories misrepresented the facts before full information was available.
Trump insisted that the pilots “felt terribly” after seeing their efforts minimized and accused the press of trying to undermine his leadership and the military’s achievements.
At the upcoming press conference, Hegseth is expected to defend the pilots’ actions and present evidence to counter the media’s narrative.
The Pentagon has also launched an investigation into leaks about the operation’s outcome, with Hegseth stating at the recent NATO summit that the administration stands by the pilots and the mission’s success.
The controversy highlights ongoing tensions between the Trump administration and major news outlets over national security reporting and the portrayal of US military operations abroad.
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