How Hegseth has transformed the Pentagon’s wartime press operation 

The spotlight of war inevitably shines on the Defense secretary’s personality and priorities. 

Donald Rumsfeld, Pentagon chief when President George W. Bush launched the Iraq War, stepped into the briefing room almost every day, sometimes at his own peril. In his memoirs, he reflected on his “misstatement” about weapons of mass destruction sites and “ill-chosen words” when he said “stuff happens” about the pillaging of a museum in Baghdad.

Robert Gates, the Defense secretary during President Obama’s surge in Afghanistan, generally left the briefings to his press secretary or, occasionally, the generals leading the effort on the ground. “Never miss a good chance to shut up,” was a favorite phrase of the career CIA officer. 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, deployed to defend President Trump’s operation in Iran, has shaped the Pentagon’s wartime press operation in his own image: a combative evangelist seeking to battle “woke” agendas, promote the “America First” agenda and marginalize the mainstream media. The Department of Defense under Hegseth has been renamed the Department of War.

It’s too soon to gauge how history will judge Hegseth’s performance, or the Iran war more generally, but Trump’s Defense chief has already set a new precedent for Pentagon public relations, experts across the political spectrum told The Hill. 

“The Pentagon is taking a more populist strategy, and I think this has everything to do with his background and where he’s comfortable and what he likes to do,” said Yvonne Chiu, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and professor at the United States Naval War College.

“So the populist strategy is really about talking, trying to talk directly to the people, trying to talk directly to service personnel and effectively bypassing their chains of command and communicating the things that he wants … and especially in emphasizing the political agenda that he’s supporting,” Chiu added. 

Hegseth, a former Fox News host whose views on war were largely shaped by his deployments to Iraq, has long railed against military and civilian leaders who pushed nation-building abroad and diversity within the ranks, particularly efforts to expand the space for women and LGBTQ troops. 

Most of Hegseth’s communications strategy before the war was comprised of slick social media videos announcing new policies, clipping his speeches or showing him working out with service members. He almost never took questions from the media.

The Pentagon tried to force media outlets to sign restrictive new rules for access to the building, eventually kicking out reporters who refused to sign it. A judge once again ordered the department this week to restore press access in response to a challenge from The New York Times.  

Hegseth’s Iran war briefings often begin with him praising Trump and bashing journalists who challenge the administration’s narrative of the war. While the Pentagon has allowed mainstream media outlets into the briefings, Hegseth almost only takes questions from right-leaning outlets. 

Another major change has been the relative scarcity of press briefings, especially as the war dragged on. In the first week of the Iran operation, Hegseth held two briefings with Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine and another with U.S. Central Command (Centcom) leader Adm. Brad Cooper. Since then, briefings have been increasingly sparse, with none for a 12-day span in March. 

Chiu said the move away from regular briefings cut both ways. 

“The fact is that the briefings are an opportunity for the press to ask questions and to ask hard questions, which they should be asking. And so the less you have, the less the Pentagon makes itself available to answer those hard questions, the less information people will get,” she said. 

It’s also shielding the Pentagon from an outlet for public criticism of the war, she added. “It just isolates them in a way that I think is unhelpful,” Chiu said. “It’s another avenue for the executive to receive information from the public and to be held accountable.”

Flipping the dynamic

Anthony Constantini, policy director at the Bull Moose Project, a conservative advocacy group, said Hegseth was flipping the dynamics of past administrations, which have largely shut out right-wing outlets from the briefing room. 

“Pretty much my entire life, Fox News was the only conservative media that was in the room when there were press conferences in the White House and Pentagon and State. So I’m not exactly really that upset that now the situation is reversed,” he said. 

Constantini dismissed the idea that contentious press conferences were key to understanding what’s happening in Iran, noting that the most insightful reporting on the administration’s path to war came from anonymous sources speaking to The New York Times. 

“I think this idea that democracy is back-and-forth arguments between the press and representatives, I think that is a very post-Vietnam kind of thing,” he said. “I don’t really see that as intrinsic for most of American history.”

“If they never talked to the press ever, sure that would obviously not be great,” he added. 

Constantini argues that Hegseth is “an extension of Donald Trump’s will,” and in that way, was both empowered and duty-bound to upend norms and remove personnel standing in his way. 

Damian Murphy — senior vice president of national security and international policy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress — said press briefings force administrations to “prepare for the toughest kind of questions and make sure that the policy was airtight.”

By avoiding questions from veteran defense reporters, and browbeating reporters who do ask tough questions, Hegseth has revealed the administration’s internal confusion about its strategy and objectives, Murphy said. 

“You know, it’s continuously moving. It’s a shifting target. One day it’s regime change, another day it’s to go after Iran’s nuclear program. Earlier on, it was about democracy. So I think part of it is because they haven’t settled on what the actual objective of the war is, and it really just seems to be whatever is the latest thought to pass through the president’s head,” he said. 

“By having other briefers out there, they run the risk of getting crosswise with the president,” he added. So I think that, more than anything else, has probably led them to limit the amount of briefings and the amount of briefers out there.” 

Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson, in an emailed statement, said Hegseth has held eight news briefings during the war, each with more than 60 news organizations in attendance. She added that Hegseth has also appeared publicly with Trump multiple times and the Pentagon and Centcom has regularly shared updates on social media. 

“The Department of War’s Office of Public Affairs answers press requests every day. We have provided, and will continue to provide, regular updates to the media and the public,” she added, in response to questions about the various critiques in this article.  

Jason Dempsey, a career Army infantry officer who served as a special assistant to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said social media videos and public appearances do not serve the same functions as confrontation with the press. 

“The best way to support the troops while you’re at war is to ask pointed questions,” said Dempsey, now an adjunct senior fellow of the National Security Human Capital Program at the Center for a New American Security.

Dempsey said Hegseth’s “tough guy” persona, cultivated through his public remarks and social media accounts, was not a good fit for the job of Pentagon secretary, particularly during a time of such high stakes. 

“You’ve got millions of tough men and women below you doing the work in the United States, and they don’t need a chest-thumping secretary of Defense,” he said. “They need somebody who’s clear-headed. And so for him to constantly come out with these bombastic statements is very disrespectful.”

Dempsey said that Hegseth’s rhetoric about giving “no quarter” to enemies and being “locked and loaded” to carry out Trump’s threat of civilization erasure was dangerous. 

“People around the world are listening to that. And that’s an easy way to sound tough in the short run, but it’s a guaranteed way to put soldiers in real danger down the line,” he added. 

“He seems to be playing a part, versus fulfilling a role and responsibilities,” Dempsey added. “He’s playing the part of what a junior captain might imagine the secretary of Defense would act like.”