There was a historic press briefing at the Pentagon Thursday morning. Wow, did this one deliver. We haven’t seen anything it in a very long time.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine delivered an update on President Donald Trump’s strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend. It was fascinating.
Hegseth on the Leak
Secretary Hegseth called the bombings “a resounding success” and said the they directly led to a ceasefire agreement and an end to what the Trump administration is calling the “12 Day War” between Israel and Iran.
The defense secretary also took the media to task for not playing it straight on this because the press covering the Pentagon has been a total and utter failure in reporting on this administration and, in particular, this mission.
The media’s job is to play it straight. Normally, there is not an instinct – or shouldn’t be – to sh-t all over the military heroes after they risk their lives. That has really not been our thing since Vietnam when we learned those lessons. But for some reason now, because Trump is the commander in chief, I guess it is fine to just not give any credit to the brave pilots who risked their lives to conduct this mission. It is more important to rip on Trump, you see.
And Hegseth knows that, both as a former member of the military and as a key part of the Trump administration himself. So, he went after the media for how it has covered Operation Midnight Hammer based on a selective leak from what we now know was a “preliminary,” “low confidence” intelligence assessment.
My former Fox News colleague Catherine Herridge, who has covered the intelligence community for many years, said in a X post this morning that, “in the hierarchy of intel reports, a preliminary assessment with low confidence would not carry much weight. It’s an early snapshot that concedes the picture will likely change as more intelligence is developed.”
That is normally why the Pentagon would not release such a thing to the public. But some asshole within the Pentagon working for the Defense Intelligence Agency leaked it. And who did this person go to? They went to a reporter by the name of Natasha Bertrand.
Bertrand has been the best stenographer for Deep State-type intel operatives for years now. This is the person who had the scoop on how 51 intelligence agents claimed the Hunter Biden laptop was “Russian disinformation.” She led the reporting on Russiagate info. There is a reason that some Trump-hater in the Pentagon went to a different Trump-hater now working for CNN with a long history of Trump hating that has completely undermined any credibility this young woman hoped to have.
In any event, Bertrand is the one who started the narrative that the operation was a failure, that nothing was destroyed, and that the Iran nuclear program has only been set back by a month or two. The media, including The New York Times, ran with this and it snowballed, which is why we were at the point where the chairman of the joint chiefs and the secretary of defense went out there to say, ‘Just sit down.’
And by the way, as we pointed out in Thursday’s AM Update, neither The New York Times nor CNN even noted that this preliminary assessment was of “low confidence” in their initial reports on this. Don’t you think that might be relevant? Maybe the audience should be told that?
For what it’s worth, we now have reports from Israeli intelligence and from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) saying the sites have been destroyed. The director of the IAEA Rafael Grossi said, specifically, that the centrifuges at Fordow, where they were doing the enrichment of the uranium, are no longer operational. I mean, what more do you need to hear?
Caine on the Mission
After Hegseth’s scolding, we got an extraordinary play-by-play of the mission and the service members responsible for it from Gen. Caine. He began by describing exactly how the military shot down those 14 missiles Iran fired at U.S. bases in the Middle East in the wake of Operation Midnight Hammer.
He said roughly 44 soldiers were responsible for defending the entire Al-Udeid base in Qatar, including the forward headquarters of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) in the region. The oldest soldier was a 28-year-old captain. The youngest was a 21-year-old private, who had been in the military for less than two years. “These awesome humans, along with their Qatari brothers and sisters in arms, stood between a salvo of Iranian missiles and the safety of Al-Udeid,” he said. “They are the unsung heroes of the 21st century United States Army.”
The general also explained just how much time and effort went into the bombing of the three nuclear sites in Iran. He spoke, in particular, of the one at Fordow, which is the one that truly seems like the operation in Top Gun Maverick (go stream it if you haven’t seen it!)
As it turns out, this mission was much like the hunt for Osama bin Laden in that we have been working on it for years. Gen. Caine revealed one officer with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency spent over 15 years on this issue after he was brought to “a vault at an undisclosed location” in 2009 and briefed on “something going on in Iran” that resembled a construction site in the mountains.
The general said he was joined by “an additional teammate” soon after, and these two have spent more than a decade solely focused on Fordow. And not only have they been studying everything there is to know about it, but they also realized we were going to need a new bomb to destroy it that we didn’t have in our existing arsenal. And that is how those 30,000-pound “bunker busting” bombs were born.
“They began a journey to work with industry and other tacticians to develop the GBU-57. They accomplished hundreds of test shots and dropped many full-scale weapons against extremely realistic targets for a single purpose: Kill this target at the time and place of our nation’s choosing,” Caine explained. “And then, on a day in June of 2025 – more than 15 years after they started their life’s work – the phone rang and the president of the United States ordered the B-2 force that you’ve supported to go strike and kill this target.”
Can you imagine? I understand perfectly well why we can’t, but wouldn’t you love to meet these two guys? Like the CIA agent who found bin Laden, they did all the preliminary work. They know this site like the back of their hands. I am sure they worked every day to figure out exactly what it would take to destroy it. Then, they’ve got to hope that the military guys who fly the B-2s do it perfectly, that nothing goes wrong, that the Iranians don’t detect the flights on the way in. I mean, think of it. It is crazy how much had to go right and the amount of planning and professionalism it took.
Saluting Our Heroes
The four-star general also debuted stunning footage of a test shot the military did of the GBU-57 bomb that was used on Iran, and he spoke about how these pilots risked their lives to protect this country.
There was a time in which we wouldn’t have had to be reminded of this. There was a time in which we would have understood and inherently recognized and paid homage to the emotional strain that this type of mission creates on those who execute it and on their families. We used to be quick to praise the heroes of our military, especially those who effectively undertook never before attempted missions like this one.
Gen. Caine, a retired F-16 pilot himself, spoke to that this morning. “When the crews went to work on Friday, they kissed their loved ones goodbye, not knowing when or if they’d be home. Late on Saturday night, their families became aware of what was happening. And on Sunday, when those jets returned [to Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri], their families were there, flags flying and tears flowing,” he recalled. “I have chills, literally, talking about this.”
“The jets rejoined into a formation of four airplanes, followed by a formation of three, and came up overhead Whiteman proudly in the traffic pattern, pitching out to land right over the base, and landing to the incredible cheers of their families who sacrifice and serve right alongside their family members,” he continued. “Like I said, there were a lot of flags and a lot of tears.”
It is incredible. All I could think of when he was talking about it was a video that was circulating on X over the weekend. I think it was of the Blue Angels down in Florida, but the scene, as he described it, reminded me of this:
I’ll bet you those pilots saw something like this when they flew back home to Missouri. It is just so impressive. It is something to be honored. I really don’t care how you feel about the mission to take out the Iranian nuclear sites (as I’ve been clear, I’m in favor of it); you can support our military and the incredible feat they accomplished regardless.
You can check out Megyn’s full analysis by tuning in to episode 1,096 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.