SECRETARY OF WAR PETE HEGSETH: Good morning. Yesterday at Dover Air Force Base, President Trump, the chairman and I stood in solemn silence as heroes came home. Flag-draped caskets, we honored them. We grieved with their families and we listened. What I heard through tears, through hugs, through strength and through unbreakable resolve was the same from family after family.

They said, finish this. Honor their sacrifice. Do not waver. Do not stop until the job is done. My response, along with that of the president, was simple, of course we will finish this. We will honor their sacrifice. Their sacrifice only steels our commitment. I wear this bracelet, Staff Sergeant Jorge Oliveira.

He was one of my sergeants -- or one of my specialists in Guantanamo Bay. He deployed later to Afghanistan, where he was killed on 19th October, 2011, killed 10 years after 9/11 15 years ago. He was one of the one percent, the best of America, not just a guardsman, but a law enforcement officer back home and a family man.

I remember him every day, just like so many other men and women of our generation and previous generations who wear bracelets like this. Just as we will always remember those lost in this conflict. Their names are now – are now etched into our mission and into the soul of a grateful nation. I stand here today speaking to you, the American people, not through filters, not through reporters, not through cable news spin.

A dishonest and anti-Trump press will stop at nothing, we know this at this point, to downplay progress, amplify every cost and call into question every step. Sadly, TDS is in their DNA. They want President Trump to fail, but you, the American people, know better.

Yes, there are reporters in front of me, but they are not our audience today. It's you, the good, decent, patriotic American people; you, the hardworking, tax paying, God-fearing American patriots. The media here, not all of it, but much of it wants you to think just 19 days into this conflict that we're somehow spinning toward an endless abyss or a forever war or a quagmire.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Hear it from me, one of hundreds of thousands who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, who watched previous foolish politicians like Bush, Obama and Biden, squander American credibility. This is not those wars. President Trump knows better. Epic Fury is different. It's laser-focused.

It's decisive. Our objectives, given directly from our America first president remain exactly what they were on day one. These are not the media's objectives, not Iran's objectives, not new objectives, our objectives, unchanged, on target and on plan, destroy missiles, launchers and Iran's defense industrial base so they cannot rebuild, destroy their navy and Iran never gets a nuclear weapon, our objectives from day one.

To the patriotic members of the press, nobody can deliver perfection in wartime. This building knows that more than anyone, but report the reality. We're winning decisively and on our terms. Iran is a vast country. And just like Hamas and their tunnels, they've poured any aid, any economic development, humanitarian aid into tunnels and rockets.

That's what they did with Hamas. Iran has funneled decades of state resources not to their people but into missiles and drones and proxies and buried facilities. But we are hunting them down methodically, ruthlessly and overwhelmingly, like no other military in the world can do, and the results speak for themselves.

To date, we've struck over 7,000 targets across Iran and its military infrastructure. That is not incremental, that is overwhelming force applied with precision. And again, today, will be the largest strike package yet, just like yesterday was. As I've said from day one, our capabilities continue to build, Iran's continue to degrade.

We're hunting and striking death and destruction from above. Iran's air defenses, flattened. Iran's defense industrial base, the factories, the production lines that feed their missile and drone programs, being overwhelmingly destroyed. We've hit hundreds of their defense industrial bases directly.

Their ability to manufacture new ballistic missiles has probably taken the hardest hit of all. Ballistic missile attacks against our forces, down 90 percent since the start of the conflict, same with one way attack UAVs, think kamikaze drones, down 90 percent. Now the Iranians will still shoot, we know that, but they would shoot a lot more if they could, but they can't.

The last job anyone in the world wants right now, senior leader for the IRGC, or besiege, temp jobs, all of them. And to borrow a page from Admiral Ernest King in World War II, we've decided to share the ocean with Iran. We've given them the bottom half; we've damaged or sunk over 120 of their Navy ships with battle damage assessments pending for many more.

You see, oftentimes, we have to wait a few days on battle damage assessment to get the real number. Their surface fleet is no longer a factor. They're submarines, they once had 11, are gone. Their military ports are crippled. Iran has terrorized the United States and our interests for 47 years. Their core industries, not steel or agriculture, tourism, their core industries are state-sponsored terrorism, proxy militias, underground networks, ballistic missiles and a violent messianic Islamist ideology chasing some sort of apocalyptic endgame.

A regime like that, refusing to abandon its nuclear ambitions, is not just a regional problem. It's a direct threat to America, to freedom and to civilization. The world, the Middle East, our ungrateful allies in Europe, even segments of our own press should be saying one thing to President Trump, thank you. Thank you for the courage to stop this terrorist state from holding the world hostage with missiles while building or attempting to build a nuclear bomb. Thank you for doing the work of the free world.

Yesterday's ceremony reminded us why we fight, not for nation building or democracy promotion, but to crush direct threats to America, Americans and our interests. We fight to win and we are winning on our terms, following our objectives. My 13 year old son popped into my office last night while I was editing these remarks. He asked about the war and the families I met at Dover. And I looked at him and I said, they died for you, son, so that your generation doesn't have to deal with a nuclear Iran.

It's the truth, and they did. So to the families who said, finish this, we will. And I say the same to every American who wants peace through strength. May almighty God continue to bless our troops in this fight. And again to the American people, please pray for them every day on bended knee with your family, in your schools, in your churches, in the name of Jesus Christ. To the troops, keep going and Godspeed. Over to you Mr. Chairman.

GENERAL DAN CAINE: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning and thank you all for being here. I also had the honor yesterday, as the secretary said, of traveling up to Dover with the president to welcome home our six fallen. It was an honor and a privilege for me to be there and to say thank you to their families.

And I want to mention their names this morning. From the sixth Aerial Refueling Wing out of MacDill Air Force Base Florida, but stationed as part of an active associate unit at Birmingham, Alabama, Major John Alex Klinner, Major Ariana Savino, she was posthumously promoted from captain to major; and Technical Sergeant Ashley Pruitt, the boom operator on that crew; from the 121st Air Refueling Wing, Ohio Air National Guard out of Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base in Columbus, Ohio, Captain Seth Koval; Captain Curtis Angst, and now Master Sergeant Tyler Simmons, who was also promoted and the boom operator on that crew.

To a person and every family member I spoke with yesterday, they all shared that their family members loved serving. They loved being part of a great team and a crew, and they loved airplanes and aviation. Our nation's tanker crews really are unsung heroes, incredible warriors who put their lives on the line so we can continue to take the fight to an enemy.

I've personally witnessed their courage and tenacity many times. From the morning of September 11th where they answered my call for some help to the skies over foreign countries where they've come forward out of their safe tanker track to give me gas when I simply could not leave a ground force that was engaged in a firefight, they've answered the call and come forward time and time and time again.

I'm filled with incredible pride and gratitude for all that the tanker crews do, our pilots, our boom operators and the maintainers. And to the families of our six fallen, know that we share your grief. Our nation will never forget their sacrifice, and we will never forget their names. Our entire joint force mourns with you today and will continue to remember their incredible gift of a great example for all of us.

Now let me turn to an operations update. U.S. Central Command remains on plan to achieve our military objectives and remain unrelenting in our pursuit of Iranian missile capabilities, UAV capabilities and their navy, and as the secretary said, their industrial base. Each day we continue to attack deeper into Iranian territory.

As reported by U.S. CENTCOM yesterday, the US military dropped 5,000 pound Penetrator weapons into underground storage facilities storing coastal defense cruise missiles and other support equipment. These weapons are bespokely designed to get through concrete and/or rocks and function after penetrating those – those barriers.

We continue to hunt and kill mine storage facilities and naval ammunition depots. We continue to hunt and kill afloat assets, including more than 120 vessels and 44 mine layers, and the pressure will continue. We're flying further to the east now and penetrating deeper into Iranian airspace to hunt and kill one way attack garrisons, destroying Iran's ability to project power outside of its borders.

The A-10 Warthog is now in the fight across the southern flank and is hunting and killing fast attack watercraft in the Straits of Hormuz. In addition, AH-64 Apaches have joined the fight on the southern flank, and they continue to work on the southern side. And that includes some of our allies who are using Apaches to handle one way attack drones.

In Iraq, AH-64s have been striking against Iranian aligned militia groups to make sure that we suppress any threat in Iraq against U.S. forces or U.S. interests. And we remain focused on pursuit of any platform that Iran could field to harm Americans or our partners.

Last Friday, Admiral Cooper and CENTCOM team conducted precision strikes against more than 90 targets on Kharg Island, which included all of their military-only infrastructure, which included air defenses, naval base mine storage and deployment facilities. And as the secretary mentioned, we continue to strike against Iran's defense industrial base and will continue to do so.

Today, I want to continue my theme of talking about members of our incredible joint force.

Today, I want to talk about some exceptional airmen who are engaged in the fight daily: United States Air Force, Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard crews within our bomber force, the B-1s, B-2s and B-52s and the airmen on the ground who maintain and load these weapon systems. They are the backbone of America's long range strike capability, and their contributions to Epic Fury have been decisive.

Assigned to STRATCOM under Admiral Rich Correll and supported by TRANSCOM, the tanker force that we've talked about, under the command of General Randall Reed, every mission is designed to achieve overwhelming outcomes on behalf of the United States and our allies. Last weekend I had the chance to go out and see some of our deployed bomber forces, the B-1 and B-52 crews, and I had a chance to sit down with some young aviators and maintainers and ask them, "How do you feel, tell me about your typical day."

And these are crews comprised of between two and five airmen, two on the – on the B-2s, five on the – on the B-52s and four in the B-1s out there. Some of these Americans are in their early or mid 20s, and we give them the gift of this incredible responsibility, hundreds of thousands of pounds of aircraft, and they take off and go do our work as required.

Their mission actually begins the day prior when they're given a target or a bunch of targets. And they begin to study those targets, look at what are the effects required, what are the weapons required to get there? How will we program these weapons? What is the weather? What is the tanker flow? It's an incredibly complex problem that we give each and every one of these crews, and they work it over the period of 24 hours prior, get some rest and then step out the door to go fly.

The last thing they do is they check all of their equipment, their oxygen masks, survival gear, load pistols and get ready to go. They crank the jets about an hour prior to takeoff and then launch into the daylight, doing their preflight checks and, as the kids say, lock-in and prepare to go to war, sometimes on a long and stressful journey.

During the flight, they're surrounded by technology and capabilities, and they'll do multiple aerial refueling efforts across tankers on the way to the AOR, area of responsibility, either coming from the states or coming from a forward deployed basing.

And I will tell you as a fighter pilot, getting gas is a lot easier in an F-16 than it is in a B-1, B-2 or a B-52, where you are – you are handling this airplane. It is a physical thing, unlike a fighter that's a lot easier.

And they stay on that boom for sometimes up to 30 minutes taking hundreds of thousands of pounds of gas. It is a physical, demanding thing to take gas, and they do it multiple times on the way there and they do it multiple times on the way home.

As they enter the operating area, they bring the entirety of America's joint force together to go do the things that we've tasked them to do, to put bombs on time, on target with the proper effects. And I know they're feeling a range of emotions, but the thing the American people should take away from it is they're filled with a focus that is incredibly impressive.

And they have fear, of course, but their bigger fear is dear God, please don't let me screw this up, the warrior's prayer that we all have in our souls. In the days of Epic Fury, they were shooting, as we've talked about in this room, a lot of standoff weapons. Now we've switched and rolled, as I mentioned last week, to stand in weapons.

And behind each and every one of them are incredible maintainers and weapons builders who go out there and make sure these aircraft and their weapon systems are ready to go. These airplanes are so big that they're not in hangars. They're out in the cold, out in the snow, out in the rain. The bombs are being built outside for protection and to make sure that it's safe. And they do it 24/7, 365.

It's not comfortable work. But when you go spend just a minute with these incredibly young Americans who are so motivated, you cannot come away from that exchange not being hopeful for America's future. It is simply awesome. And we hand these Americans, young Americans, incredible and weighty responsibility, and they deliver every single time quietly, with professionalism and humility, doing the things that we ask them to do.

In conclusion, we will continue major combat operations. As the secretary said, we continue to get busier. I know the secretary and I share that we're incredibly proud of 2.8 million members of our joint force. I am personally and we are personally grateful for the tenacity and professionalism of the brave men and women who serve inside STRATCOM, CENTCOM, SPACECOM, CYBERCOM, TRANSCOM and the rest of the Joint Force.

And I'll close where I started. I ask today that we remember those six fallen that came home. They represent the best of our nation. For those families that are feeling the pain, know that we are with you and will remain with you. May we always prove worthy of their sacrifice.

And I'll turn it back over to you, sir.

SECRETARY HEGSETH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll take a couple questions.

Q: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you. Mr. Chairman. Given the updated degradation in strike target numbers you laid out, how close would you say we are towards achieving the president's objectives? And what is the end game of the operation, without divulging any sensitive battle plans?

SECRETARY HEGSETH: Well, we wouldn't want to set a definitive timeframe on that. But as we've said, we're on plan. So, we're looking at those metrics very closely, relaying that to the president and the national security team, but feel confident that as, again, we're – more stand in means we're over the top even further in and we have even more of an exact sense of what we're striking and why and even more dynamically, meaning because the intelligence improves, we're able to more quickly identify targets when they – let's say they come out of an underground facility where they've been hiding and able to strike it before it strikes or right after it shoots.

But we are very much on plan, and that's why I want to speak to the American people here. You hear a lot of noise about widening or new missions or speculation about what we should or should not be doing. This is a clear set of objectives. The president has given us every capability we need to accomplish that.

We've got the best in the world in uniform executing it on the ground. They are -- believe in and are invested in this mission. And it will be at the president's choosing, ultimately, where we say, hey, we've achieved what we need to on behalf of the American people to ensure our security. So, no time set on that, but we're very much on track, absolutely.

Q: Good morning, Mr. Secretary. David Zere, Real America's Voice News. What countries have been the most cooperative with us, including the Gulf states, as Europe hedges? And I also wanted to ask you the internet blackouts by the regime, it's been shut down for weeks. Is the US military playing a role in, you know, fighting against the regime blocking VPN networks and satellites and other things? Is there a role for the US military there?

SECRETARY HEGSETH: Obviously, on the allies and partners side, Israel from day one has been an incredible and capable partner, willing and able. There's nothing like capabilities and partners that are able to use them.

The Gulf states have stepped up incredibly. In fact, Iran's sort of reckless attempt to strike civilian infrastructure and other things has brought countries who maybe would have not been as all-in as they are today squarely into our orbit. And we're proud to be defending with them, standing with them, you name it, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and others who have been right there. And we're grateful for that kind of support.

As far as the internet, we're watching the regime try to tighten its grip as much as possible. And we're obviously taking countermeasures, many of which we can't talk about here, to ensure that messaging is delivered not just to the Iranian people writ large, but to the right audiences, certain audiences that need to hear certain things about what their fate might look like or what their choices are.

So, even though that regime is trying really hard to ensure the world can't see, right, they want – they want to put out fake AI generated images – which, by the way, sometimes our press happens to fall for, like the Abraham Lincoln on fire and turning around. These AI generated images are meant to make it look like something's happening when the exact opposite is.

So, they make up fake reports and fake images to lie to their own people to try to make it -- but even then, their own people can barely receive a lot of those messages and communicate because of the blackout that they've imposed upon them. But we work around that, for sure.

Q: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. General, overnight Iran launched missiles across the Gulf. They managed to hit the Saudi oil refinery on the Red Sea. What does it mean that they have that capability now three weeks into the war?

And Mr. Secretary, you mentioned civilian infrastructure. Iran seems to be treating U.S. diplomatic outposts, embassies, consulates, like they are legitimate hard targets in the region now. What is the Pentagon doing to, I guess, secure those assets, stop those attacks?

SECRETARY HEGSETH: Absolutely.

GENERAL CAINE: Thanks for the question on the missile strikes. You know, as we said and have always said, clearly they came into this fight with a lot of weapons. This is why we continue to be as aggressive and assertive as we can against their ballistic missile capability, both their medium range ballistic missile capability and their short range missile capability.

So, we are continuing to hunt and find them and kill them, and we will continue to do so. So, they still retain some capability. And we have layered defenses throughout the region that will allow us to protect those. And we're working with our partners across the Gulf region to help them improve any defensive capabilities that they may need.

SECRETARY HEGSETH: To that point on capabilities, you know, Iran is an energy rich country, could be, should be. Instead, like so many other places driven by a radical ideology, they've spent that money instead of investing in their people. That's why you had millions of Iranians protesting, because they felt like their quality of life didn't match what it could be or should be.

And what was the Iranian state? There's a reason we call Iran the number one state sponsor of terrorism. Because they took the money they make and they invest it in tunnels and they invest it in missiles and they invest in launchers and UAVs, and we are destroying and degrading that – degrading that in historic proportions, but it doesn't mean they won't still have some and try to hold people at issue, which is why we're fighting every single day to continue to compel.

And you mentioned embassies and consulates. Unlike previous administrations, we are doubling and tripling down on ensuring that our people, regardless of their – Department of War, Department of State, whatever they do, are secure in those facilities. And the best defense is a good offense.

And so, we're not – we're not afraid to go after and kill anybody. And we have a lot of them attempting to target our diplomatic facilities. Iran – you know, we're not – we're not surprised that they would indiscriminately target, and we're still seeing that.

Q: As part of the justification for the war against Iran, the White House has laid out in fairly comprehensive fashion the Iran – the Iranian regime's 47 years of terrorism aimed at the U.S., including pointing to the IRGC provision of weapons and EFPs to help kill Americans in Iraq. The Pentagon in 2019 assessed Iran was responsible for the deaths of at least 603 service members in Iraq.

But the – there hasn't been a similar accounting – a public accounting by Iran's role helping the Taliban in Afghanistan, and that also hasn't been part of the White House's public argument. I was wondering if you could speak to Iran's role in helping the Taliban during the war in Afghanistan.

And Chairman, as you and the secretary eloquently spoke about, 13 U.S. service members have been killed so far during Operation Epic Fury. I was wondering what lessons have been learned from those deaths, both from Iranian strikes, from an aircraft refueling accident. How are those lessons being applied to the current conflict, and how are those lessons going to be applied to a potential conflict in INDOPACOM?

SECRETARY HEGSETH: Well, thank you for the question. And it's true. In a town that can have a very short memory, President Trump does not. He remembers what this regime -- Iranian regime was founded on, what their declaration has been from the beginning, death to America, death to Israel. They've stated that. They've intended to, in every way, try to accomplish that, killing Americans in any theater they can, embassies for a long -- for quite a long time.

In Iraq, that was – the deadliest weapon was the EFP, the explosively formed penetrator. I was there when that tactic and technique started to emerge. And the realization was, it wasn't just jihadis putting together 155 rounds daisy chained. It was a entire state, a country with its apparatus able to mold steel in a way that was specifically designed to penetrate American armor and kill Americans.

This was not, oh, maybe we send them a couple of thoughts about how to build a bomb. This was Iran specifically passing technology and wherewithal and personnel into Iraq to kill Americans specifically. I know the number's said to be 600. A lot of us think it's higher than that given the amount of capability they brought in.

So, they have been at war with us, whether we acknowledge it or not, for 47 years. The same goes in Afghanistan. Name the Islamist enemy, whether they are Sunni or Shia, because this is a Shia regime, Sunni or Shia, and Iran's been willing to harbor them as long as that group is willing to try to kill Americans.

So, the enemy of their enemy has been their friend as well in the Islamist world. So, Iran, whether it's Iraq, whether it's Afghanistan, whether it's around the world, has been targeting Americans. And what they wanted in this context and what President Trump would not tolerate is a regime of that nature being closer and closer to nuclear capabilities, a capability they would – have said they would want to use. And we believe what our enemies say they would do if they got the most dangerous weapon in the world.

So, it's been across every theater that Iran's been a threat to America. And sometimes we have to remind folks of that. But thank goodness we have a commander-in-chief who, on behalf of this country, has internalized that and said, hey, we're going to do something about it.

GENERAL CAINE: Jerry, I do want to talk about the lessons learned question because it's important to me. I won't share particular tactical lessons, and the KC-135 incident is under investigation. But I do want to talk about how I think about this and how we think about it, and this is something that I'm pretty passionate about.

I believe the joint force has to be a very fast learning organization, early, often and always. And so, in each case, both at the strategic, operational and tactical level, we've charged the joint force to look at themselves and say what was our plan? Well, first, did we have a plan, yes or no? The answer's always yes because we plan for literally everything. Did we execute our plan, yes or no? If we did, did it work? If not, why not? If we didn't execute our plan, but did something better, what's the lesson learned associated with that? And then how do we quickly capture those lessons after every loss or every engagement and quickly adopt those lessons and then share them across the entirety of the joint force? And inside the joint staff, we've tasked our J7 Directorate under the lead of Lieutenant General Liszewski, a U.S. Marine, to be extremely entrepreneurial in harvesting and capturing those lessons in a proactive and not reactive way.

In fact, we've got teammates from the J7 who are now spread out across the CENTCOM theater, both here in the States and forward to ensure that in every opportunity, we do not miss a chance to grab that lesson and quickly accelerate it into the practice that we adopt inside the joint force, so that if there's a loss or if there's something that we can learn from, that we learn it not only in the CENTCOM AOR, but we adapt it across all of the combatant commands, not just INDOPACOM. And it's across all of the warfighting functions.

I've asked them to look rigorously, to check our egos at the door, to remember this is about what's right, not who's right, and to be clinical around the way we look at lessons learned because we owe it to the force to do that. Thanks for that question.

SECRETARY HEGSETH: Absolutely. Brown jacket in the back.

Q: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Jonathan Draeger, RealClearPolitics as you said at the end of this war, Iran will be without a missile or drone capability, a Navy or the ability to make nuclear weapons. Since the largest threat and sponsor of terror in the region will be incapacitated, are there plans to move assets and troops out of the Middle East? I guess in a perfect world, a year after the war has ended, what does the military presence in the Middle East look like compared to before the war?

SECRETARY HEGSETH: Well, I appreciate the question. I do think when you address a real threat head on, it creates new options on the other side, right? I think what President Trump refuses to do, which too often this town does, is just sit in the status quo. Oh, nobody can do about that, they've got too much capability, what if this happens, what if that happens? He instead says, what's in the interest of the American people? It's going to take some courage. It's going to take some capabilities. We're going to have to gather some forces there in order to do it. We're not going to tell people how many or how long or what we're willing to do or what we're not willing to do. But if you do that and do that decisively, then out the other end is a recognition that it opens the aperture of what's possible.

I mean, President Trump did the same thing in creating an opportunity for the Abraham Accords. Now you've got a situation where a lot of those countries are coming alongside us recognizing the threat of Iran. So I think our posture in the future will be based first and foremost on our own national security, power projection, the ability to defend our people and our interests.

But no doubt, working alongside our partners, the president will look at what makes the most sense going forward. I appreciate that question. Yes, right here.

SECRETARY HEGSETH: Yes, right here.

Q: Thank you, Secretary Hegseth. Two questions for you. The vice president has often emphasized that the goal of this war is to denuclearize Iran while also avoiding a larger quagmire. I know that you touched on this, I'd like you to expand on how do you do that? How do you denuclearize the country while also avoiding this, you know, forever war?

And then there was a report last night that the Pentagon asked the White House for $200 billion for Iran war supplemental. Can you confirm this? And can you explain why a package this large is necessary?

SECRETARY HEGSETH: Well, first of all, none of this would have been possible without Midnight Hammer, without that audacious mission with very clear goals that did obliterate their ability to enrich and the capabilities they have in those facilities. So it created the conditions for Iran to step forward and say, OK, you can reach out and touch us like that in our nuclear ambitions.

You can see that we're still trying to do this. Let's make a deal. And President Trump put our two best folks on it, Steve and Jared and they worked diligently, earnestly. I watched it to try to pursue that deal. And ultimately, I think the whole time Iran sort of said, well, we'll talk as we build more missiles and as we build more UAVs and we create this conventional umbrella, so that if we chose to, we could try to reconstitute the program and sort of naively thinking that President Trump wouldn't do something about it.

And that's why as Secretary Rubio has said and I've said it's the conventional umbrella that was growing and growing and growing, that was meant to protect that nuclear capability. So you had to address both what happened with Midnight Hammer and what happened with that as well.

As far as, uh, $200 billion, I think that number could move, obviously. Uh, it takes money to kill bad guys. We're going back to Congress and folks there to – to ensure that we're properly funded for what's been done, for what we may have to do in the future, ensure that our ammunition is – everything's refilled and not just refilled, but above and beyond.

I mean, President Trump, as you said, rebuilt the military in his first term, didn't think he'd use it as dynamically in his second, but he had so thank goodness he did that. An investment like this is meant to say, hey, we'll replace anything that was spent and now that we're reviving our defense industrial base and rebuilding the arsenal of freedom and cutting deals like our great deputy secretaries here is doing, long lead times on exquisite munitions, we're going to be refilled faster than anyone imagined.

And I think, you know, we're also still dealing with the environment that Joe Biden created, uh, which was – which was depleting those stock holds and not sending them to our own military, but to Ukraine – which is when every time we reach back and look at any sort of a challenge we have, it goes back to well, send it to Ukraine.

Uh, ultimately, we think this should be – these, uh, these munitions are better spent in our own interests at this point. And this kind of funding bill is going to ensure that we're properly funded going forward. We'll take – we'll take one more, right here.

Q: Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Jordan Conradson with the Gateway Pundit. Um, so with the strike yesterday on South Pars gas field, you know, if the U.S. didn't know about it or didn't approve of it, it kind of seems like a trend of Israel apparently pursuing their own objectives over U.S. objectives.

I'm not sure if you agree with that, but the president has said he doesn't want to hit Iran's oil infrastructure right now. As you said, the U.S. avoided this on Kharg Island. Oil is nearing $120. Why are we helping Israel prosecute this war if they're going to pursue their own objectives?

SECRETARY HEGSETH: We hold the cards. We have objectives. Those objectives are clear. We have allies pursuing objectives as well and the truth speaks for itself. I mean, President Trump was very clear about that. Iran has weaponized energy for decades. Israel clearly sent a warning and POTUS has made it clear, very clear.

Iran knows when you hit Kharg Island and you hit military capabilities on Kharg Island, which is the only thing we hit, we can hold anything at issue, anything. The United States military controls the fate of that country. Iran has the ability to make the right choices. It should not, going forward, target, Arab allies, Arab countries, trying to create pain, the pain that they created themselves.

Thank you all very much. Appreciate it. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it.