Washington - In a U.S. air campaign against Iran-backed Houthis, U.S. troops attacked more than 1,000 targets in Yemen. However, despite Trump administration officials pledging to operate “the most transparent Department of Defense in history” in history, the Pentagon held only one formal briefing in the first 100 days of Trump’s second term.
“I have given me a personal commitment to make these briefs more routine with the vision of the Secretary to be the most transparent Ministry of Defense in history,” Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s top public affairs assistant, said during the only formal briefing to date.
During the same period, the White House and the State Department held 18 and 13 briefings respectively as of April 28, respectively.
Under former President Joe Biden, the Pentagon had 34 camera briefings in the first 100 days, while Biden's White House and State Department held 61 and 34 briefings respectively. During the first 100 days of Mr. Trump's first term, reporters received five briefings from the Department of Defense on camera.
The Pentagon has a long history of introducing military operations to the media. Until departure in 1968, Barry Zorthian would climb to the roof of the Rex Hotel in Saigon to provide journalists with the Pentagon’s Vietnam War. Skeptic journalists called the briefing “the stupidity of five o’clock,” but even so, conversations between spokespersons and journalists provide key information about what the government does on behalf of American citizens.
From the desert storm in 1991 to the Kosovo air movement in 1999, and even during the Biden administration’s evacuation from Afghanistan, the Pentagon continued to regularly introduce it to the news media.
From 2003 to 2006, the late retirement T. McCreary, who served as the Navy’s Office of Public Affairs as head of Naval Information, told CBS News: First there are three reasons to hold a press conference: first let your story develop, so the public responded to you; secondly, to stop the spread of the enemy, false information was launched to spin the story. Third, to inform taxpayers, the Pentagon’s Pentagon is the largest budget for any department and what it does with its money.
“Whenever the Pentagon and (DOD) agencies start to make more and more information, it erodes the trust and transparency that has been built over the years until faith and institutions sometimes start to be questioned,” McCreary said.
The Secretary of Defense’s Office of Principles of Information provides detailed information on the Pentagon’s guidance on public affairs. This includes “timely, accurate information so that the public, Congress and the news media can evaluate and understand facts about national security and defense strategies.”
The Pentagon's single-shot camera briefing, held 43 days ago, took place a few days after the U.S. Central Command launched a ongoing campaign against Hoties. Parnell, chief spokesman and chief of staff, Lt. General Alexus G. Grynkewich, answered questions about the operation.
Minister of Defense Pete Hegseth Press conferences and brief greetings were held with a small group of journalists while traveling, but camera briefings have not been conducted in the Pentagon briefing room, which can accommodate about 60 journalists. However, he used the briefing room on at least four different occasions background Conduct a live interview with Fox News.
On Sunday, the U.S. Central Command issued a press release that included hundreds of enemy fighters, destroyed under operation Rough Rider, and dozens of command and storage centers. Targets include advanced missiles, drones and vessels used in attacks for commercial shipping lanes, with fewer issues as the campaign's total cost approaching $1 billion, officials said.
CBS News contacted the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command on Monday, but no one responded.
Shortly after the movement against Huthis began, Heggs got involved in the controversy with sensitive details. Shared signal Before the initial strike, March 15.
Hegseth Share similar updates In the second chat, he included his wife, brother and a private lawyer.
That same month, five officials in Heggs' inner circle were either fired or left their posts, including John Ullyot, who briefly served as Pentagon press secretary and wrote a column after he left claiming there was "complete chaos."
Chief spokesmen Hegseth and Parnell both denied the claims and had blamed the stories and dissatisfied employees on social media, but they have not yet introduced the issue to reporters.
"I think the government wants to talk about something other than the signal, but the problem is they keep messing it up," a former defense official told CBS News. "The first thing you know in a bad news cycle is to stop creating news."
During the Biden administration, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin followed the hospitalization scandal, Ask a question from the podium in the Pentagon News Briefing Room. Within about 40 minutes, he answered the questions and apologized for not revealing hospitalization and cancer diagnosis.
"It's hard to exaggerate the importance of regular press conferences in the Pentagon," said Howard Altman, president of the Military Journalists and Editors Association, in a statement to CBS News.
"The American public has the right to know what taxpayers spend and why the way they wear uniforms and why the dangers our troops and our nation are facing within the scope of operational security ... it is not a partisan issue," he said. "This is an American. A well-informed public is the cornerstone of our democracy."
Parnell has been providing weekly situation reports (or Sitreps) on X, and he talks directly to the camera about the Pentagon update as part of the government’s commitment to transparency. The weekly videos released do not provide opportunities for the media to ask questions.
Instead of regular news engagement in February, the Pentagon set up a DOD Rapid response on X. The bio-suggestion of the account “supports the mission of Secdef (Hegseth) (Hegseth) and fights fake news!”
The account usually attacks news publications and comments criticizing reports about Heggs and the Department of Defense. Account X omitted context from its statement, with the increase in U.S. military recruitment between February 2024 and February 2025, although CBS News' confirmation team found that while most of the improved recruitment belonged to Biden Administration.
The account also released misleading statements about the signal chat scandal reported by the Atlantic Ocean. The account is overseen by conservative Podcaster and veteran Graham Allen, who is now the Pentagon’s director of digital media.
"It's a good thing to follow your policies to the media's censorship," a second former defense official said. "As time goes by, this censorship is very beneficial to the decision-making process, as journalists will think about things and they will act to ask questions in ways that policy thinkers and policy makers may not have done."
