Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was repeatedly educated as he attempted to defend President Donald Trump’s war in a 60 Minutes grilling on Sunday night.
Hegseth’s interview with Major Garrett comes just over one week after the president initiated war with Iran by joining with Israel in conducting strikes on the country.
The chief Washington correspondent for CBS News grilled the 45-year-old on those strikes, which have now killed an estimated 1600 Iranians, including the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a school filled with children.
The strikes have shown no sign of slowing down, even in the face of retaliatory strikes from Iran that have killed eight U.S. soldiers and counting.
“What I want your viewers to understand is this is only just the beginning,” Hegseth warned.
At one point, Hegseth needed to be reminded by Major Garrett that he had already told the media that the U.S. did not have any overt or covert forces inside Iran at the moment.
“I wouldn’t tell you that if we did,” Hegseth replied, prompting Garrett to remind him, “Earlier this week you said no. Is that still the answer?”
“Yeah, that’s still the answer,” Hegseth conceded. “But we reserve the right. We would be completely unwise if we did not reserve the right to take any particular option, whether it included boots on the ground or no boots on the ground.”
During a press briefing with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine on Mar. 4, Hegseth boasted of the military’s success in seizing control of Iran’s airspace and waterways “without boots on the ground.” Gen. Caine declined to answer when asked what conditions would make deploying boots on the ground necessary, calling that a question for policymakers.
In another moment in the 60 Minutes interview, seemingly unhappy with his answer to a possible surrender, Major Garrett explained to Hegseth that, “Typically, the understanding of a surrender is person-to-person. Is that what would be required in a matter like this?”
“Well, there’s a lotta different ways,” Hegseth responded. “Whether they want to admit it or not, whether their pride lets them say it out loud or not—it’s President Trump who will set the terms of that. ”
“This is war. This is conflict. This is bringing your enemy to their knees. Now, whether they will have a ceremony in Tehran Square and surrender, that’s up to them.”
Asked whether the U.S. plans to deal with Iran’s stores of highly enriched uranium, Hegseth went on a rant about not telling the enemy or the press your plans.
“I would never tell you or anybody else what our options are,” Hegseth told Garrett. “People ask boots on the ground, no boots on the ground, four weeks, two weeks, six weeks, go in, go in?”
“President Trump knows, I know, you don’t tell the enemy, you don’t tell the press, you don’t tell anybody what your limits would be on an operation,” he continued. “We’re willing to go as far as we need to in order to be successful.”
Hegseth also declined to answer about the strike on the elementary school in the city of Minab, which killed an estimated 175 people including dozens of children.
“Well, we’re still investigating and that’s where I’ll leave it today. But what I will emphasize to you and to the world is that unlike our adversaries, the Iranians, we never target civilians,” Hegseth said. When asked by Garrett if the report from two officials that concluded that the U.S. was likely conducted by the U.S. was false, Hegseth again declined to answer, telling Garrett, “I’ve already said we’re investigating.”
“If you could tell the American public, ‘It definitively was not us,’ you would tell us, wouldn’t you?” Garrett asked.
“I would say that it’s being investigated, which is the only answer I’m prepared to give.”
When he wasn’t avoiding questions, the defense secretary was dismissing criticisms that have been leveled at the Trump administration, including skepticism over just how imminent a threat Iran’s nuclear weapons program really, which the Trump administration crippled in strikes it conducted in June, actually was.
“Some might look at that sequence of events and say, well, that it was an opportunity more than an imminent threat,” Garrett said.
“I mean, I think much of that discussion is silly and academic,” Hegseth replied. “They’ve been killing us for 48 years, 47 years. They have unabated nuclear ambitions.”
On the subject of U.S. casualties, Hegseth, who served in the Army National Guard during the Iraq War, repeated Trump’s talking points, telling Garrett, “The president’s been right to say there will be casualties. Things like this don’t happen without casualties. There will be more casualties.”
“I mean, especially our generation knows what it’s like to see Americans come home in caskets… but that doesn’t weaken us one bit. It stiffens our spine and our resolve to say this is a fight we will finish.”
Despite spending much of the interview declining to answer questions and repeating White House talking points, Hegseth promoted the extended interview in a post on X.
“Please watch the entire @60Minutes interview,” Hegseth wrote. “You’ll understand what POTUS is doing for our country—and why.”
“And…how we are learning from—and avoiding—the mistakes of previous administrations.”
