CNN
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine approached a pair of lecterns in the Pentagon briefing room Sunday morning to detail the most significant military operation of President Donald Trump’s tenure in office.
Hegseth spoke first, lavishing praise and congratulations on his boss in a made-for-television moment, a pressed American flag pocket square tucked into his lapel. He described Operation Midnight Hammer as an “overwhelming success” that “devastated the Iranian nuclear program” and “achieved destruction of capabilities” at the Fordow nuclear site.
Caine, dressed in military uniform, offered sober and meticulous details and a timeline of the strikes targeting Iranian nuclear facilities. He urged patience, saying the battle damage assessment “is still pending, and it would be way too early for me to comment on what may or may not still be there.”
The moment underscored their dueling approaches as Trump’s top military officials and what sources have described as a core difference between the two men.
Trump, a connoisseur of stagecraft, has long heralded the importance of having top officials straight out of “central casting.” Hegseth, a former Fox News anchor, has played a visible role as the president deliberated US involvement, an opportunity that came after his first months in the job were marred by the Signal group chat scandal and upheaval among his staff.
At the same time, Caine has emerged as a subtle, but trusted adviser behind the scenes. And as Trump weighed the biggest decision of his presidency, it was the qualities Caine demonstrated Sunday that he valued behind closed doors.
Caine was among a small group of aides Trump came to rely on as he was presented with military options to target Iran’s nuclear program.
Gen. Michael Kurilla, head of US Central Command, also became as a key voice for Trump on the issue, along with CIA Director John Ratcliffe and special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, who had been leading negotiations on a potential nuclear agreement that ultimately stalled.
Hegseth, while personally skeptical of ballooning US military involvement overseas, was largely deferential to Kurilla in recent months, current and former officials told CNN.
During a US military operation against the Houthis in Yemen earlier this year, Kurilla’s influence over Hegseth was often a point of contention among the more non-interventionist members of the Pentagon chief’s inner circle, one of whom told CNN that Kurilla would “run circles around” Hegseth.
US Central Command, responsible for American military operations in the Middle East, has also conveyed a greater sense of urgency than the civilian intelligence community when it comes to Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon.
In the lead-up to Israel’s attacks on Iran earlier this month, Central Command had endorsed a more dire timeline, believing Tehran could obtain a usable nuclear weapon more quickly if it were to sprint toward that goal, according to a source familiar with the discussions.
And while Hegseth has been present during national security meetings at the White House related to Iran, and during a meeting at Camp David where top officials drew up options for potential US involvement, Trump leaned on Caine and Kurilla.
Hegseth also received a reputation internally as an aide with a primary objective: to please Trump.
“At the end of the day, if he sensed that the president wanted something, you know, or was like, going a certain way, he would just kind of roll over,” said a source familiar with Hegseth’s thinking at the time.
Still, a White House official described Hegseth as “intimately involved” as Trump deliberated actions, “frequently briefing” the president throughout the process, leading up to a key phone call at 4 p.m. ET Saturday.
“While the administration was also actively continuing to pursue diplomacy with Iran, Secretary Hegseth called the president and gave him the final option to proceed with the strike yesterday. He continued to check in with the president to see if he wanted to proceed, and that final go-ahead was given at 4 o’clock yesterday,” the official told CNN on Sunday.
And White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt highlighted Hegseth’s influence on the operation, telling CNN in a statement, “Secretary Hegseth played a vital role in this extremely successful operation and the president fully trusts his leadership at the Pentagon. He was by the president’s side every step of the way, and the president fully trusts Pete’s leadership at the Pentagon.”
Hegseth’s visibility around this mission offers a marked change from just two months ago, when the defense secretary was embroiled in the administration’s first self-induced scandal after sharing detailed plans about a military operation against the Houthis in Yemen on a pair of Signal group chats, including one thread that included his wife and brother.
Some of Hegseth’s closest advisers subsequently sounded the alarm about the secretary’s judgment and operational security, including his former press secretary, John Ullyot, and three former senior officials Hegseth fired.
Ullyot lambasted what he described as “total chaos at the Pentagon” in a statement obtained by CNN, though Trump defended Hegseth at the time, casting blame on the media and “disgruntled employees.”
Secy. Hegseth blames ‘disgruntled former employees’ and the media in 2nd Signal scandal
Hegseth has been fixated on leaks behind the scenes, people familiar with the matter said, annoying some White House officials.
Sources told CNN at the time that Trump privately asked for feedback about Hegseth’s performance, but was hesitant to dismiss him.
“I think he’s gonna get it together,” Trump said of Hegseth in an April interview with The Atlantic.
“I had a talk with him, a positive talk, but I had a talk with him,” Trump said, adding that Hegseth’s job was “safe.”
The White House official dismissed the idea that there had been any changes to Hegseth’s stature with Trump over the first months of the president’s second term.
“He always had a standing with the president on these issues. The president has the utmost trust in Secretary Hegseth,” the official said.
Months later, Operation Midnight Hammer has been praised by military experts for its operational security and stunning lack of leaks — and Hegseth became one of the leading faces of the strikes.
Hegseth, the White House official added, “was absolutely a key player in executing this mission.”
As Trump made an address to the nation Saturday night, he was flanked by Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The defense secretary was pictured in an official photo from the Situation Room released by the White House. And he was the first administration official to speak publicly after the president, joining Caine for that Sunday morning news conference.
“It was an incredible and overwhelming success. The order we received from our commander in chief was focused, it was powerful and it was clear,” he said Sunday at the Pentagon, heralding Trump’s “bold and visionary leadership.”
He continued, “Many presidents have dreamed of delivering the final blow to Iran’s nuclear program, and none could until President Trump. The operation President Trump planned was bold and it was brilliant, showing the world that American deterrence is back. When this president speaks, the world should listen.”
CNN’s Kevin Liptak and Haley Britzky contributed to this report.
