Washington — Forty-five days into a U.S. air campaign against Iranian-backed Houthis, American forces have hit more than 1,000 targets in Yemen. Yet, despite promises from Trump administration officials to run “the most transparent Defense Department in history,” the Pentagon has held just one formal briefing in the first 100 days of President Trump’s second term.
“In line with the secretary’s vision to make this the most transparent Department of Defense in history, I gave you my personal commitment to make these briefings more routine,” said top Pentagon public affairs aide Sean Parnell on March 17, during the only formal briefing conducted so far.
During the same period, the White House and State Department have held 18 and 13 briefings, respectively, as of April 28.
Under former President Joe Biden, the Pentagon had 34 on-camera briefings in its 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 on-camera briefings from the Defense Department.
The Pentagon has a long history of briefing the media about military operations. Until his departure in 1968, Barry Zorthian would climb to the rooftop of Saigon’s Rex Hotel to give reporters the Pentagon’s official version of the Vietnam War. The briefings were branded the “Five O’Clock Follies” by skeptical reporters, but even so, the dialogue between spokesperson and journalist provided a critical stream of information about what the government was doing on behalf of American citizens.
The tradition stretched across wars — from Desert Storm in 1991 to the 1999 Kosovo air campaign — and even during the Biden administration’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Pentagon continued to brief the press regularly.
Retired Rear Adm. T. McCreary, who ran the Navy’s public affairs office as the chief of naval information from 2003 to 2006, told CBS News there are three reasons to hold news briefings: To get your story out first, so the public reacts to you; second, to stop the spread of the enemy putting out disinformation to spin the story; and third, to inform the taxpayers what the Pentagon, which has the largest discretionary budget of any department, is doing with its money.
“Every time the Pentagon and the [Defense Department] establishments start being less forthcoming with information, it erodes the trust and transparency that was built up over years to where the faith and the establishment sometimes starts getting questioned,” McCreary said.
The Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Principles of Information details the Pentagon’s guidelines for public affairs. Included is the promise to “make available timely and accurate information so that the public, the Congress, and the news media may assess and understand the facts about national security and defense strategy.”
The single on-camera briefing the Pentagon held 43 days ago took place in the days after U.S. Central Command launched the ongoing campaign against the Houthis. Parnell, the chief spokesperson, and the director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich answered questions on the operation.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has held news conferences and short question and answer sessions with a small group of reporters while traveling but has not yet conducted an on-camera briefing in the Pentagon Briefing Room, which accommodates about 60 reporters. He has, however, used the briefing room on at least four separate occasions as a backdrop for live interviews with Fox News.
On Sunday, U.S. Central Command issued a press release boasting of hundreds of enemy fighters killed and dozens of command and storage centers destroyed under Operation Rough Rider. The targets, officials said, included advanced missiles, drones, and vessels used in Houthi attacks on commercial shipping lanes—claims offered with little public scrutiny and even fewer questions answered as the total cost of the campaign nears $1 billion, CNN reported.
CBS News reached out to the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command with questions on Monday, but neither one has responded.
Soon after the campaign against the Houthis began, Hegseth was embroiled in controversy over sensitive details he shared over Signal on March 15 ahead of the initial strikes.
Hegseth has denied sending any classified information, but over a month later, his use of Signal is still under scrutiny, following the revelation that he shared similar updates in a second chat that included his wife, brother and personal attorney.
In that same month, five officials in Hegseth’s inner circle have either been fired or left their positions, including John Ullyot, who briefly served as Pentagon Press Secretary and wrote an op-ed after his departure claiming there is “total chaos” at the Pentagon.
Hegseth and Parnell, the chief spokesperson, have both denied these claims and have on social media blamed the stories on the media and disgruntled employees, but they have not briefed journalists to address questions.
“I think the administration would like to talk about something besides Signal, but the problem is they keep screwing it up,” a former senior defense official told CBS News. “You know the first thing about being in a bad news cycle is to stop creating news.”
During the Biden administration, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, in the aftermath of his hospitalization scandal, took questions from the podium in the Pentagon press briefing room. For about 40 minutes, he answered questions and apologized for not disclosing his hospitalization and cancer diagnosis.
“It is hard to overstate the importance of having the Pentagon hold regular press briefings,” said Howard Altman, president of the Military Reporters and Editors association in a statement to CBS News.
“The American public has a right to know how and why taxpayer dollars are spent, how those in uniform are faring and, within the boundaries of operational security, the dangers our troops and nation face…this is not a partisan issue,” he said. “It is an American one. A well-informed public is a cornerstone of our democracy.”
Parnell has been going to X to provide weekly situation reports — or sitreps — where he talks straight to the camera about Pentagon updates as part of the administration’s promise of transparency. The videos released each week do not provide the opportunity for the media to ask questions.
Instead of regular press engagements, the Pentagon in February created DOD Rapid Response, a social media account on X. The account’s bio states it is “Supporting The Mission of SecDef [Hegseth] And Fighting Against Fake News!”
The account commonly attacks news publications and posts comments criticizing reporting about Hegseth and the Defense Department. The X account has omitted context from its statements, touting an increase in U.S. military recruiting numbers between February 2024 through February 2025, even though much of the credit for improved recruitment numbers belongs to Biden administration, as CBS News’ Confirmed team found.
The account also posted misleading statements about the Signal chat scandal reported by The Atlantic. The account is overseen by conservative podcaster and Army veteran Graham Allen, who is now the Pentagon’s digital media director.
“Holding your policies up to the light of media scrutiny is a good, healthy thing,” a second former senior defense official said. “Over time, that scrutiny is very good for the policymaking process because reporters are going to think of things, and they’re going to approach the way to ask questions in ways that the policy thinkers and the policy makers may not have done.”
Julia Ingram and
contributed to this report.
