U.S. Intel Reports Debunk Trump’s Favorite Talking Point on Iran

The Pentagon has been misleading Americans about the destruction of Iran’s military arsenal, casting doubt on Donald Trump’s timeline for ending the war. 

After five weeks of military bombardment from the United States and Israel, roughly half of Iran’s missile launchers and thousands of one-way attack drones are still intact, according to an exclusive CNN report Thursday. Some of these assets may be inaccessible to the Iranian military, having been buried by strikes. 

Speaking on March 19 about the destruction of Iran’s military capabilities, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has pointed to the number of Iranian missile strikes, rather than the arsenal itself. He claimed that ballistic missile attacks against U.S. forces were “down 90 percent since the start of the conflict, same with one-way attack UAVS, think kamikaze drones.” 

While the number of strikes may have plunged, Iran’s arsenal has only been halved, according to U.S. intelligence sources.  

Still, while speaking to the nation Wednesday night, Trump emphasized the damage to Iran’s military arsenal. “Their ability to launch missiles and drones is dramatically curtailed, and their weapons factories and rocket launchers are being blown to pieces,” he said. 

“We’ve done all of it,” he continued. “Their navy is gone, their air force is gone, their missiles are just about used up or beaten.”  

One U.S. official who reviewed the intelligence cast doubt on the American military’s ability to resolve the conflict in only two or three weeks, as Trump suggested during his speech. 

“We can keep f**king them up, I don’t doubt it, but you’re out of your mind if you think this will be done in two weeks,” the official said.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell dismissed CNN’s reporting as “completely wrong.”

“The United States military has delivered a crippling series of blows to the Iranian regime,” Parnell said. “We are far ahead of schedule on accomplishing our military objectives: Destroy Iran’s missile arsenal, annihilate their navy, destroy their terrorist proxies, and ensure Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon.”

Israeli intelligence estimated that the number of remaining Iranian missiles was closer to 20 or 25 percent of the original arsenal, not including launchers that were inaccessible.

It’s worth noting that this is where Iran’s arsenal stands weeks after Trump announced that the war in Iran was already won. 

A massive overhaul is in the cards among the higher echelons of the Trump administration.

Donald Trump is “very angry” with his Cabinet thus far and is considering “moving” several officials, according to an administration official who spoke with Politico.

Others are at risk of being axed from their jobs entirely. Some of the people that Trump has expressed frustration with include Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, both of whom could lose their jobs “imminently,” according to three people “with knowledge” of the president’s thinking, who confirmed the rumors to Politico.

No final decisions have yet been made about Lutnick or Chavez-DeRemer, and it is not clear who would replace them. Publicly, the White House stressed its faith in Trump’s appointees, writing in a statement that ​​both Lutnick and Chavez-DeRemer are “doing a great job standing up for American workers, and they continue to have President Trump’s full support.”

But officials circling the White House have very different opinions when they’re allowed to speak candidly. One senior administration official told Politico that Lutnick is on “thin ice,” though they noted that Trump has considered firing him before and backed off. Pink-slipping Lutnick would give Trump the ability to say, “I’m making changes on the economy,” according to one official—a message that could be enormously valuable to Republicans ahead of a particularly contentious midterm season.

Trump dismissed his attorney general, Pam Bondi, on Thursday, thrusting her out of government and into the private sector. Her dismissal was reportedly supposed to occur Friday but was rushed due to rampant speculation about her replacement that consumed Washington Wednesday night.

An unidentified senior administration source who spoke with The Daily Mail Thursday claimed that Bondi begged Trump to reconsider, pleading to give her more time in the role, but Trump was adamant about her departure. Among the speculated reasons for her sudden exit include her handling of the Epstein files—which remains the president’s most resilient and egregious scandal—and the president’s apparent belief that Bondi tipped off California Representative Eric Swalwell to an FBI smear campaign. Swalwell has denied Bondi gave him any information.

But Bondi’s firing could be the tip of the iceberg. Trump has reportedly also surveyed his advisers about ousting Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who recently irritated Trump by shielding a former deputy who disagreed with the president’s war with Iran.

Another senior official told Politico that the high-level reorg is focused on members of his administration who he believes have either “underperformed or who have generated too much negative attention.”

Trump axed Kristi Noem from her position atop the Department of Homeland Security last month immediately following a string of abysmal appearances before Congress. Her position atop the Trump administration had become increasingly tenuous in recent months due to a series of scandals, though most notably after ICE agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis, marring Trump’s immigration agenda—a chief MAGA priority—in the process.

For what was meant to be the Golden Age of America, it’s sure looking like a recession could be on the cards.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs report Friday found the U.S. added 178,000 jobs in March, surpassing expectations. But hidden in that good news was something else: The job losses in February were far worse than previously reported. Initially reported as a loss of 92,000 jobs, the labor market actually lost a total of 133,000 jobs that month.

This update means that February represented the largest U.S. job loss since December 2020, during the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

The labor market has been consistently brutal since Trump took office in January 2025. Yearly job growth was the worst it had been outside of a recession since 2003.

“March was somewhat encouraging, but it’s been a rocky year for the labor market with almost no hiring since last April,” Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, told CNBC. “The March data will keep the Federal Reserve on hold, but no one is declaring victory yet. It’s likely to be a tough spring for job-seekers.”

The rough months come while Trump spends millions in taxpayer money on a golden ballroom for himself and his cronies (not to mention billions on his unpopular and unauthorized Iran war). Some Jay Gatsby parallels spring to mind—although at least Gatsby’s lavish spending was guided by unrequited love and a desire to fit in. Trump’s is more just because he’s a senile egoist.

A U.S. fighter jet was reportedly shot down by Iran on Friday. Iran is offering a “precious prize” to anyone who captures the pilot alive.

Iranian state media reported, and U.S. officials have anonymously confirmed to various outlets, that an American F-15 fighter jet was shot down over southern Iran. If confirmed by the U.S. military, this would be the first time Iran shot down a fighter jet over the country since the war began five weeks ago.

The Trump administration has thus far refused to publicly comment on the news.

There are conflicting reports as to whether the pilot of the jet was able to successfully eject before the crash. But just in case they did, Iranian state media is encouraging anyone who can to hunt them down.

“If you capture the enemy pilot or pilots alive and hand them over to the police, you will receive a precious prize,” an anchor said.

This is yet another nightmare scenario on the thirty-fifth day of a war that Trump has been declaring over for weeks. The image of Iran civilians going after a downed U.S. pilot does not align with the rhetoric of Iran being subdued and defeated like Trump and Defense Secretary Hegseth have been saying. And while Iran has claimed to have shot U.S. planes down before, it has not gone on live TV to invoke a manhunt for a U.S. soldier.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s rampant racism and sexism extend further than we previously knew.

Hegseth has made efforts to block or delay the promotion of more than one dozen female and Black officers across the Army, Air Force, Navy, and the Marines, according to nine U.S. officials familiar with the process who spoke with NBC News.

“There is not a single service that has been immune to this level of involvement by Hegseth,” one of the U.S. officials told NBC News.

These leaks come just hours after Hegseth removed General Randy George, the Army’s chief of staff, in the midst of Donald Trump’s reckless war in Iran. George had recently asked to meet Hegseth to discuss his decision to thwart promotions for female and Black service members, but Hegseth refused, two of the U.S. officials told NBC News. Clearly, military officials aren’t pleased with Hegseth’s decisions.

The apparent reasons to block these promotions varied but seemed to have nothing to do with conduct—more with the identities of the officers and what they represented to Hegseth.

Two officials told NBC News that the officers whose advancement were blocked had been supportive of mask mandates or were Black or female, and therefore attached to the DEI programs Hegseth has spent months railing against. Another officer was denied a promotion due to their affiliation with former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, the officials said.

Hegseth blocked the promotions of three Marines, including two women and one Black man. He held up a list of naval officers who’d been selected to become one-star admirals, sparking concern that some could be removed over race or gender. In the Air Force, female officers and members of racial minority groups were pulled off a list for promotion, among others.

Hegseth’s moves could also prove dangerous, considering the U.S. is in the middle of a war. Preventing senior officers from taking over their new posts could hurt military readiness.