Sec. Pete Hegseth opened the briefing and said, "Our generation understands this fight. For 47 years, these barbarians have been murdering your guys, our guys, via their proxies. Now they are racing toward a nuclear bomb. They have murdered thousands of my brothers. President Trump will not allow this now. Not ever. As they are cowards, they fire missiles from schools and hospitals, because they know their military is being targeted."

He continued to say that, "Iran stands alone and they are badly losing. On day 10, we are winning. Our standards are the same as my previous report here. We will destroy their missile stockpiles and their ability to make them. Destroy their navy and their ability to make nuclear missiles forever."

As President Trump declared, Hegseth said that “we will not let that happen again. Those days are dead. We are winning and accomplishing the president’s objectives. This is our job."

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine spoke about "the US soldiers who have been killed during this war. He says that they will never be forgotten. We are continuing our mission - going deeper into Iran's military and industrial base, to ensure peace in years to come."

"Today we struck more than 5,000 targets, GPS penetrating weapons. We also struck drone factories, and of course, our regional partners continue to intercept. Our strikes mean we made significant progress in missiles out of Iran," he added.

"We are making significant progress in destroying the navy. We struck and sank an Iranian ship and continue to target other ships. We focus on centers of gravity to prevent them from continuing one-way attacks. This is gritty and tireless work and I am proud of our forces. They are a world-class team."

"These are dedicated young people who are doing the work that we need them to do."

"Our work continues. It continues to be difficult. Please keep our forces in your thoughts. I remain deeply humbled by the 2.8 million members of the forces, as well as the memories of the fallen," Caine concluded.

Secretary Hegseth addressed the new Supreme Leader of Iran, Mojtaba Khamenei, warning that he "would be wise to heed the words of our President not to pursue nuclear weapons."

Asked about a timeline, he noted that the US was "in a very strong place, giving the President a lot of options," and clarified that "we haven't stated how long it would take. Our will is endless. Ultimatly the President gets to determine the end state of those objectives. But what he said continuously is that this is not endless, it's not protracted; the President has set a very specific mission to accomplish."

Asked about the US's disapproval of the intensity of Israeli strikes on Iranian fuel depots, Hegseth stressed that "Israel has been a very strong partner in this effort. Where they've had different objectives, they've pursued them, and we've stayed focused on ours. But what Iran has felt is the power of the world's two most powerful air forces." Regarding the strikes on the depots, he noted that "that wasn't our objective."

Addressing those Americans who oppose the operation, he clarified that "the President has made it clear that we're not getting pulled in any direction, we're leading. The President is leading, he's determining where we want to go, what the outcome will be."

He noted that he understood the concerns following years of Middle Eastern wars into which, according to him, the US was dragged.

Turning to Iran's attacks on other countries in the region, Hegseth called such attacks a "big mistake on Iran's part" and said they "expose who they really are." He added, "I can't say that we anticipated that that's exactly how they would react, but we knew it was a possibility. I think it was a demonstration of the desperation of the regime then and now, that they still think their pathway out is to try to alienate their Arab partners even more, who instead came to us, and were willing to go on the offense and have given us access to fly over them." According to the secretary, this has created "a new partnership that will continue making the region the way that President Trump did with the Abraham accords."