The Trump administration\u2019s narrative on the Iran war is changing by the day.<\/p>\n
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was caught in his own lie by CBS News\u2019s Margaret Brennan, who reminded him Sunday that America\u2019s depleted missile stockpile was not a media fabrication but actually a material reality that he testified to before Congress.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200b\u200bUkraine\u2019s President Zelenskiy was on this program a few weeks ago,\u201d Brennan said<\/a>. \u201cHe made a plea, not just for more interceptors, but for the ability to produce them, for friendly governments to be able to produce Patriots. Some Republican lawmakers support this idea. Do you?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNobody makes better and more munitions than the United States of America, and we are open to co-production wherever we can,\u201d Hegseth said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd because of this administration, we\u2019re supercharging our arsenal of freedom, building more, building faster, opening up the Pentagon, ripping through the Pentagon bureaucracy to force industry to move faster so\u2014\u201d the secretary added before Brennan interjected.<\/p>\n \u201cBut there is a crisis with those stockpiles right now?\u201d pressed Brennan. \u201cThere is a crisis with those stockpiles right now in private industry. You have testified to it in front of Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo there\u2019s not,\u201d Hegseth replied. \u201cThat is a manufactured story that the media wants to peddle. And ultimately, we are, our stockpiles are great, and they\u2019ll only get stronger,\u201d he continued, before Brennan pressed again that Hegseth had testified under oath that it would take years to rebuild U.S. munitions stockpiles.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t have to read back to me what I testified, I speculated some munitions take more time than others,\u201d Hegseth said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got lots of them, we\u2019re building more than ever before. The Biden administration gave away hundreds of billions to Ukraine, and so President Trump had to refill, and he has, and we have in real time.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo, the answer to Zelenskiy\u2019s request is a no or a yes?\u201d asked Brennan, regarding Ukraine\u2019s ability to produce Patriot systems.<\/p>\n But Hegseth dodged the question.<\/p>\n \u201cUltimately, we\u2019ve worked with them, and Ukraine is buying munitions that Europe pays for, and it\u2019s great to see Europe finally step up and pay for those,\u201d he responded.<\/p>\n Mere days into the Iran war, Hegseth appeared before U.S. lawmakers alongside Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine in a closed-door meeting that reportedly discussed the rapid decline in America\u2019s long-range precision-guided missile supplies.<\/p>\n At the time, the two Defense officials relayed<\/a> that the U.S. had used a considerable amount of its wildly expensive interceptor missiles to thwart Iran\u2019s seemingly infinite supply of Shahed attack drones. <\/p>\n