US President Donald Trump clashed with his defense secretary last week, telling Pete Hegseth the White House had been misled about the state of American munitions stockpiles amid a potential return to major combat operations in Iran, The Washington Post reported overnight.
The exchange reportedly took place at Camp David, on the sidelines of a cabinet meeting. According to the newspaper, which cited two people familiar with the exchange, Trump told Hegseth he thought the problem — a shortage of long-range and interceptor missiles — “had been fixed.”
The defense secretary punted the blame to his deputy, Stephen Feinberg, the report said.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt denied the report completely, telling The Post it is: “100% fake news. Literally never happened. And President Trump has the utmost confidence in Secretary Hegseth.”
Likewise, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said: “Secretary Hegseth did not mislead anyone about our munitions posture, and he did not blame Deputy Secretary Feinberg.”
“These claims about depleted stockpiles, internal disagreements, the Secretary’s position on Iran… are equally fictional,” he said.
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