Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) quoted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth back to him this week from his testimony on April 8 concerning the Iran war. Noting that attacks since the ceasefire breakdown have successfully targeted U.S. bases and troops in the region, resulting in casualties, Murray said she’s “had a lot of trouble following this administration’s contradictory statements about the war.”
Murray said to Hegseth: “On April 8th, and I quote, you said ‘their missile program is functionally destroyed. Launchers, production facilities, and existing stockpiles depleted and decimated and almost completely ineffective. Mr. Secretary, Iran has been firing at U.S. military bases in the region and ships for the last week. How is it possible — if their capabilities were, quote, functionally destroyed three months earlier as you claimed — for them to be doing this now?”
Murray: April 8th, you said their missile program is functionally destroyed. Launchers, production facilities and existing stockpiles depleted and decimated and almost completely ineffective. Iran has been firing at U.S. Military bases in the region and ships for the last week.… pic.twitter.com/BnJRUulJGN
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 21, 2026
Hegseth did not answer Murray’s question, saying instead that Iran at the “weakest point militarily it has ever been in in the past decade, maybe in 47 years.”
After mentioning Iran’s role as a terrorist regime and its pursuit of a nuclear weapon, Hegseth told Murray: “I acknowledge they still have capabilities.”
[NOTE: During a press conference in March, just weeks after the U.S. launched its bombing campaign in Iran, Hegseth said: “Never before has a modern, capable military, which Iran used to have, been so quickly destroyed and made combat ineffective.”]
Murray’s questions follow repeated assertions by both President Trump and Hegseth that Iran’s military had been “obliterated.” The contradictions, as Murray characterized them, are being raised by more than Democrats. Indeed, the Democratic senator’s questions mirrored nearly verbatim a question posed by Fox News star and major Trump supporter Maria Bartiromo this week.
Bartiromo expressed that she was perplexed by the news of Iranian missile attacks on U.S. bases, quoting Trump’s claim that — as she understood it — such attacks weren’t possible by a wounded Iran.
As seen below, Bartiromo said: “I don’t understand how it’s possible that Iran has the capabilities to fight this way and continue to try to lash out at Gulf countries and U.S. military bases. Because the U.S. has obliterated Iran’s military and the president continues to reiterate that.”
Bartiromo: I don’t understand how Iran has the capabilities to fight this way because the U.S. has obliterated Iran’s military, and the president continues to reiterate that. pic.twitter.com/E6mDPnLuzF
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 19, 2026