President Donald Trump appeared to shift some of the early push for military action against Iran to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, as most Americans oppose the war.
He told reporters that Hegseth was the first in the room to support a strike. “Pete, I think you were the first one to speak up,” Trump said. “And you said, ‘Let’s do it,’ because you can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.” This remark quickly drew attention because Trump has spent weeks framing the war as a decision he made to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Trump’s comment added a new twist to his public account of how the war began. Days earlier, he said he acted after hearing from advisers, including Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, Marco Rubio, and Hegseth. He concluded that Iran was preparing to attack.
“I felt it was something we had to do,” Trump said in one appearance last week. “I didn’t feel we had a choice.” In those same remarks, Trump mentioned that his team believed Iran was moving toward a point where it could threaten the United States and its allies.
Trump blames Hegseth for the war: “Pete, I think you were the first one to speak up. You said, ‘Let’s do it.'” pic.twitter.com/QBGeFuhM1M
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 23, 2026
Reuters reported on Monday that Trump personally approved the Iran operation after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argued in a call that a joint strike offered a rare chance to kill Iran’s supreme leader and weaken the regime’s command structure. That account placed the final decision solely with Trump, regardless of whether Hegseth was an early advocate pushing for action.
Hegseth has been one of the administration’s strongest public advocates for the war. At a Pentagon briefing on March 19, he stated that U.S. objectives had not changed. He listed them as destroying Iran’s missile launchers, its defense industrial base, and its navy, while ensuring Tehran never acquires a nuclear weapon. He also countered suggestions that the United States had entered an undefined conflict, although he did not provide a timeline for the campaign.
Trump, however, took a somewhat different tone on Monday. He stated that the United States had held “very good and productive” conversations aimed at ending the war and delayed planned strikes on Iranian power plants and energy facilities for five days. Iran denied that any talks had taken place with Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, calling it ‘fake news’ on X.
🚨BREAKING
Iranian media has released an animation titled “Lord of the Straits,” themed around the Strait of Hormuz. pic.twitter.com/nTGZ86gBsu
— Aleksey Berezutski 🇷🇺🎖 (@aleksbrz11) March 22, 2026
The Associated Press reported that the pause helped stabilize oil markets for a time, though the fighting continues across Iran, Israel, and neighboring Gulf countries.
The President’s effort to highlight Hegseth comes as the war has become more politically challenging at home. Joe Kent, the head of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned last week in protest of the conflict, according to the Washington Post. Reuters has also reported changing explanations from the administration about the war’s goals, timeline, and legal grounds as fighting expanded.
Trump’s remarks on Monday did not represent a direct rejection of the war. He defended the campaign as necessary to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
However, by publicly stating that Hegseth was “the first one to speak up,” Trump seemed to share responsibility for the decision at a time when the White House is trying to manage the military, economic, and political costs of the conflict.For a President who typically claims major national security decisions as solely his own, this was a notable shift in focus.
