CHIEF PENTAGON SPOKESMAN SEAN PARNELL: Hey. Good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for joining me today. I'll start off with a few things at the top and then I'll get to some of your questions here at the end. But let's start off with Ukraine because I'm sure that a lot of you have a lot of questions about that.
The Department of Defense continues to provide the president with robust options regarding military aid to Ukraine, consistent with his goal of bringing this tragic war to an end. And at the same time, the department is rigorously examining and adapting its approach towards achieving this objective, while also preserving US military readiness and defense priorities that support the president's America First agenda.
This capability review, and that's exactly what it is, it's a capability review, is being conducted to ensure US military aid aligns with our defense priorities. And we will not be providing any updates to specific quantities or types of munitions being provided to Ukraine or the timelines associated with these transfers. But the secretary will continue to make recommendations to the president for his decision on military assistance to Ukraine going forward.
We see this as a commonsense, pragmatic step towards having a framework to evaluate what munitions are sent and where. But we want to be very clear about this last point and let it be known that our military has everything that it needs to conduct any mission anywhere, anytime, all around the world.
We have the most lethal fighting force in the world. If you need further proof of that, look no further than Operation Midnight Hammer and the total obliteration of Iran's nuclear ambitions there.
So, switching to Iran. Based on the success of the US and Israeli military strikes, Iran is much further away today from a nuclear weapon than they were before.
The president took bold action to fulfill his promise to the American people, and that promise was Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And after the 12-day war between Iran and Israel, we have a ceasefire, and we finally have peace.
And the Department of Defense will support the diplomatic mission to continue that peace by ensuring that we maintain capability across the Middle East so that the president and the secretary of defense have a range of military options available to defend both our citizens, our troops, our forces in the region.
And as such, we don't have any force posture updates at this time in the CENTCOM AOR.
OK. Let's transition to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security and our partnership with them.
The department continues its important work in securing our borders and supporting the Department of Homeland Security.
Approximately 8,500 military personnel assigned to Joint Task Force Southern Border continue to enhance US Customs and Border Patrol's capacity to identify, track and disrupt threats to border security.
Since the secretary authorized enhanced detection and monitoring on March 20th, Joint Task Force Southern Border has conducted more than 3,500 patrols, including more than 150 trilateral patrols with CBP and the Mexican military.
The strong partnership and coordinated efforts between the Department of Defense and Customs and Border Patrol yielded exceptional results between June 28th and June 30th with zero got-aways across the entire southern border during that timeframe.
We have made incredible progress, and we'll continue to work towards achieving 100 percent operational control of the border. And recently, Secretary Hegseth directed the secretaries of the Air Force and the Navy to take necessary action to establish national defense areas along the US Mexico border.
The South Texas NDA administered by the Department of the Air Force will include federal property on and along 250 river miles of the Rio Grande River. The Yuma NDA administered by the Department of the Navy will include approximately 140 miles of federal property along the US Mexico border near the Barry M. Goldwater Range in Arizona.
These will be the third and the fourth designated national defense areas along the border and we'll continue to enhance the department's ability to protect the southern border from unlawful entry.
The National Guard is also playing an essential role in protecting the US southern border from illegal entry and maintaining the sovereignty, the territorial integrity and the security of the United States.
Over 4,200 Texas National Guard soldiers and airmen on state active duty continue to support Operation Lone Star and nearly 70 Florida National Guard members are on state active duty as well. They're conducting base camp security at Alligator Alcatraz.
In the greater Los Angeles area, approximately 5,000 military personnel assigned to Task Force 51 continue the important mission to protect federal functions personnel and property in that area.
These federalized, California National Guard and US Marines have supported more than 170 missions in over 130 separate locations from nine federal agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Agency, the US Marshal Service, ICE and the Department of Homeland Security.
OK. So, let's switch gears to the budget. I want to take a minute from the podium today to applaud the Senate on passing the president's one big, beautiful bill and I would urge the US House of Representatives to do the same.
This bill's necessary investments in shipbuilding, military ships, aircraft icebreakers, unmanned systems, artificial intelligence, $25 billion for the development of Golden Dome. All of these things directly help achieve the president's Peace through Strength agenda and will help equip our warfighters to protect the homeland against 21st century threats.
This reconciliation bill is a once in a generation opportunity to revolutionize our nation's defense capabilities by investing heavily in service member quality of life, including housing modernization, childcare, education reforms, health care improvements.
I mean, all of these things are great, and the department is just laser-focused on getting our warfighters the funding they need to execute their mission.
Let's talk about recruiting briefly. A strong and lethal military, as many in this room know, requires capable recruits and we're excited to announce that the Air Force and Space Force have both hit their recruiting goals three months ahead of schedule, thanks to President Trump and Secretary Hegseth's leadership, enthusiasm to serve is at all-time highs.
Since November 5th, 2024, the US military has seen the highest recruiting percentage of mission achieved in 30 years.
Let's talk EUCOM real quick. Over the weekend, US Air Force Lieutenant General Grynkewich was officially confirmed as the next Supreme Allied Commander Europe and the US Commander of European Command. He officially assumed command of the US military mission in Europe during a change of command ceremony in which US Air Force General Dan Razin Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff served as the presiding officer.
General Grynkewich relieved General Chris Cavoli, who is retiring from military service after nearly four decades. So, congratulations to you, Chris, on a successful career. And we're also very proud to have Grynch [ph] at the helm in Europe.
And in closing, before I take some of your questions, I just want to take an opportunity to recognize the career of Lita Baldor, who's retiring after 20 years covering the Department of Defense.
I want to thank Lita for her dedication to covering the issues, the operations of this department and the people of this department in depth, and she's made my job and those who had it before me a hell of a lot more difficult, but we get it, that's her job to ask those tough questions. So, to Lita, congratulations. Good luck and everything that you want to do and thank you for everything that you gave this department.
And finally, as our nation commemorates its 249th birthday on Friday, let us never forget that the freedom we enjoy in America is never free. Our freedom is insured by the men and women in uniform spanning here at home and across the globe who dedicate themselves to its preservation.
So let us never forget our fallen who made the ultimate sacrifice. Let us never forget their families who continue to carry that very heavy burden. And as we celebrate the 4th of July with family and friends at backyard barbecues, or wherever it is that you celebrate this nation's independence, please remember that the very best of our nation remains forward and on watch.
And so, thank you all for your patience during what is a longer than normal topper. And with that, I would love to take some of your questions. Rebecca?
Q: Hi. Yeah. So obviously with respect to Ukrainian aid, the United States announced that they were going to be withholding certain aspects of aid. Ukraine responded by saying that this is going to embolden Russia. What is the department's response to that argument?
MR. PARNELL: Well, the president's strategic outset with regards to Ukraine and Russia has been one of peace. He campaigned on this. When he was asked on a town hall with CNN about that war, he said he wanted to just stop people from dying. And so peace has been the president's highest aspiration and we here at the department support those goals and those missions.
But it's important to remember that the stuff that I mentioned in my topper, like what we've done here at the Department of Defense, is create a framework to analyze what munitions we're sending where to help the president, and the secretary of defense make decisions. And so ultimately, our job here at the Department of Defense is to pursue the president's America First agenda and make sure that we achieve peace through strength throughout the world.
Q: Thank you.
MR. PARNELL: How about, Olivia?
Q: Thank you. As you said, the Air Force and Space Force hit their recruiting goals three months early and the Navy announced that they did the same a month ago. What does Secretary Hegseth attribute these increases to after the Biden administration saw drops in recruitment and failed to meet those goals?
MR. PARNELL: Well, I think we recently stood up a recruiting task force here a couple of weeks ago to analyze and look at just these types of questions. Recruiting is a constellation of different things and one of the things that we recognize here at the department. I mean, to answer your question directly, I mean, I believe that with President Trump as a commander in chief and Secretary Hegseth at the helm here in the DOD, leadership matters and certainly, their leadership and moral clarity as it pertains to certain issues not just here within the department, but all around the world has inspired people to want to join and serve this country in great numbers.
But as we stand up this recruiting task force, one of the things that I recognized right off the bat was the idea of propensity. And what I mean by that is how we here in this department ask questions about people who might want to serve this country. And if you're an 18-year-old kid, propensity essentially means, like, do you see the US military as a viable career path moving forward?
And so, in the late 1980s that number was somewhere between 25 and 27 percent of the country who believe that service was a viable path forward. After 9/11, we believe that number was somewhere between 25, 27 percent, fluctuating in a couple of years thereafter. But in between, that number has steadily fallen to, I think we're somewhere between only 7 percent and 11 percent of this country see military service as a viable career path moving forward.
And so obviously, at this department, we recognize that number is probably unsustainable. And while we have great recruiting numbers now, it might not always be the case. And so one of the things that we're trying to achieve with this recruiting task force is answering the tough question about how do we set the conditions here culturally in this country to have more kids want to serve the country and see it as a viable career path.
One of the interesting things about that is the idea of the intersection between propensity and proximity and the idea that when people are exposed to and see somebody in uniform on a day-to-day basis, their desire to serve this country skyrockets something we're up to 50 percent, that they see military service as a viable career path.
And I think over the last 15 or 20 years, while much of the research is borne out that the US military is largely a legacy force, in other words like grandfather served, father served, more likely for a son or daughter to serve, I think that's part of the reason why they're exposed to somebody in uniform.
So, part of the question I'd like to answer as part of this is that — the department would like to answer as part of this recruiting task force, is the intersection between propensity and proximity. And if we can get servicemen and women in every community in the country involved in community events exposed to our kids in their high schools, whatever, I think that will help us solve our recruiting problems.
So, I think the secretary is looking at a constellation of different things to sustain the momentum that we have now. But the reality is, is that leadership matters and the president and the secretary are inspirational leaders. Tara?
Q: Thank you for doing this.
MR. PARNELL: You're welcome.
Q: So how much did Iran's retaliatory strike against Al Udeid kind of persuade the department to look at the stockpiles? Because it did take an enormous amount of Patriots to defend that base against the ballistic missiles. And then secondly on Iran, again, have you had time now to do a deeper assessment of the damage to the nuclear facilities and have there been any sort of like air patrols or anything like that to gather additional information?
MR. PARNELL: So, I'll answer your second question first. Our assessment of the battle damage around Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan remains unchanged. I mean, we believe and certainly all of the intelligence that we've seen have led us to believe that Iran's — those facilities especially have been completely obliterated.
And the interesting kind of side point about this, Tara is that all of the conversations that we've had since Operation Midnight Hammer with our allies all around the world, but certainly also in the region, they say a couple of things. They share our sentiments about the degradation of Iran's nuclear program and the fact that we have degraded their program by one to two years. At least intel assessments inside the department assessed that and I think their intelligence shares that conclusion.
Q: Current assessments by this department think it's been degraded or delayed by one to two years?
MR. PARNELL: I think we're thinking probably closer to two years, like, degraded their program by two years. But what we've seen, almost — in fact, just universally among our allies was them congratulating the United States, the president and the secretary of defense on that bold operation, and the idea that American action in Iran has set the conditions for global stability.
You think back during my time in Afghanistan, when we would do sensitive site exploitations in Afghanistan, something like 20 years ago, almost all of the weapons that we pull out of those sensitive site exploitations were Iranian weapons. Iran has been a major exporter of terror all around the world and nations the world over have been subject to their terror.
So, I think that nations all around the world have — they know that when America is strong and speaks clearly the world is a better and more stable place. And so I think it pertains to your — to get your first question here now, remind me what you asked again.
Q: How much did Iran's retaliatory strike on Al Udeid kind of press the department to look at the stockpiles?
MR. PARNELL: Right. Well, we're always assessing our munitions and where we're sending them and part of what we wanted to do here at the department was, again, create a framework. We can't give weapons to everybody all around the world. We have to look out for America and defending our homeland and our troops around the world.
So, I mean, that's something that we always do, both before and after operations and it's the president's job, along with the secretary of defense to determine how we use those weapons.
Q: Can I follow up on that? You said in your opening, just to Tara's first question, or I guess the second question that you answered first. You said in your opening that that this led to the obliteration of Iran's nuclear ambitions. And I wonder if the assessment is not just that you're citing is not the program was degraded, but that Iran no longer has the ambition to even create a nuclear weapon. Is there an intelligence or assessment that says that?
MR. PARNELL: Well, I mean we believe that sending bombers from Missouri, 37 hours on a mission, not a single shot fired at them, took a very strong psychological toll on Iranian leadership. We also believe that the degradation of the facilities at Fordow, Esfahan and Natanz degraded their physical capability of constructing a bomb.
And it's not just enriched uranium or centrifuges or things like that. We destroyed the components that they would need to build a bomb. And so, when you take that constellation of different things into consideration, yeah, we believe that Iran's nuclear capability has been severely degraded, perhaps even their ambition to build a bomb.
I mean, ultimately, the president has said he's not going to allow them to build a bomb. The Israelis are not going to allow them to have a bomb, and they know that. And I think that factors into their decision-making process.
Q: Is that a final assessment that you're citing there or is there still more information coming?
MR. PARNELL: The assessments are ongoing and every day that goes by, the intelligence picture that we have gets clearer and clearer. And as we get those updates, Courtney, we'll keep you updated. Mike.
Q: No, I'm good.
MR. PARNELL: No? OK. Noah.
Q: Could you be more specific about the nature of the pause in weapons being provided to Ukraine? When did it begin? What munitions are being affected here? And then who was involved in the review that you're describing right now? And is that still ongoing or is it over?
MR. PARNELL: I can't go into detail about what weapons were paused and when and what we're providing and when. Ultimately, the president and the secretary will make those decisions about what happens with those weapon systems. Obviously, keeping in mind that the president was elected on an America first platform to put America first.
And so, our job is to as political appointees here in the Department of Defense is to provide the president a range of options to do just that.
Q: Thank you. Is the Pentagon working on a joint fitness assessment test, which is a PT test that all service members would have to take, in addition to the one that they have to take for their services? If so, what will the standards be?
MR. PARNELL: Well, we're currently reviewing that right now, so I don't have any details to provide on that yet, but when we get them, I will let you know.
Q: So, you are looking at a possible PT test for all service members in addition to what they have to take —
MR. PARNELL: We're evaluating standards across the board. How about Wallace?
Q: Thank you. I wanted to ask a question pertaining to Syria. I was going to ask you, does the US have plans to continue to draw down the troop presence in Syria? And if so, are they confident that the current Syrian government can successfully keep under detention the 10,000 ISIS fighters currently there?
MR. PARNELL: Well, I mean, certainly, the president has talked about expanding our relationship with Syria, and I think we have high hopes there. But right now, we've still got about 1,500 troops thereabouts in Syria. But we're not going to comment further on force posture there. But we're optimistic about the future in Syria, as the president has already said before. Mike?
Q: I do remember my question now. Sorry.
MR. PARNELL: I thought I saw you with your hand up.
Q: Yeah. Do you all believe that the Biden administration, the past four years sort of basically opened up the door to Ukraine and say take whatever you want without much idea to sort of keep control of the inventory? And is that one of the reasons why you want to see what's in in the storage or not?
MR. PARNELL: Absolutely. I think that for a long time, four years under the Biden administration, we were giving away weapons and munitions without really thinking about how many we have. And I think that this president was elected on putting this country first and defending the homeland. And then you couple that with our national defense strategy and a shift to the Indo-Pacific.
And part of our job is to give the president a framework that he can use to evaluate how many munitions we have and where we're sending them. And that review process is happening right now and it's ongoing. Haley.
Q: Thank you so much. Thanks for doing this, Sean. On Iran, the IAEA chief said this weekend that he believes Iran could begin enriching uranium within months. Does the department disagree with that? Are you saying the secretary does not share that?
MR. PARNELL: Well, I'm not going to comment on anything with the IAEA and Iran, but our assessment of Iran's nuclear program remains unchanged.
Q: Could you also provide an update on the review panel on Afghanistan and what work has been done there thus far?
MR. PARNELL: Yeah. We've got a great team coming together, most of whom will be here in July. And Haley, I think that's a great question. I just want to say, our strategic outset here for this review, you think back to the Vietnam War and helicopters on embassies. And I got to believe that there were a lot of first lieutenants, captains, majors who witnessed that, who fought in that war and thought, boy, I wish we could have ended this war differently.
And some of those first lieutenants, captains, majors, I'm sure stayed in and became one-star, two-star, three-star generals and then maybe led and commanded in Operation Desert Storm. And I find that interesting because in Operation Desert Storm, there's a clear mission, clear end state, American troops withdrawn when that end state was realized.
And I feel like many of those one-star, two-star, three-star generals perhaps retired after Desert Storm and a lot of that institutional knowledge and that pain that was experienced during the withdrawal of Vietnam was probably lost. And then flash forward 10 years, 9/11 happens, 20 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And we find ourselves at the end of the Afghan war in a remarkably similar situation that we were in Vietnam. So, the question that I have here and that the department has, is what happened? Like, how do we as a department make sure that something like in Vietnam, and something there again that happened in Afghanistan, never happens again?
Helicopters and embassies in Vietnam, helicopters and embassies and in Afghanistan, it's just not the desired end state that we were looking for in those conflicts. And so how do we get an assessment at the tactical, strategic and maybe presidential level, of questions that how was intel reported during the withdrawal?
You know, how do we structure our report in the micro, at the tactical level to answer a lot of the questions that the American people had, like, questions like why did we abandon Bagram? How did we end up in Kandahar? All of these questions are the types of questions that we're going to be asking.
But ultimately, it's about weaving these lessons learned into doctrine and the idea that like maybe we can use this review to reform the way that we evaluate and promote young noncommissioned officers and young officers. Like for example, if you read the Afghan reports that came out every June, regardless of who the task force commander was in Afghanistan, those reviews were remarkably similar, but the end state was a disaster.
So, I think if you think back to my time in Afghanistan as a young commander giving battlefield update briefs as a captain to my battalion commander, if I were constantly saying that my area of operations was a disaster, it didn't have the ammo or troops that I needed to accomplish the mission, the likelihood of me getting promoted was probably not great. So how do we set the conditions here in the department to create a sense of honesty where officers are reporting, what they believe to be accuracy. They're concerned about maybe their area of operations. They're concerned about the truth and maybe less about their careers.
And that's not an indictment on the officers in the DOD, it's just the way that our system is constructed. And so, we've got a great team that we've put together, many of whom will start in July, where the real work will start. I just had a great meeting with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs about this and how the Joint Staff can help collaborate on this, but I'm very optimistic about where we're going with this review, Haley.
Q: Have you started interviews for this report or [inaudible] report? What all has happened?
MR. PARNELL: Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we've done interviews. We've had meetings. I mean, we're getting a lot done. I mean, I feel really good about it. I'll take one more question.
Q: Thank you.
MR. PARNELL: Go ahead. Go ahead.
Q: Thank you, Sean. I have two questions, Iran, China and Korea. Iran has signed a deal with China to purchase 40 Chinese fighter jets. What are your concerns about Iran and China military cooperation?
MR. PARNELL: Well, obviously we're watching that. We're very concerned about that especially as we look to shift force posture to the Indo-Pacific. But ultimately, I think that what we're doing here at the Department of Defense, building up our military with historic recruiting numbers, Peace through strength, I mean ultimately, it's about reestablishing deterrence to make our enemies think twice about doing things that we wouldn't want them to do.
Q: South Korea. And regarding the reduction of US troops in South Korea, are there any specific plans for reducing the number of US troops in South Korea and changing their rules? And when will the time be?
MR. PARNELL: Well, normally we don't comment on force posture reviews here from the podium, something that we always do, but you know, and you've been covering this building for a long time. We've got an ironclad alliance with the Republic of Korea, and we're going to remain true to that alliance. OK.
Thanks, everybody. So, we'll do this again. We'll do this again very soon. We'll talk soon. Thank you, everybody.