Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared Friday that Iran’s leaders were cowering like “rats” amid U.S. strikes, just hours after they had defiantly strutted through the streets of Tehran and snapped selfies.
The former Fox News host-turned-Pentagon chief boasted at a morning press briefing that Iran’s leadership had gone underground.
“Iran’s leadership is in no better shape. Desperate and hiding, they’ve gone underground, cowering. That’s what rats do,” Hegseth said. He described Iran’s new leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, as the “so-called not-so-supreme leader” who is “wounded and likely disfigured.”
Earlier on Friday, however, senior Iranian leaders—including the president—were pictured marching through the streets of Tehran in broad daylight, alongside thousands of others at an annual pro-Palestinian rally.
A smiling President Masoud Pezeshkian even rode on the back of a motorbike during a march in Tehran. Pezeshkian had no visible bodyguards and even posed for selfies during the Quds Day rally.
“Trump’s problem is that he doesn’t understand that the Iranian nation is wise and determined,” Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council, told state media during the event.
The Telegraph reported that American and Israeli bombs struck buildings along the route of the march even as the event was underway.
Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s new Supreme Leader, did not appear to be present. He has reportedly been wounded in U.S. strikes, though the country’s state-run media released a statement attributed to him Thursday that vows to get revenge for the attacks.
Now approaching its third week, the war is rattling global oil markets, shaking confidence in Gulf financial hubs, and driving up pump prices across the U.S. Tehran’s leaders have shown no sign of seeking an off-ramp, and the Supreme Leader has vowed to continue to use the Strait of Hormuz as “leverage” against the U.S.
Hegseth, however, shrugged off concerns about the cut-off oil supply. “We have been dealing with it, and don’t need to worry about it,” he told reporters, without offering much detail.
Gen. Dan Caine called it a “tactically complex environment.”
He echoed Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s comments to CNBC on Thursday, where he said the U.S. would guide tankers through the strait, if needed. However, this plan would only go ahead when it can be done “safely and smartly,” he added.
Meanwhile, analysts have said the Trump administration appears not to have been prepared for Iran’s response to the strikes.
“Iran’s former restraint may have conveyed a false impression of weakness and incapacity,” said Mira Al Hussein, an associate fellow at the Alwaleed Centre, University of Edinburgh. “Perhaps the U.S. and Israel both assumed Iran would not risk alienating its Gulf neighbors by going all in. They miscalculated.”
The Defense Department has been contacted for comment.
