The public deserves transparency about the US war in Iran. But that’s not what we’re getting — not even close.

The Pentagon hasn’t held a press briefing in two and a half months. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth hasn’t explained the military strategy behind the renewed air strikes. His department hasn’t revealed the circumstances that led to the recent deaths of US service members.

It’s all indicative of a larger effort to control information, limit access and avoid difficult questions about the war.

Pentagon press briefings were held regularly during past US conflicts, and military leaders often expressed respect (even if begrudgingly) for the media’s role and responsibility to inform service members, their families and the rest of the country.

But that feels like a vestige of a bygone era now. Hegseth has picked fights with the media, including his former employer, Fox News; has pushed the press corps out of the Pentagon complex; and has markedly reduced the free flow of information. CJR compiled an excellent timeline of those actions.

You’ll recall that Hegseth’s public affairs office sought to replace (or at least supplement) experienced military beat reporters with MAGA media types last winter. But those Trump-aligned outlets aren’t getting access now, either. The most recent Pentagon press briefing was on May 5.

The public affairs office did not respond to my request for comment about the briefing drought.

Military beat reporters tell me they’re having to rely more heavily on anonymous sources — the same sources that Hegseth wants to prosecute. He announced a new anti-leaker task force last week.

“The chilling atmosphere has gotten worse since he launched his task force with DOJ,” a military reporter told me. “Sources feel like they’ll be prosecuted for simply speaking with journalists.”

Thankfully, though, some of these sources are still in touch:

Most of what we know so far about the deaths of US service members in Jordan and Iraq has been attributed to anonymous “officials.”

This morning, the NYT’s Eric Schmitt revealed that Iran “carried out three other strikes” against US forces in Jordan in recent days, injuring dozens of service members and damaging several helicopters. “But the Pentagon did not disclose the earlier strikes, nor the casualties and damage they inflicted,” Schmitt wrote.

Schmitt listed other examples of the government withholding info: “The Trump administration has failed to disclose how the Iran war has drained U.S. supplies of critical, costly weapons, and how Iran retained and rebuilt substantial missile capabilities.”

Over the weekend, The Washington Post cited an official “speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media” who said the US is planning for a wider war, but who “cautioned that the expansion of U.S. operations will be limited by dwindling stockpiles of air defense and long-range munitions and constraints on the ability to surge more troops and aircraft into the area because of battle damage.”

The official was quoted as saying, “We do not have enough to safely sustain operations, and I don’t think the White House is aware of that.” Perhaps the person leaked to the Post in order to alert the White House?

“From its initial shots, this war has been under-explained by the administration,” CNN’s Stephen Collinson writes in this new analysis. “The return to something like full-scale aerial war after a ninth consecutive night of US air raids is no exception.”

Hegseth has said little about the US strikes. He usually just retweets the bare-bones CENTCOM announcements. But he hasn’t been altogether quiet lately.

As I noted on CNN, he touted a new testosterone screening program for troops last week. He also announced that “joint task force to IDENTIFY AND PROSECUTE LEAKERS,” though when reporters asked for more information about it, the Pentagon did not engage.

Meanwhile, President Trump has continued to loudly boast about the US dominating Iran, and that’s causing some cognitive dissonance:

This video of Fox’s Maria Bartiromo made the rounds yesterday: “I don’t understand how it’s possible that Iran has the capabilities to fight this way and continue to try to lash out… because the US has obliterated Iran’s military, and the president continues to reiterate that.”

Hasan Piker shared the clip on X and asked: “How do Trump cultists live like this?”

Trump has used the word “obliterated” dozens of times since the start of the war, so the people who automatically believe every word he says may genuinely be confused right about now.

Elsewhere on Fox, there has been some careful criticism of Trump’s apparent lack of strategy.

But this exchange, for example, hasn’t aired on Fox at all. Last night, AFP’s Danny Kemp asked Trump, “On Iran, Mr. President, you said at the start of the war it would be four or five weeks” — and Trump interjected, “This is a far bigger job that we’re doing” now. Oh?

Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín should rule today or tomorrow on the state coalition’s request for a temporary restraining order (TRO) against Paramount–WBD. “You will get a ruling by the 22nd,” i.e., Wednesday, she said at the end of a hearing last Friday.

The timing is significant because Paramount is otherwise prepared to complete the merger in the coming days. A TRO would prohibit that for 14 days (and the judge could extend it to 28 days).

Both the companies and the states are focused on the next stage: Arguments over a preliminary injunction that could freeze the merger for months.

“This is the weaponization of antitrust law, if I’ve ever seen one,” Paramount chief legal officer Makan Delrahim tells Matt Belloni on a new episode of “The Town,” out this morning.

Delrahim says Rob Bonta and the other AGs “should settle this thing if they really want an enforceable commitment.”

Asked if Paramount would be willing to divest CNN to get the deal done, Delrahim says “we’ve said we’ve been open to all legitimate discussions, but asks, “what is the harm of CNN?” Meaning: “Where’s the antitrust harm? I think if the states are using their state power to try to control speech by who owns it, that’s a serious First Amendment violation that nobody should be for, especially the creative community.”

Delrahim also responds to some of what Bonta told me last Friday. Here’s the YouTube version of the show…

Andrew Kirell writes: Andrew and Tristan Tate will appear in federal court in Miami this afternoon. Their lawyer, Joseph McBride, spoke outside the courthouse just now and told CNN’s Carolina Peguero and other reporters the brothers plan to fight their extradition to the UK, “including going all the way to the top of the food chain” — an appeal to Trump? — “to stifle and stop extradition for political reasons and for legal reasons.”

McBride made a direct appeal to the administration: “I believe that Marco Rubio and the rest of the Trump administration are not fans of communism. They’re not fans of prosecuting people for free speech…”

Andrew Kirell writes: When Trump took questions from the press pool on the way home from the World Cup last night, HuffPost reporter S.V. Date pointed to the Qatari-gifted Air Force One jet and asked, “Mr. President, this plane does not have anti-missile defense systems on it. Why are you flying it?”

Trump replied that the jet would be grounded for “about a month” to be “maxed out.”

Maggie Haberman wrote last night that “it appeared to be an admission from the president that the plane’s security measures are not as extensive as the models that have been designed to be built from the ground up to serve as Air Force One.”

The NYT may use these new Trump comments as a defense as it fights those subpoenas in court later this week…

A busy week of media industry earnings: Alphabet reports earnings on Wednesday; Comcast and TelevisaUnivision report on Thursday; and Charter reports on Friday.

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner do-over: A scaled-down version of the event takes place Friday night.