Washington DC - President Donald Trump made the bizarre claim on Tuesday that while the US is apparently nearing an end to the war with Iran, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wants it to keep going.

"You know, the only two people that were quite disappointed, I don't want to say this, but I have to," Trump said in the Oval Office on Tuesday alongside Hegseth and new Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

"I said, 'Pete and General Razin Caine, I think this thing is going to be settled very soon,' and they go, 'Oh, that's too bad,'" Trump went on, giving off a little chuckle. "Pete didn't want it to be settled!"

US and Israeli bombardments on Iran have slaughtered thousands of civilians and laid waste to large parts of Tehran and other Iranian cities. The US is thought to be responsible for an attack that hit an elementary school and killed hundreds of innocent children.

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Trump and Hegseth's war has also been responsible for the death of 13 US service members and the serious wounding of at least 200 others.

"Pete, do you want to give about a three-minute statement on how we're doing in this, as I call it, military operation?" Trump asked, channeling language similar to that used by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2022, when he called his attempted invasion of Ukraine a "special military operation."

Hegseth used the opportunity to boast about his war-fighting prowess, declaring that "never in history has a modern military... been so rapidly and historically obliterated, defeated, from Day One with overwhelming firepower."

"We see ourselves as part of this negotiation as well," he went on. "We negotiate with bombs."