Trump reveals 'present' from Iran, confirms estimated timeline for war

Sara Netanyahu, wife of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, met in Washington this week with spouses of world leaders, including first lady Melania Trump.

As well as participating in events hosted at the White House, Mrs. Netanyahu used the visit to highlight international support for Israel during its ongoing war.

During the meetings, Mrs Netanyahu emphasized Israel’s resilience amid the conflict and drew attention to the sacrifices of “lone soldiers” — young people who serve in the Israeli military without immediate family in the country — and highlighted the profound commitment shown by young men and women who come to Israel on their own to serve in the IDF.

The meetings also underscored broader themes of national unity, support for children, and the role of global leadership in times of crisis.

 “In my meetings in Washington, I really felt the warmth, support, and solidarity for Israel among other world leaders’ spouses,” Mrs. Netanyahu said.

“I spoke about Israel’s resilience during wartime, the extraordinary sacrifices made by lone soldiers and their families, and how deeply important it is to protect the next generation and ensure our children can grow up in safety, dignity, and hope,” she added.

Seizing Iran’s Kharg Island — the hub for roughly 90 percent of its prewar oil exports — may seem like a powerful way to pressure Tehran, but a new report by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) warns the U.S. move could create more problems than it solves.

The concern comes as U.S. Marines are set to arrive in the Middle East, and reports claim President Donald Trump is considering plans to occupy the island to force Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and gain leverage in negotiations.

In reality, the biggest challenges would begin after any successful seizure, the report says.

Kharg Island’s close proximity to Iran’s mainland would leave U.S. forces exposed to sustained attacks from rockets, artillery and drones.

Defending the island would also require significant resources, including a large-scale campaign to suppress Iranian firepower along the coast.

Rather than securing a strategic win, occupying Kharg could delay reopening the Strait and give Tehran more opportunities to impose costs on U.S. forces, the report says.

The report’s conclusion is that Kharg Island offers no quick victory and only the risk of a prolonged and costly entanglement.

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have killed more than 750 Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon since the start of the war with Iran, the chief of the IDF Northern Command, Maj. Gen. Rafi Milo announced Thursday.

“We have expanded the ground operation one step further to widen the security zone,” Milo said, according to The Times of Israel.

“We are operating according to an organized plan to strike and push back the enemy and to distance the threat for better protection of the residents of the north,” Milo added.

“So far, we have eliminated more than 750 terrorists, destroyed infrastructure throughout Lebanon, and we continue the deep strikes against the organization’s centers of gravity. We are applying pressure on Hezbollah, pushing it northward and destroying its capabilities,” he said.

Meanwhile, the IDF also announced that it killed Hassan Mohammad Bashir, a senior commander in Hezbollah’s anti-tank array in the Hajir area.

“Bashir advanced hundreds of terror attacks against IDF troops and Israeli civilians,” the IDF said in a post shared on X.

“He commanded several terrorist cells and recently, he had begun integrating into the anti-tank array north of the Litani River.”

A brother and sister have been indicted in connection with the placement of a possible explosive device at MacDill Air Force Base in Florida, Fox News Digital has learned. 

MacDill Air Force Base houses the headquarters of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which is currently handling Operation Epic Fury against Iran. 

The FBI said Alen Zheng, who is believed to have planted the device, is currently in China. He is facing charges of attempted damage to government property by fire or explosion, unlawful making of a destructive device and possession of an unregistered destructive device.

FBI Tampa also arrested his sister, Ann Mary Zheng, who is charged with accessory after the fact and tampering with evidence.

She is accused of hiding or damaging a 2010 Mercedes-Benz to prevent its use in legal proceedings, court documents show.

"Today’s indictments are the result of tremendous investigative work from our FBI teams and great coordination from our state, local, and federal partners across the board," FBI Director Kash Patel said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

"No one who targets our brave service members and military facilities will ever get away with it — and this FBI will pursue all those responsible for the incident at MacDill Air Force Base to the ends of the earth," he added.

War Secretary Pete Hegseth  defended U.S. military operations targeting Iran during a Cabinet meeting Thursday, praising the campaign as swift and decisive while criticizing media coverage of the conflict.

Hegseth took aim at the press early in his remarks, urging reporters to accurately portray the war effort.

"You wouldn’t know it if you listened to the dishonest, anti-Trump media," Hegseth said. "These cameras… they have a choice. You’re either informing the American people of the truth or you’re not… My message to the media is: get it right."

Hegseth framed the operation as a historic success, crediting President Donald Trump for authorizing what he described as a rapid and effective dismantling of Iran's military capabilities.

"Iran had a modern military, and never in recorded history has a nation’s military been so quickly and effectively neutralized," Hegseth said. "This is not an endless war. It’s a decisive campaign with clear objectives… to destroy Iran’s offensive military capabilities and ensure they never obtain a nuclear weapon."

The remarks come as the administration outlines its strategy following recent strikes on Iranian targets, describing the campaign as focused on defined military objectives rather than prolonged engagement.

President Donald Trump declined to say whether the U.S. believes Iran still has access to enriched uranium on Thursday.

Trump was pressed on the issue during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, telling reporters that he "can't" divulge the information.

"I can't talk about specifics. A lot of people said that wouldn't matter. Maybe it does matter. Who knows? But I wouldn't talk," Trump said. "I can't say what we're going to do, because if I did, I wouldn't be sitting here for long."

"Steve [Witkoff] said that they've got enough uranium to make 11 bombs. That's a very scary thing," Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich prodded.

"Again, I can't talk to you about that. You're asking me a question. You're essentially saying, Will I go in and do something? I can't talk to you about that," Trump said.

President Donald Trump admitted that U.S. allies in the Gulf want the U.S. to continue the offensive against Iran rather than rushing to a peace deal on Thursday.

Trump made the statement in response to questions from Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich during a Cabinet meeting.

"There's some reports that Gulf allies are concerned about winding down the war too soon and potentially leaving Iran," Heinrich said, asking Trump to respond.

"Well, they'd probably like us to stay, but--If we if we don't stay, look, it's a beautiful thing about airplanes that go 2000 miles an hour is you can get back there very quickly," Trump said. "If we don't stay, we're going to be protecting them."

"We know, you know, they've been very good," he added. "Hey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, in particular, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, the three of them, Kuwait, Bahrain, they've been 100%."

President Donald Trump revealed that the "present" from Iranian negotiators was them allowing at least eight oil tankers to pass through the Strait of Hormuz earlier this week.

Trump said Thursday that the boats passing through the Strait was a sign to the U.S. that the negotiators were demonstrating, "we're real and solid."

The tankers may have been Pakistani-flagged, said Trump, who first hinted at the "present" this week.

"I said, 'Well, I guess we're dealing with the right people,'" Trump continued. "And actually they then apologized for something they said, and they said, we're going to send two more boats."

President Donald Trump on Thursday floated the possibility of suspending the gas tax to keep prices low amid the war with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump made the statement in response to questions from reporters during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.

"It's in our pocket," he said, though he gave no details on a threshold that push him to suspend the tax.

President Donald Trump confirmed that the U.S. still plans for the war in Iran to last just four to six weeks on Thursday.

Trump made the statement during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, telling reporters that the U.S. is already "way ahead of schedule" on the conflict.

"We estimated it would take approximately 4 to 6 weeks to achieve our mission, and we're way ahead of schedule. If you look at, what we've done in terms of the destruction of that country, I mean, we're way ahead," Trump said.

President Donald Trump condemned Iran's former leaders as "sick" on Thursday, saying they had ambitions to "take over" the Middle East.

Trump made the comments during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, confirming to the press that he still expects the war to last just four to six weeks. He also said Iran's current leadership are now "begging" to negotiate a ceasefire.

"Just so we set the record straight, because I've been watching the Wall Street Journal's fake news and all these stories that get printed like, oh, I want to make a deal. They are begging to make a deal. Not me. They're begging to make a deal," Trump said.

"And anybody that saw what was happening over there would understand why they want to make a deal. But they say, oh, we're not talking to them," he continued, saying only a "fool" would refuse to negotiate.

"And they're not fools. They're very smart, actually, in a certain way, and they're great negotiators. I say they're lousy fighters, but they're great negotiators. and, they are begging to work out a deal," he added.

The U.S. Navy's Central Command says a sailor who was injured aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln has been transported to shore for medical care Thursday.

The U.S. 5th Fleet made the announcement in a post on X, saying the sailor did not face life-threatening injuries.

"A U.S. Navy Sailor was injured aboard USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) while the aircraft carrier was conducting flight operations in the Arabian Sea on March 25. The injury is not combat-related nor life threatening," the 5th Fleet wrote.

"The Sailor has been transported ashore for additional medical care and remains in stable condition. The circumstances of the incident are under investigation," the statement continued.

"The Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group continues to conduct strike missions in support of Operation Epic Fury," the fleet added.

A new analysis of social media activity during the opening days of Operation Epic Fury suggests that much of the online backlash and anti-Israel content may not have been driven by Americans at all.

The report identified recurring narratives pushed by foreign-based accounts, including claims that the operation was a "betrayal of MAGA," "highly unpopular with the American people" and carried out "on behalf of Israel."

Sixty percent of the most viral posts on X mentioning "Iran" during the first week of the operation originated from accounts based outside the United States — despite often presenting themselves as American voices, according to research conducted by Argyle Consulting Group, a private intelligence and data analysis firm.

"These aren’t just random opinions," Eran Vasker, CEO and co-founder of Argyle Consulting Group, told Fox News Digital. 

"What we’re seeing is discourse that looks American — written in English, using U.S. political language — but is actually coming from outside the country … almost impossible for a regular user to detect," Vasker said, explaining that the accounts "look very American" and mirror domestic political language and debates.

The analysis examined 100 highly X viral posts — each with more than 10,000 shares — between Feb. 28 and March 7. In total, posts containing the word "Iran" generated 98 million posts, 696.4 million interactions, and an estimated 1.5 trillion potential views, making it one of the largest online information events on record. 

Foreign accounts alone generated 155.6 million views, compared to 93.4 million from U.S.-based accounts, outpacing them by more than 60 million views in the sample.

Even more striking, every single foreign-based post in the dataset was negative toward the operation, while the only supportive content came from U.S.-based users, Argyle found. 

This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Efrat Lachter.

Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken acknowledged that the Biden administration's political calculus, including the 2022 midterm elections, complicated its push for a tougher nuclear agreement with Iran, lamenting that "sometimes politics gets in the way."

Blinken admitted President Joe Biden gave into the pull of midterm politics.

"You have midterm elections: It shouldn't be, but it is too often a factor," Blinken told The New York Times' David Sanger at a Harvard forum Tuesday.

As President Donald Trump and Israel have pounded Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile aspirations, including decapitation strikes on multiple iterations of leadership, Blinken now "regrets" his administration never secured what officials had described as a "longer and stronger" follow-on deal to the original Iran nuclear agreement.

"I wish we had gotten there," Blinken said. "We worked very hard on getting that longer and stronger agreement. And I think at various points, we were really leaning into it.

"The Iranians were leaning back at other points. They were leaning in, and we had our own constraints. You know, I'll acknowledge, too, that sometimes politics gets in the way.

When pressed on whether that meant Biden did not want to move forward before the elections, Blinken said the administration was trying to find the "right time" to complete an agreement. But he added that, even accounting for the political considerations, Iran "wasn’t conceding enough to make that deal worthwhile."

"So what did we do?" Blinken said. "We actually kept the pressure on them."

This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Eric Mack.

Two people were killed and three more were wounded after shrapnel from an Iranian missile struck the United Arab Emirates on Thursday.

UAE officials said the shrapnel came from an Iranian missile that had already been intercepted.

The incident comes as Iran's Arab neighbors have become increasingly angry with Tehran.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The secretary-general of the Gulf Cooperation Council said Thursday that Iran is charging fees for ships to safely transit the Strait of Hormuz.

Jasem Mohamed al-Budaiwi is the first top official to accuse Iran of charging for safe passage through the strait, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of all natural gas and oil once passed.

Al-Budaiwi oversees the GCC, a bloc of six Gulf Arab nations including Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. He spoke during a news conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Iran could significantly increase U.S. casualties if its elite military and proxy forces shift to guerrilla-style hit-and-run attacks in the region, a leading military analyst has warned.

Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy spoke as the Pentagon moved elements of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division into the Middle East amid a new escalation in the conflict, according to reports.

"Iran has large infantry units in its military that are equivalent to the brigade combat team of the 82nd Airborne," Eisenstadt, a former U.S. Army Reserve officer, told Fox News Digital.

"The 82nd Force is too small to cause significant harm to Iran, but it is large enough to be vulnerable to Iranian strikes, and this would enable Iran to significantly increase U.S. casualties," he said.

Eisenstadt, who has worked as a U.S. government military analyst, claimed that, even if major conventional operations begin to wind down in the Middle East region, the danger may only evolve rather than disappear.

"We could see an end to major combat operations, with activity shifting to guerrilla-style hit-and-run attacks in the Gulf and other gray-zone activities by Iran," he said.

"Think of the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War with Iraq, in which we had to contain the Iraqis for a decade after a very successful war."

EXCLUSIVE: As U.S., Israeli and allied forces continue to intercept the vast majority of Iranian missiles and drones, a new report and expert analysis reveal a growing concern behind the headline success: the cost and sustainability of the defense itself.

More than 90% of Iranian projectiles have been intercepted during the war, according to a report obtained by Fox News Digital from the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), thanks to a layered regional air defense system built during years of coordination.

But beneath that success lies a widening imbalance that could shape the next phase of the conflict.

The report highlights a critical trend: Iran’s least expensive weapons are proving the most disruptive and are draining costly U.S. and Israeli interceptors.

The current air defense architecture, integrating U.S., Israeli and Arab systems, has proven highly effective at stopping incoming threats. Early warning systems, shared radar coverage and pre-positioned assets have allowed multiple countries to work together to defeat Iranian missiles and drones.

During a press briefing on Wednesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, "More than 9,000 enemy targets have been struck to date … Iran's ballistic missile attacks and drone attacks are down by roughly 90%," she said, adding that U.S. forces have also destroyed more than 140 Iranian naval vessels, including nearly 50 mine layers.

A surge of U.S. assets before the war, including Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), batteries, Patriot systems, two carrier strike groups and roughly 200 fighter aircraft, helped absorb Iran’s opening salvos and maintain high interception rates, according to JINSA's report.

This is an excerpt of an article from Efrat Lachter

President Donald Trump urged Iranian negotiators to "get serious" about making a deal with the U.S. on Thursday.

"The Iranian negotiators are very different and 'strange.' They are 'begging' us to make a deal, which they should be doing since they have been militarily obliterated, with zero chance of a comeback, and yet they publicly state that they are only 'looking at our proposal.' WRONG!!! They better get serious soon, before it is too late, because once that happens, there is NO TURNING BACK, and it won’t be pretty!" Trump wrote in a statement on Truth Social.

Trump has granted a Iran a five-day window to negotiate with the U.S. before American and Israel forces begin targeting Iran's energy infrastructure.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reiterated on Wednesday that Trump fully intends to carry out the threat if necessary.

Alireza Tangsiri, who helmed Iran's Revolutionary Guard Navy, was targeted in an attack overnight, a senior Israeli official indicated to Fox News, noting that the strike was executed based on American and Israeli intelligence.

"The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Navy, Alireza Tangsiri, who directly commanded the closure of the Strait of Hormuz — one of the world’s most critical energy chokepoints — was targeted in a strike overnight, along with his senior operational leadership, including intelligence and operations chiefs, at a covert naval command center. This targeted strike was based on U.S. and Israeli intelligence and continues to demonstrate how deeply it is capable of penetrating," the Israeli official noted.

Fox News' Trey Yingst contributed to this report