GOP Rep. Pat Fallon blasted Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in a heated fraud hearing on Wednesday in an exchange that was quickly amplified by conservatives on social media. 

‘It’s been widely reported that in 2008, when Barack Obama was choosing his vice presidential candidate, he had three criteria. He wanted to make sure he picked someone that wasn’t as smart as him and had less talent and charisma and couldn’t possibly outshine him, so he picked Joe Biden,’ Fallon said in the House Oversight Committee hearing. 

‘And then Joe Biden in 2020 used the exact same criteria,’ Fallon continued. ‘He wanted to make sure he picked somebody that wasn’t as smart as him, had less talent and charisma, and wouldn’t outshine him, and he picked Kamala Harris.’

Fallon went on to say that in 2024, ‘I think it’s very evident why Kamala Harris picked you.’

Walz appeared to take the criticism in stride as he laughed and responded with, ‘I wouldn’t know, Congressman.’

‘The talent pool isn’t just shallow, brother, we have hit the shore,’ Fallon said before ending his questioning. 

The clip immediately made waves on social media, particularly from conservatives.

‘Tim Walz just got SCORCHED,’ conservative commentator Nick Sortor posted on X. 

Conservative influencer account Libs of TikTok called the exchange ‘one of the most INCREDIBLE OWNS in American politics.’

‘Rep. Pat Fallon torches Tim Walz,’ Brandon Straka, the founder of the #walkaway campaign, posted on X.

Much has been made in media reports and books in recent months about what went into Harris’s decision to name Tim Walz as her running mate instead of other candidates, particularly Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.

Ultimately, according to the book ‘2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America,’ Harris ‘went with her gut’ and chose Walz believing he was the ‘better fit’ in a decision her staff was ‘unanimously behind.’

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Senate Republicans closed ranks Wednesday, handing President Donald Trump a win on his use of force in Iran, despite lingering questions about America’s involvement in the Middle East.

The Senate shot down a resolution from Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., aimed at limiting Trump’s military actions in Iran on Wednesday, following days of speculation about whether Republicans would cross the aisle — as they have done before — to reprimand the president.

The administration pushed hard to lobby support for Operation Epic Fury, holding several briefings with Congress to make its case. It appeared to work, at least for now, convincing some Republicans on the fence to back continued military action in Iran.

Only Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., voted in favor of the resolution, while Sen. Jon Fetterman, D-Pa., was the lone Democrat to cross the aisle in support.

Democrats argued that Trump’s actions were another instance of him disregarding Congress’ authority to use military force, that they lacked a clear strategy going forward and, further, that they were yet another campaign promise he had broken.

‘It’s time for the president to keep promises, not break them,’ Kaine said ahead of the vote. ‘That’s why I’m so glad that we’re going to put everybody on the record … Nobody gets to hide and give the president an easy pass or an end run around the Constitution.’

Democrats also seized on the administration’s refusal to rule out sending U.S. troops into Iran.

‘They refuse to take off the table the insertion of ground troops,’ said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., warning the conflict could expand beyond air and naval operations. ‘This is going to make the operations in Libya look like child’s play.’

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who previously supported a resolution to rein in Trump’s war powers in Venezuela, said he would oppose the latest effort.

But like last time, he said a ground operation would require congressional approval.

‘I’ve always said that committing ground troops would be something I think would require immediate congressional authorization, but that doesn’t appear to be on the immediate horizon,’ Hawley said.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., argued that the goalposts kept moving for the administration, which he said was a clear sign that ‘a strategy is missing.’

Republicans countered that the president acted within his constitutional authority as commander in chief. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called the War Powers Act ‘an unconstitutional shift of authority from the president,’ arguing Congress retains the ability to restrict funding if it disagrees with military action.

‘We don’t need 535 commanders in chief,’ said Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., arguing against the legislation.

There was also fatigue among some in the GOP over Kaine’s repeated efforts to reassert congressional authority in conflicts.

Republicans privately huddled Tuesday to discuss the strikes and the upcoming war powers vote ahead of their briefing with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan ‘Raizin’ Caine and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

A source familiar with the closed-door discussion told Fox News Digital that Republicans who may have been swayed were frustrated with Kaine’s repeated use of the Senate floor to push resolutions limiting Trump’s war authorities.

Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., noted that it was Kaine’s fifth resolution to rein in Trump’s war powers since he returned to office last year, which accounts for nearly half of all war powers resolutions put forward in U.S. history.

‘These resolutions have been used only 11 times in 50 years,’ Barrasso said. ‘The senator from Virginia alone accounts for nearly half of them. Yet Senator Kaine introduced zero war powers resolutions when Barack Obama and Joe Biden were president.’

Rubio told reporters after a briefing with every senator on Tuesday that the administration had complied with the War Powers Act, though it believes the law is unconstitutional and noted that congressional leaders had been notified ahead of the strikes.

Rubio had previously suggested that the U.S. carried out Operation Epic Fury after it became clear that Israel intended to strike Iran first, a point he later walked back.

‘If you tell the President of the United States that if we don’t go first, we’re going to have more people killed and more people injured, the president is going to go first,’ Rubio said. ‘That’s what he did. That’s what the president will always do.’

Meanwhile, U.S. forces have now struck more than 2,000 targets in Iran, largely focusing on taking out the regime’s air defenses and missile capacity. Six U.S. service members have been killed in the operation, as have nearly 50 top Iranian leaders.

The Iranian government claims at least 1,045 people have been killed throughout Iran during the operation.

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Rubio says in ‘simple English’ Iran run by ‘lunatics,’ defends Trump strike as ‘right decision’

As U.S. and Israeli air forces continue to attack Iran’s leadership and facilities with devastating military strikes, there are intense discussions unfolding about who will rule the country if the regime falls.

One of the biggest questions being asked by Iran experts is whether the fragmented opposition groups can come together and unite in defeating the regime.

Lawdan Bazargan, anIranian political and human rights activist who was imprisoned by the regime for her dissident activities in the 1980s, told Fox News Digital there is a dangerous precedent for a total unified opposition. 

Unity cannot mean everyone stands under my flag,’ she said. 

‘That model failed Iran once before. In 1979, one figure [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini] absorbed moral authority while claiming he wasn’t seeking office and ended up consolidating absolute power. It’s also not fair to automatically position someone who has not lived in Iran for decades as the interim authority of over 90 million people. That fuels more mistrust, not less.’

She also warned about the need to avoid a Venezuela situation in which Nicolás Maduro was replaced by his devotee, Delcy Rodríguez.

Mariam Memarsadeghi, a senior fellow at The Macdonald-Laurier Institute and founder and director of the Cyrus Forum for Iran’s Future, told Fox News Digital, ‘When it comes to helping unite opposition forces, the crown prince [Reza Pahlavi] has the most responsibility because he is leading. It is to everyone’s advantage for him to build true alliances and real cooperation.

‘He can start through reconciliation with prominent figures who once were in collaboration with him before spoilers in his own ranks were propelled by regime manipulation and infiltration to turn on others. It will be tempting to think that, because he is popular, he does not need others. But there is much hard work ahead.’

Reza Farnood, a researcher, writer and activist, told Fox News Digital, ‘In 48 years of activism and struggle, I have never experienced such broad unity and alignment. Even those who for years held firmly leftist views and were staunch opponents of the Shah and the Pahlavi family are now openly supporting the prince. Inside Iran, people are openly and courageously chanting his name.’

Yet others remain skeptical of Pahlavi. 

‘Unfortunately, the Iranian opposition is more divided than ever,’ Alireza Nader, an Iran expert, said. ‘And I blame much of it on Reza Pahlavi and his team. Take the announcement of the formation of the new Kurdish Iranian coalition. Pahlavi attacked the coalition as soon as it was formed, labeling them as ‘separatists.’ 

‘But then Pahlavi had to walk back his statement after he found out that President Trump had called Kurdish leaders, an important development.’

Nader added, ‘The Kurds are very organized and capable. And they are armed. Anyone who wants to free Iran has to work with them. The regime is a deeply entrenched system in Iran. It’s an ideology and belief system that will not be uprooted with air strikes. And the regime has been preparing for this moment for decades. The individual leaders may not matter as much as the system.’

Yet while many voices claim Pahlavi should be the rightful successor to bring democracy to Iran, others point to the influential Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), the Iranian exile organization that has attracted supporters like former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

The group was reportedly the first to highlight Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions and regularly posts videos on its social media showing its active units operating against the regime. A post on X dated March 3 shows attacks against regime targets.

‘Resistance Units step up anti-regime activities nationwide,’ it said, adding that there have been 30 operations in 15 cities, including Tehran, in recent days.

Its Paris-based leader, Maryam Rajavi, says she supports a secular provisional government. Ali Safavi, an official with the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), told Fox News Digital, the organization ‘has consistently argued that unity must be built on principles — republicanism, popular sovereignty, human rights and the separation of religion and state — rather than on personalities or nostalgia for past systems.’

The NCRI is the umbrella organization for groups that fall under MEK.

Andrew Ghalili, the policy director for the National Union for Democracy in Iran (NUFDI), defended Pahlavi’s standing, saying, ‘There is no figure within the Islamic Republic who has legitimacy with the Iranian people or who would be a credible partner for the U.S.

‘As for opposition unity, the pro-democracy opposition is more united than it gets credit for. At the Munich Security Conference in 2025, a broad coalition came together around Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi and four core principles for democratic transition. That includes monarchists, republicans, human rights advocates, ethnic minority representatives — all committed to a democratic, territorially intact Iran.’

Ghalili claimed, ‘When people say the opposition is ‘fractured,’ they’re usually lumping in groups like the MEK, which is universally reviled inside Iran and has no democratic credentials or aspirations, or separatist movements that don’t reflect what Iranians, including ethnic minorities, actually want. The real pro-democracy opposition is already uniting. The world, and international media, should recognize it.’

‘If the West truly wants stability and not a Venezuela-style managed authoritarian transition, it should not anoint personalities,’ Bazargan warned. ‘It should push for a structured transition that guarantees free and fair elections within 12 months, with distributed authority and real safeguards against concentration of power. 

‘Iran does not need another supreme figure, even a secular one. It needs an accountable transitional framework, so every Iranian feels they have a stake in their future. Without that, fragmentation will continue, and fragmentation only helps the regime survive.’

Her warning was echoed by Memarsadeghi, who said, ‘The Iranian people will not trust in any process that leaves in power any vestige of the regime that massacred them.’

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A House Democrat with a background in physics is sounding the alarm over what he views as a lack of a plan to deal with Iran’s nuclear sites during the U.S. offensive campaign.

After a classified briefing Tuesday with top administration officials, Rep. Bill Foster, D-Ill., said lawmakers were not presented with a clear plan to secure or neutralize Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium.

‘We have heard that they never had a plan for that nuclear stockpile of enriched uranium — to destroy that, to seize it or to put it under international inspection,’ he

The U.S. intervention was publicly justifiedby the Trump administration as a necessary step to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. 

U.S. forces have struck more than 1,700 targets across Iran, including ballistic missile launch sites, air defenses, naval assets and command centers. Core nuclear facilities, however, have not been among the primary targets.

‘Until that happens, Iran will be very, very close to making — as many observers have pointed out in a nonclassified situation — Iran can use that material to make a handful of Hiroshima-style nuclear devices,’ Foster told Fox News Digital. ‘Not the sort you can put on a missile, but the sort you can deliver by a number of other ways and are very hard to stop.’ 

Foster was referring to Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, material that, if weaponized, could be used to build a nuclear explosive device.

Experts note that building a compact warhead that fits on a ballistic missile is technically complex and requires advanced engineering. But a simpler, larger nuclear device — similar in basic concept to the bomb the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945 — would not need to be miniaturized to fit on a missile. Such a device could not be delivered by long-range rocket but could theoretically be transported by other means.

Foster argued that containing Iran’s nuclear materials, most of which are buried deep underground, would likely require U.S. forces to enter Iran.

Recent satellite imagery shows damage to support buildings and access points at Iran’s Natanz enrichment site, though the deepest underground infrastructure at key nuclear facilities has not been confirmed as a primary target in the current campaign.

U.S. and international officials previously have acknowledged that while strikes can damage enrichment infrastructure, stockpiled enriched uranium stored underground may remain intact and potentially retrievable unless physically secured or removed.

‘You have to go in there with boots on the ground and grab a bunch of equipment,’ Foster said. ‘You have to go underground into those facilities and lose a lot of soldiers’ lives doing that.

‘They’re unwilling to do that, or they’ve decided not to or they’ve decided it’s impossible. In any case, they did not present to us any plan that would actually get the material under control.’

Without securing the nuclear material, he argued, military operations may push Iran closer to a nuclear weapon than diplomatic negotiations would have.

‘The only positive thing about the ayatollah is that he had a fatwa against building nuclear weapons,’ Foster said. ‘Who knows what the next generation of ayatollahs are going to feel? They’re going to be under a lot of pressure from the IRGC, which was not so much against having a nuclear weapon.’

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the joint U.S.-Israeli operations, had previously issued a fatwa, a religious edict, opposing the pursuit of nuclear weapons. Analysts have long debated how binding or durable that ruling was.

At a White House briefing Wednesday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration believes Iran ‘wanted to build nuclear weapons to use against Americans and our allies,’ framing the strikes as necessary to prevent Tehran from advancing its nuclear ambitions.

Missile suppression strategy faces ‘math problem’

Senior administration officials have emphasized that the current phase of the campaign is aimed at dismantling Iran’s ability to project force with missiles, drones and naval assets. 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has highlighted strikes on Iran’s ballistic missile systems, air defenses and naval capabilities, describing the effort as a push to degrade the conventional tools Tehran uses to threaten U.S. forces and regional allies. 

Secretary of State Marco Rubio similarly has said the United States is working to ‘systematically take apart’ Iran’s missile program, so it could not ‘hide behind’ it to develop a nuclear weapon. 

While the broader justification for intervention centered on preventing a nuclear-armed Iran, the most immediate threat facing U.S. troops and partners has been Iran’s ongoing missile and drone launches. Administration officials contend Iran’s missile buildup was meant to create a deterrent buffer, shielding its broader strategic ambitions, including its nuclear program, from outside attack.

Lawmakers emerging from classified briefings said the campaign has become, in part, a question of sustainability.

‘We do not have an unlimited supply,’ Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., said of U.S. and allied interceptor inventories. He warned the conflict could become a ‘math problem,’ balancing launch volumes against finite air defense munitions and the ability to replenish them without weakening readiness in other theaters.

‘At some point — and we’re probably already in this — this becomes a math problem,’ Kelly added.

He said he pressed defense officials on how interceptor stocks are being replenished and whether diverting munitions to the Middle East could strain U.S. readiness elsewhere.

‘How can we resupply air defense munitions? Where are they going to come from? How does that affect other theaters?’ he said. ‘The math on this currently seems to be an issue.’

Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., said he also sought clarity on interceptor inventories but did not receive detailed answers.

‘I am very concerned about that,’ Kim said. ‘I did not get any specificity today. … Something akin to ‘trust us’ is not good enough for me.’

Republicans, however, pushed back on the notion that interceptor supplies are strained. 

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., said officials told lawmakers U.S. forces are ‘in great shape,’ dismissing concerns about shortages.

Ehud Eilam, a former Israeli defense official and national security analyst, said that while a nuclear weapon remains the most serious long-term threat, missile and drone systems pose the most immediate danger if intelligence assessments conclude Iran is not on the verge of assembling a device.

‘As long as it is estimated Iran cannot produce a nuclear weapon soon, then the focus moves to missiles and drones,’ Eilam said, noting that ballistic missiles would ultimately be required to deliver any future nuclear warhead. Suppressing mobile launchers, crews and command networks can reduce Iran’s firing tempo, conserving interceptor supplies while degrading Tehran’s broader military capacity, he said.

The concern is not theoretical. 

During the intense June 2025 Iran–Israel conflict, U.S. forces reportedly fired more than 150 Terminal High Altitude Area Defense interceptors, roughly a quarter of the global inventory, along with large numbers of ship-based Standard Missile interceptors to shield allies. 

Analysts note that replenishing high-end air defense systems such as Patriot, THAAD and SM-3 interceptors could take more than a year under current production rates.

The Pentagon also is balancing competing demands. The same missile defense systems used to protect U.S. bases and Gulf partners are being supplied to Ukraine to defend against Russian cruise missile attacks, creating what some analysts describe as a ‘zero-sum’ competition for inventory between Europe and the Middle East.

‘There is a limit to how many THAAD missiles can be used,’ Eilam said. ‘These are not systems you can reproduce overnight.’

The White House and Pentagon could not immediately be reached for comment. 

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New York’s Medicaid program is being thoroughly examined by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, who claims there is evidence of widespread fraud. 

In a letter to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul Tuesday, Oz asked state officials 50 questions about the program and gave Hochul and her team 30 days to get the requested information to the Trump administration.

Oz asked that she and her team give CMS detailed information on ‘program integrity and provider screening and enrollment oversight within New York’s Medicaid program.’

‘Recent data reporting, federal prosecutions, and analyses raise serious concerns about New York’s oversight of personal care, home health, adult day care programming, non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT), and behavioral health services,’ Oz’s letter addressed to Hochul and several state health officials read. ‘This evidence, combined with New York’s elevated per capita Medicaid spending and workforce utilization patterns that significantly exceed national norms, underscore the need for immediate investigation, corrective action, and enhanced transparency.’

‘The data is clear: New York far outspends other states on its Medicaid program on a statewide and per beneficiary basis,’ he added.

In a video message, Oz said New York spends more than $100 billion a year on Medicaid, the second highest in the nation. He said New York’s average spending on each beneficiary is more than $12,500, 36% higher than the national average. 

‘As a result, New York’s average Medicaid spending per resident was the highest in the country, nearly 80% higher than the national average,’ Oz said in the video.

‘That alone demands scrutiny. But it gets worse. Personal care services, these help Medicaid patients do something that our families would normally do for us, like carrying groceries. New York State made the screening even more lenient by allowing problems like being ‘easily distracted’ to qualify for a personal care assistant. And that’s led to 45 billion in spending in just over two years,’ Oz added.

Last year, Oz said, 5 million beneficiaries — nearly three out of four enrollees — received those personal care services. He argued that that level of utilization is ‘unheard of’ and has made personal care services ‘the number one occupation in New York state.’ He argued New York has turned a program intended to help the most vulnerable into ‘a massive jobs program reimbursed by federal taxpayers.’

Oz also argued that home health aide payments jumped by 65% year over year twice in a row, even though the number of patients did not increase ‘at that crazy high rate.’

He said adult daycare spending spiked by more than 100% in the last three months while federal prosecutors found a $68 million alleged fraud scheme involving kickbacks at the adult care centers.

 ‘This isn’t about politics,’ Oz said. ‘It’s about protecting patients and protecting taxpayers. We owe New Yorkers transparency. We owe beneficiaries integrity. And we owe the American people accountability.’

 ‘When the numbers don’t make sense, we ask hard questions, and we expect an honest answer,’ he said. ‘Governor Hochul has a month to share a reasonable corrective action plan to fix the fraud, waste and abuse in New York state or CMS will start deferring payments to protect Medicaid.’

A spokesperson for Hochul told Fox News Digital that she was leading efforts to get rid of waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid before President Donald Trump’s return to the White House. The spokesperson also said that Hochul’s office would work with the administration to ‘identify bad actors.’ However, the spokesperson also classified CMS’s probe as politically motivated.

‘Well before the Trump administration even took office, Governor Hochul was leading efforts to root out waste, fraud and abuse — including sweeping CDPAP reforms that shut down hundreds of wasteful Medicaid middlemen and saved over $2 billion for state and federal taxpayers while protecting home care for those who need it,’ a spokesperson for Hochul told Fox News Digital.

‘But let’s be clear about the real goal for Donald Trump and Washington Republicans: eliminating programs that support our most vulnerable and ripping away healthcare from everyday New Yorkers,’ the spokesperson added.

The probe into the state’s handling of Medicaid comes amid recent positive interactions between Trump and Democratic socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The two have exchanged niceties and met at the White House last week.

On Tuesday, Trump posted a photo of Mamdani in front of the Declaration of Independence in the Oval Office and said, ‘Zohran has come a long way embracing, of course, the Declaration of Independence while at the Oval Office — Big progress!’

Fox News Digital also reached out to Mamdani’s office for comment.

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House Republicans are signaling that they’re largely OK giving President Donald Trump the reins as the U.S. and Israel continue their joint operation against Iran.

But one red line looms on the horizon for most GOP lawmakers, one that would put dozens of them in a difficult position between supporting their party leader and keeping in line with Congress’ constitutional authorities.

‘I would like to see congressional approval for boots on the ground,’ Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., told Fox News Digital. He added, however, that ‘right now, it’s just an intervention, which is very similar to what Obama and Clinton and other presidents throughout my lifetime have done.’

The ongoing strikes, which killed Iran’s supreme leader and other high-ranking members of Tehran’s repressive regime, have so far been comprised of coordinated missile launches on military targets.

But the Trump administration has not ruled out having a U.S. presence on the ground there despite assurances that the mission will be finite and only lasting a matter of weeks rather than months or years.

‘The president is doing what he should be doing. … I agree with the policy,’ Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital. ‘If at some point this extends beyond … in terms of boots on the ground and budgetary need and scope, that starts to then demand our involvement, then we’ll look at it.’

Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., said she too backed the operation, but added, ‘If ground troops get involved, I think that’s a very different conversation. That’s not where we are today.’

‘We’re taking it day by day at this point to see how things progress, but that would certainly be something that we as Congress would like to be involved in the discussion,’ Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, R-Pa., told Fox News Digital.

But he also argued that forcing the operation to end too early could do more harm than good.

‘Once the president has taken that action, that first action, if we were to pull back, it would actually leave us more vulnerable and less safe by leaving all of their capabilities in place but having started a conflict like this,’ Mackenzie said. 

‘So, we do need to follow through on the objectives, but we also need to be very much on guard to make sure that it doesn’t expand beyond what we are able to achieve.’

Others, like Rep. Mark Alford, R-Mo., were skeptical it would get to that point.

‘I don’t think we’re going to get to that point. This is much different than Iraq or Afghanistan. The capabilities that we’ve developed, the intelligence that we developed, working with the IDF — we had the capabilities now that we did not have,’ Alford told Fox News Digital.

‘Now, should it come to boots on the ground, which I don’t think it will, that’s an entirely different story. … We’re only five days into this, and I think what you’ve seen so far is having tremendous effect.’

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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt would not rule out the possibility of the U.S. sending ground troops to Iran, though she said Wednesday it is not being considered at the moment.

During the first White House press briefing since Operation Epic Fury was launched, a reporter asked whether ground troops would be sent into Iran.

‘Well, they’re not part of the plan for this operation at this time, but I certainly will never take away military options on behalf of the president of the United States or the commander in chief, and he wisely does not do the same for himself,’ Leavitt said.

‘I know there’s many leaders in the past who like to take options off of the table without having a full understanding of how things could develop. So, again, it’s not part of the current plan, but I’m not going to remove an option for the president that is on the table.’

Since Saturday, the U.S. and Israel have carried out attacks on Iran using airstrikes and naval attacks, but neither country has put boots on the ground. The attacks that have been carried out thus far have targeted the regime’s security and military infrastructure, including the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior officials.

Leavitt said the U.S. has four main objectives with Operation Epic Fury: eliminate Iran’s ballistic missile threat, destroy its naval capability, disrupt its missile and drone production infrastructure and cut off Iran’s pathway to a nuclear weapon.

The press secretary was asked multiple times if the U.S. wished to see regime change in Iran. She repeated the objectives she previously detailed and reiterated the administration’s stance on the regime.

‘Obviously, as the president has said numerous times, do we want to see Iran being led by a rogue terrorist regime? No, of course not,’ Leavitt said.

So far, the U.S. has hit nearly 2,000 targets in Iran, and more than 17,500 Americans have returned to U.S. soil from the Middle East since the operation began.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth gave an operational update earlier on Wednesday, saying he U.S. was ‘decisively’ winning, and later adding that Iran was ‘toast’ and if it didn’t already realize it, it would ‘soon enough.’

‘I stand before you today with one unmistakable message about Operation Epic Fury. America is winning — decisively, devastatingly and without mercy,’ Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon.

‘The two most powerful air forces in the world will have complete control of Iranian skies. Uncontested airspace.’

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Iran postponed a planned farewell ceremony in Tehran for its late supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed Saturday in U.S.-Israeli strikes as part of Operation Epic Fury.

The three-day program was scheduled to begin Wednesday at 10 p.m. local time at Imam Khomeini Prayer Hall, where large crowds were expected to gather to pay their respects, according to Tasnim, a semi-official Iranian news agency. 

Hojjatoleslam Seyed Mohsen Mahmoudi, head of the Islamic Propaganda Coordination Council of Tehran Province, said the postponement followed widespread requests to participate and the need to provide adequate infrastructure and facilities to accommodate attendees.

‘It was decided to hold the ceremony at a more appropriate time,’ he explained.

No additional reason for the postponement was given, and it was not immediately clear when the ceremony would be rescheduled.

Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz warned Iranian leadership in a post on X that any successor who tries to ‘destroy Israel, to threaten the United States and the free world and the countries of the region, and to suppress the Iranian people’ will be an ‘unequivocal target for elimination.’

‘It does not matter what his name is or the place where he hides,’ Katz said.

The funeral of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, drew massive crowds in the country’s capital on June 11, 1989, with an estimated 10.2 million people in attendance, roughly one-sixth of the nation’s population at the time. 

According to Guinness World Records, it drew the largest percentage of a population ever recorded at a funeral.

Khamenei’s death triggers a closely watched succession process overseen by Iran’s Assembly of Experts, the clerical body responsible for appointing the supreme leader.

‘The IRGC is a key stakeholder in this process, and will heavily influence its outcome,’ Jason Brodsky, policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran, told Fox News Digital.

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivered one of his bluntest defenses yet of President Donald Trump’s strikes on Iran Tuesday, sharply rejecting criticism and describing the regime as ‘lunatics’ as he argued the president acted at the right moment to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

‘Let me explain to you guys this in simple English, okay? Iran is run by lunatics, religious fanatic lunatics,’ Rubio told reporters.

‘They have an ambition to have nuclear weapons,’ Rubio said. ‘This is the weakest they’ve ever been. Now is the time to go after them.’

Rubio said Trump made the ‘right decision’ to dismantle Iran’s military capabilities before they could shield a nuclear program.

‘The president made the decision to go after them, take away their missiles, take away their navy, take away their drones … so that they can never have a nuclear weapon,’ Rubio said.

He acknowledged ‘there will be a price to pay,’ but argued it would be far lower than allowing Iran to become nuclear-armed.

‘That is a much lower price to pay than having a nuclear armed Iran,’ he said.

Rubio grew visibly sharper when pressed on whether Israel dictated the timing of the operation.

‘Your statement is false,’ he told one reporter who suggested the U.S. acted because Israel was about to strike.

Rubio confirmed Monday that Israel was prepared to act independently.

‘We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces,’ Rubio said. ‘And we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them … we would suffer higher casualties.’

He emphasized Tuesday that the decision ultimately rested with President Donald Trump.

‘The president determined we were not going to get hit first,’ Rubio said. ‘If you tell the president of the United States that if we don’t go first, we’re going to have more people killed and more people injured, the president is going to go first.’

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said after a classified briefing that Israel was ‘determined to act … with or without American support,’ and that U.S. officials concluded ‘a coordinated response was necessary.’

‘I am convinced that they did the right thing,’ Johnson said.

Despite Rubio’s harsh rhetoric toward Iran’s clerical leadership, administration officials have emphasized that the mission is not aimed at overthrowing the regime but at dismantling its military capabilities.

Rubio repeatedly framed the operation as focused on destroying Iran’s ballistic missiles, launchers, drone capabilities and naval assets.

‘Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,’ he said. ‘It cannot have the things it was hiding behind to have a nuclear weapons program.’

So far, U.S. and Israeli strikes largely have targeted missile infrastructure and military facilities. Officials have not indicated that nuclear enrichment sites have been the primary focus of the campaign.

Some Democrats questioned whether the administration demonstrated an imminent threat to the United States.

‘There was no imminent threat to the United States of America by the Iranians. It was a threat to Israel,’ Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., said after the briefing. ‘We equate a threat to Israel is the equivalent of an imminent threat to the United States. Then we are in uncharted territory.’

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said after the classified briefing, ‘I have no idea what the objective is, and I didn’t get any additional clarity.’

Rubio brushed aside the criticism, predicting opponents would emerge from briefings claiming they ‘didn’t hear anything’ while insisting the administration complied with congressional notification requirements.

‘This is an action by the president to address a real threat,’ Rubio said. ‘The world will be a safer place when these radical clerics no longer have access to these weapons.’

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Every year around this time, Jews read the ancient Scroll of Esther and remember a Persian courtier named Haman who plotted ‘to destroy, to kill and to annihilate all the Jews’ of the empire in a single day. The story feels less like distant history and more like a chilling parallel to our present reality, because, once again, a regime in Persia — today’s Islamic Republic in Iran — openly dreams of annihilation and domination, with Jews as a central target but far from the only ones.

The holiday of Purim is often presented as a children’s tale of costumes and noisemakers, but at its core is a political battle between good and evil. A powerful ideologue identifies a people as an intolerable obstacle to his vision, secures state power behind his hatred and issues a bureaucratic death sentence. It takes courage, unity and a willingness to fight back to stop this brutal plot. Replace scroll and signet ring with rockets and proxies, and you have the worldview of today’s Iranian regime toward Israel, the United States and now, several neighboring Persian Gulf States.

When Hamas stormed Israeli communities on Oct. 7, murdering, raping and kidnapping civilians, it did not act in an ideological vacuum. Hamas has long relied on Iran’s regime for training, funding and supplying weapons.

The terror group sits within a wider ‘axis of resistance’ Tehran has painstakingly built around Israel and across the region. Whether or not Tehran signed off on the exact timing, the regime has spent decades forging a regional ‘ring of fire,’ including Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, militias in Syria and Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen, explicitly to make good on its promise that Israel is a ‘cancerous tumor’ to be removed and that American power in the Middle East must be driven out.

But in the 21st century, the Iran regime’s war is not only against Jews and not only fought with rockets and drones. It is fought with code, cameras and carefully crafted narratives aimed at Israelis, Arabs, Americans, Europeans, dissident Iranians and anyone who stands in the way of the regime’s revolutionary project. The regime has developed a sophisticated influence apparatus that uses botnets, fake personas and social media influencers to shape how global publics understand the conflict and how free societies see themselves.

Investigations have exposed networks of inauthentic accounts on X, Facebook, Instagram and Telegram pushing divisive, demoralizing content at scale. In one documented campaign, bots flooded Hebrew‑language discourse with tens of thousands of posts in under two days, amplifying internal Israeli divisions and sowing panic about the fate of hostages. Other operations have impersonated Israelis, Americans and Europeans online, pushing narratives that call for Western retreat, civil conflict and the abandonment of allies from Israel to Ukraine.

This is not the random trolling we’ve seen for years. It is state‑directed information warfare intended to achieve strategic goals, including to weaken Israeli morale, to crush the Iranian opposition, to fracture Western support, and to invert victim and aggressor in the eyes of the world. When regime‑linked operations amplify incendiary content about ‘Zionist control,’ repackage anti‑Jewish conspiracy theories as anti‑Israel ‘anti‑colonialism,’ and simultaneously smear Iranian dissidents as foreign agents, they are targeting anyone who challenges Tehran’s ambitions.

The West should recognize how a hostile regime is using every tool, including terror proxies abroad, repression at home, campus activism in the West, and algorithm‑hacking online to delegitimize democratic allies and normalize violence against minorities and dissidents. The same regime that arms Hamas and Hezbollah also guns down women removing their headscarves in Tehran, supplies drones to Russia for use in Ukraine and threatens Persian Gulf Arab states that dare to work openly with Israel. The ideological hatred that animated Haman has simply been updated and universalized.

That is why this Purim, we can all be considered like the Jews who were in the regime’s crosshairs in the sense that the story demands a vulnerable minority singled out by a power that cannot tolerate their existence, ordered to bow and vanish for the sake of someone else’s totalizing ideology. To stand with Israel after Oct. 7 is not to ignore other victims of Iran’s regime; it is to understand that the same system that dreams of erasing the Jewish state also dreams of crushing Americans, Europeans, Sunni Arabs, women on the streets of Mashhad, Shiraz or Esfahan, and students on Western campuses who refuse to chant its slogans.

Purim ends with the intended victims standing up, fighting back and surviving. For Israel and the Islamic Republic’s other targets to do the same today, free nations must be willing to confront the regime across all fronts: degrade its military capabilities, defeat its terror proxies on the battlefield, support its domestic dissidents, harden our information space against manipulation and deny Tehran the impunity it has enjoyed for far too long. The lesson of the Scroll of Esther is not parochial. It is that when a regime builds its identity around annihilation, indifference is complicity and by the time the decree reaches your own door, it may be too late.

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