Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., a conservative fiscal hawk who refused to sign onto President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill,’ is building an unlikely bipartisan coalition of lawmakers resisting the United States’ involvement in the conflict between Israel and Iran. 

‘This is not our war. But if it were, Congress must decide such matters according to our Constitution,’ Massie said in a social media post announcing the War Powers Resolution that he introduced with Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna of California on Tuesday. 

Massie, whom Trump threatened to primary during the House GOP megabill negotiations, invited ‘all members of Congress to cosponsor this resolution.’ By Tuesday night, the bipartisan bill had picked up 27 cosponsors, including progressive ‘Squad’ members Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar.

Across the political aisle, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., signaled her support, writing that Americans want an affordable cost of living, safe communities and quality education ‘not going into another foreign war.’

The bill’s original co-sponsors also include progressive Democrat Reps.Pramila Jayapal, Summer Lee, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib, who called it unconstitutional for ‘Trump to go to war without a vote in Congress.’

The War Powers Resolution would ‘remove United States Armed Forces from unauthorized hostilities in the Islamic State of Iran’ and direct Trump to ‘terminate’ the deployment of American troops against Iran without an ‘authorized declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military forces against Iran.’

Lawmakers who oppose the United States’ joining the escalating conflict in the Middle East have sounded off on the unconstitutionality of Trump striking Iran without congressional approval. Congress has the sole power to declare war under Article I of the Constitution. 

‘The American people do not want to be dragged into another disastrous conflict in the Middle East. I’m proud to lead this bipartisan War Powers Resolution with Rep. Massie to reassert that any military action against Iran must be authorized by Congress,’ Khanna said. 

The president told reporters on Wednesday morning that he is weighing whether to sign off on military strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities. 

‘Yes, I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do,’ Trump said. 

Trump called for Iran’s ‘UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!’ on Truth Social on Tuesday, and said the United States won’t strike Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei ‘at least not for now,’ but signaled America’s ‘patience is wearing thin.’ 

On the sixth consecutive night of strikes between Israel and Iran, Iran warned that the United States joining forces with Israel would mean an ‘all-out war,’ as Israel bombarded sites overnight it says would have allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium, as well as attack Israeli forces.

Israel launched preemptive strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and military leaders last week, which the Islamic Republic considered a ‘declaration of war’ and has since launched its own strikes against Israel. 

Thousands of American troops are based in nearby countries within range of Iran’s weapons, but Trump said on Wednesday that ‘we now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran.’

The Jewish State targeted Iran’s nuclear capabilities after months of failed negotiations in the region and heightened concern over Iran developing nuclear weapons. 

But Ali Bahreini, Iran’s ambassador to Geneva, said Iran ‘will continue to produce the enriched uranium as far as we need for peaceful purposes,’ as Israel continues to target Iran’s nuclear capabilities. 

The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on the bill. 

Fox News Digital’s Danielle Wallace contributed to this report. 

As lawmakers debate what role, if any, the United States should play in the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran, progressive ‘Squad’ member Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., made the curious claim that no one has ‘attacked’ the United States. 

‘No one is attacking or has attacked Americans. It’s time to stop dragging Americans into war and letting Israel once again get America involved in their chosen war. Stand up for the Americans who believed you wanted peace and don’t commit another generation of Americans into a costly war,’ Omar said in response to President Donald Trump. 

Trump called for Iran’s ‘UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!’ on Truth Social on Tuesday, and said the United States won’t strike Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei ‘at least not for now,’ but signaled America’s ‘patience is wearing thin.’ 

A Fox News Digital report published Wednesday morning refutes Omar’s claim that Americans have not been attacked, including extensive examples of Iran’s direct and proxy strikes on U.S. forces, support for terror groups and assassination efforts.

Omar’s office did not respond to Fox News Digital’s inquiry about the validity of her claim. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News’ Bret Baier on Monday that Trump remains an Islamic Republic target. ‘They want to kill him. He’s enemy No. 1.’

The Department of Justice announced charges against an Iranian citizen and two New Yorkers in November for their role in a murder-for-hire plot targeting multiple American citizens, including Trump. 

Iran bears responsibility for the deaths of 603 U.S. service members in Iraq between 2003 and 2011, according to a 2019 Pentagon report cited by the Military Times. That figure accounted for 17% of U.S. deaths in the country during the period. 

In 2022, surviving family members and victims won a case against the Islamic Republic of Iran, using the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act to hold the regime accountable for its support of terror actors who killed or injured 30 U.S. personnel in Afghanistan.

Bill Roggio, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and editor of the Long War Journal who testified in support of the victims, told Fox News Digital that ‘Iran’s support for the Taliban and al Qaeda and the impact it had on the deaths and injuries to American soldiers and civilians is incalculable.’

‘Iran provided money, weapons, training, intelligence, and safe haven to Taliban subgroups across Afghanistan, including in the heart of the country in Kabul,’ Roggio said.

By Roggio’s estimation, ‘Iran’s support for the Taliban was only rivaled by that of Pakistan. I would argue that Iran’s extensive support facilitated nearly every Taliban attack on U.S. personnel.’

In 2020, in attempted retribution for the murder of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Iran targeted two U.S. bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq with surface-to-surface missiles.

In 2022, the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., found that Iran likewise owed damages to the families and victims of 40 U.S. service members who were injured or killed in Iraq due to Iran’s support of terrorism in the country.

In 2023, Sayyed Issa Tabatabai, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s representative in Lebanon, admitted during an interview with the state-controlled Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) that the Islamic Republic was involved in two 1983 bombings that killed Americans in Lebanon. 

The bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut resulted in the deaths of 63 victims, including 17 Americans. When two suicide truck bombs exploded at the barracks of multinational forces in Lebanon, 220 Marines, 18 U.S. Navy sailors and three U.S. Army soldiers were killed, and 58 French troops were murdered.

Between October 2023 and August 2024, Iranian-backed Islamic Resistance in Iraq militias launched 180 attacks against U.S. forces in Syria, Iraq and Jordan. Throughout their ‘decades of experience,’ Roggio said, Iraqi militias ‘are estimated to have killed more than 600 U.S. service members.’

In January 2024, three Americans were killed, and 25 others were wounded in a drone attack on an outpost in Jordan near the border with Syria. Two Iranians, one of whom had dual U.S. citizenship, were charged in connection with the attack.

At the time of the attack, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said Iranian proxies had ‘launched over 150 attacks on U.S. troops’ following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. 

Roggio reported that on June 14, Iranian-backed militias ‘launched three drones’ at Ain al Assad, a U.S. base in western Iraq. The drones were shot down before reaching their target. 

He said that the drone attack appeared to be an ‘unsanctioned strike by an unnamed Iranian militia. Unlike past attacks, no group has claimed credit, and there have been no follow-on strikes.’ He believes Iran ‘wants to keep the U.S. out of the fight, as the U.S. military has the capability to hit the underground nuclear facility at Fordow.’

President Donald Trump touted his poll numbers while speaking with reporters on the White House lawn Wednesday.

‘My approval rating is the highest it’s ever been,’ the president declared, pointing to a newly released national survey.

But five months into his second tour of duty in the White House, Trump’s approval ratings remain underwater in most, but not all, of the latest national polls conducted over the past three weeks.

An average of the most recent surveys suggests the president’s approval rating stands in the upper 40s, with his disapproval rating hovering slightly above 50%.

Trump has aggressively asserted executive authority in his second term, overturning longstanding government policy and aiming to make major cuts to the federal workforce through an avalanche of sweeping and controversial executive orders and actions, some aimed at addressing grievances he has held since his first term.

And the president, true to form, has been continuously grabbing headlines, including in the last two weeks for sending National Guard troops and U.S. Marines into Los Angeles in an effort to quell protests over ICE detentions and deportations of illegal migrants and over his mulling of the U.S. joining Israel in attacking Iran’s nuclear program.

Trump started his second administration with poll numbers in positive territory, but his poll numbers started to slide soon after his late-January inauguration. The president’s approval ratings sank underwater by early March and have remained in negative territory ever since in most national surveys.

Former President Joe Biden, whose single term in the White House is sandwiched by Trump’s two terms, enjoyed positive approval ratings in June 2021, five months into his tenure. 

However, Biden’s numbers sank into negative territory in the late summer and autumn of 2021, after his much-criticized handling of the turbulent U.S. exit from Afghanistan and amid soaring inflation and a surge of migrants crossing into the U.S. along the nation’s southern border with Mexico.

Republican lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee admonished Democratic colleagues for boycotting and walking out of a Wednesday morning hearing examining former President Joe Biden’s health decline while he was in the Oval Office.

‘I will note that few of my Democratic colleagues are here today,’ Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn said Wednesday. ‘Thank you to Sen. Welch from Vermont for being here, leaving us with no other option than to take the boycott of this hearing as an admission of guilt for their role in this crisis.

‘We must not turn away from the search for answers, and it is not an overstatement to say that the future of our country could one day hinge on how we choose to act or not act on this very issue,’ Cornyn continued.

The Senate committee held a hearing Wednesday morning dubbed, ‘Unfit to Serve: How the Biden Cover-up Endangered America and Undermined the Constitution.’ 

Vermont Democrat Sen. Peter Welch and Illinois Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin did attend the start of the hearing, with Durbin abruptly walking out after describing the hearing as a distraction and accusing Republican colleagues of being ‘asleep at the wheel’ with other legal issues within the Trump administration due to their focus on Biden. 

‘In the last week alone, several events have demanded this committee’s immediate attention,’ Durbin said Wednesday. ‘The horrific assassination in Minnesota, the treatment of our colleague Sen. Padilla by federal agents in Los Angeles, and President Trump’s unprecedented deployment of the U.S. military in Los Angeles.

‘We should hear without delay from Attorney General Bondi and FBI Director Patel about what they are doing to address the unacceptable political violence in our country, including threats to Article III judges and justices, as well as members of Congress,’ Durbin said. ‘And we need to hear from the Homeland Security Secretary Noem about the treatment of our colleague, Sen. Padilla, and this administration’s mass deportation campaign against immigrants.’ 

Welch also left the hearing after declaring it would not benefit his constituents. 

There are 10 Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, including lawmakers such as Sens. Klobuchar of Minnesota, Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Adam Schiff of California. The press secretary for Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats directed Fox Digital to Durbin’s initial participation in the hearing and his remarks when asked about GOP lawmakers arguing Democrats’ boycott of the hearing was an admission of guilt. 

Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz seethed that Democrats and the media ‘lied’ and covered up Biden’s health decline, while slamming Democrats for their lack of participation. 

‘Not a single Democrat is here today because not a single one of them gives a d— about the fact that they lied to the American people for four years,’ Cruz said at the hearing. ‘They knew. Every one of them knew that Joe Biden was mentally not competent to do the job. The White House press secretary, she knew, when she stood in front of the American people and lied over and over and over again. And they’re not here because they can’t defend themselves. It wasn’t a surprise, for four years, the White House hid President Biden from Republican senators. Would not let him meet with us.’ 

Other Republicans railed against Democratic counterparts for skipping the hearing, such as Missouri Republican Sen. Eric Schmidt. 

‘Today, as we seek to answer this question, it is deeply disappointing, but not surprising, that most Democrats on this committee have chosen all but boycott the hearing and failed to call a single witness,’ Schmidt said at the hearing.’They have chosen to ignore this issue like they ignored President Biden’s decline. Their absence speaks volumes, an implicit admission that the truth is too inconvenient to face. By refusing to engage in this critical examination, they abdicate their responsibility to the American people. This de facto boycott is not just a refusal to participate. It’s a refusal to serve the American people who deserve answers about who was truly leading their government.

‘The title of the hearing, ‘Unfit to Serve,’ captures a sobering and undeniable truth,’ Schmidt added. ‘President Biden was mentally unfit to carry out the responsibilities of the most powerful office in the world. Given his mental incapacity, the American people deserve to know who was running the country the last four years.’

The hearing included testimony from three experts, including University of Virginia law professor John Harrison, conservative think tank Heritage Foundation fellow Theodore Wold, and a former White House press secretary from the first Trump administration, Sean Spicer. 

Concern over Biden’s mental acuity hit a fever pitch in 2024 as the election cycle heated up, when the then-president delivered a dismal debate performance against now-President Donald Trump in June. The debate opened the floodgates of criticism, including traditional Democrat allies calling for Biden to drop out of the presidential race after conservatives had already long argued that Biden’s mental acuity was slipping and he was unfit to serve as commander in chief.

Concerns over his health have continued after his presidential tenure ended, including with the revelation that the Biden admin frequently used an autopen to sign official presidential documents, the release of Biden’s interview with former Special Counsel Robert Hur, and Biden’s shock announcement in May that he had advanced prostate cancer.

The conservative Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project first investigated the Biden administration’s use of an autopen earlier in 2025 and found that the same signature was on a bevvy of executive orders and other official documents, while Biden’s signature on the document announcing his departure from the 2024 race varied from the apparent machine-produced signature.

Heritage fellow Wold testified before the committee and described the alleged cover-up of Biden’s declining health a ‘constitutional crisis.’

‘I will say the 25th Amendment. It’s a modern contrivance, but it still is consistent with the American Constitution, which assumes that officers of the United States will act virtuously and morally,’ Wold said. ‘And the idea that members of the Cabinet would go to the length of avoiding the Oval Office so as to abdicate their responsibility to verify the appropriateness of the president’s acuity or the ability to authenticate actions taken by the president. If that’s not a constitutional scandal, I honestly, I don’t know what would what would constitute such.

‘There could be the potential for crimes,’ he said. ‘But moreover, the 25th Amendment can only function in its sole mechanisms if people are actually willing to call a spade a spade.’ 

The U.S. Constitution’s 25th Amendment states that ‘whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.’ 

Biden’s Cabinet, other administration officials and Democrat lawmakers fiercely defended his health amid outcry from Republicans and others that Biden’s health had cratered and that he was likely unfit to serve as president.

President Donald Trump said it’s up in the air whether he will sign off on military strikes targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities — comments that come as his administration weighs U.S. involvement in the growing conflict between Israel and Iran. 

Trump told reporters outside the White House Wednesday that he hasn’t ruled out whether the U.S. will strike Iranian nuclear facilities, but said that the coming days or the ‘next week is going to be very big.’ 

Additionally, Trump said that Iran’s capital, Tehran, is facing a lot of problems as it seeks to come to the negotiating table after abandoning talks scheduled for Sunday. 

‘Yes, I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do. I can tell you this that Iran’s got a lot of trouble and they want to negotiate,’ Trump told reporters Wednesday. ‘And I said, why didn’t you negotiate with me before all this death and destruction? Why didn’t you go? I said to people, why didn’t you negotiate with me two weeks ago? You could have done fine. You would have had a country. It’s very sad to watch this.’

Trump previously has said he believes that Iran was very close to obtaining a nuclear weapon, and has pushed Iran to sign a nuclear agreement. Although talks were scheduled for the U.S. and Iran in Oman Sunday, Iran withdrew Friday from the discussions. 

Trump doubled down on his previous statements Wednesday asserting that Iran could not obtain a nuclear weapon. 

‘This is just not a threat you can have. And we’ve been threatened by Iran for many years,’ Trump said. ‘You know, if you go back and look at my history, if you go back 15 years, I was saying we cannot let Iran get a nuclear weapon. I’ve been saying it for a long time.’

As a result, Trump told reporters he’s offered Iran the ‘ultimate ultimatum.’ 

‘Maybe you could call it the ultimate — the ultimate ultimatum, right?’ he said. 

Tensions between Israel and Iran escalated Thursday after Israel launched massive airstrikes against Iran’s nuclear sites that Israel claims have killed several high-ranking military leaders. In response, Iran also has launched strikes against Israel as the two ramp up military campaigns against one another. 

While Secretary of State Marco Rubio initially said that the U.S. was not involved in the strikes against Iran, Trump later told Reuters that he was aware of the attacks ahead of time. 

Meanwhile, Iran has said that the U.S. entering the conflict would mean an ‘all-out war.’ 

‘Any American intervention would be a recipe for an all-out war in the region,’ Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said Wednesday during an interview with Al Jazeera English.

Trump has long cautioned that Iran could face military consequences if it fails to negotiate a nuclear deal, and signed an executive order in February instructing the Treasury Department to execute ‘maximum economic pressure’ upon Iran through a series of sanctions aimed at sinking Iran’s oil exports. 

Of all the ways to try to influence President Donald Trump, the absolute worst is to threaten him. And yet, there is a segment of MAGA world podcasters and influencers insisting that if the commander-in-chief takes direct action against Iran, it will divide and crush Trump’s base.

Don’t count on it.

The argument from podcast land is that Trump ran on a promise of no new wars and that any direct American action against Iran would betray that promise and plunge America into another forever war in the Middle East.

Let’s slow down a bit. In his first term, Trump killed Quasim Soliemani, the top Iranian general, to howls from the left, and some of these same right-wing podcasters, that it would start World War III. It didn’t. They were wrong, Trump was right.

Here we are again, the president faced with a choice. He can use U.S. bunker bombs to deal the lethal blow to Iran’s nuclear program, or he can take the Joe Biden route, and sheepishly back off his demand for unconditional surrender, and let Iran continue its march to nukes.

Depending on the polling, about 80% of Republicans think that a nuclear Iran poses a critical threat to the United States. And while voters are more split on direct U.S. action, Trump is laser-focused on stopping Tehran’s bomb.

Trump excels at solving problems everyone else says are impossible. Just look at the southern border, sealed tight as a Ziploc bag, even though everyone swore only Congress could do that.

Likewise, in Iran, Trump doesn’t want to hear a rehashing of the 8 million reasons why nobody can stop their nuclear program. He wants to hear how to stop it, and if those urging restraint can’t tell him how, he’s going to listen to those who can.

This goes back to the farcical threat that Trump is going to lose his base if he bombs Iran, that the guy in an Ohio diner is going to side with the podcasters over the president he voted for. How did that work out for Elon Musk?

The analogy is an apt one, because Musk’s threats and criticisms over the Big Beautiful Bill potentially raising the debt had real resonance among GOP voters, and yet, they chose Trump over a chastened richest man in the world. They support Trump’s overarching economic goals more than they dislike the debt.

Same thing in Iran. Is there skepticism about using direct American military might? Of course. This ain’t a pickup game of shirts and skins. But do they trust Trump overall to stop Iran from getting nukes? Absolutely.

Talk of regime change and threats to kill Iran’s supreme leader understandably make Americans jittery 25 years after the launch of the disastrous war in Iraq, but Trump isn’t talking about invading with boots on the ground, and his base knows this.

What the podcasters don’t seem to understand is that the only way to influence Trump is to influence his voters. He doesn’t care how many followers an influencer has on social media, half of which could be bots from foreign information operations, anyway.

Actually, one has to wonder if our geo-political foes, whose bot farms seek to manipulate social media platforms in America and sow discord, are disappointed by their return on investment.

On X, it seems like to bomb or not to bomb is a divide ripping our country apart. In real life, it simply isn’t.

The final thing that Trump understands and that his base trusts, is that the United States was losing the international status quo under his predecessors, on global trade, on the border, on China policy, and yes, in the Middle East. In all of these cases, he is determined to reverse that trend.

There is nothing wrong or unpatriotic about arguing that direct U.S. action against Iran would be a mistake, and Trump no doubt welcomes lively debate. But as Vice President JD Vance, no chickenhawk, pointed out Tuesday, this is Trump’s decision to make.

Trump promised that Iran would never obtain a nuke, and he has a habit of keeping his campaign promises, even when taking slings and arrows from noisy voices on his own side.

There isn’t a podcast in the world that can keep Trump from fulfilling this promise as he sees fit, and his base, the real power behind the administration, expects nothing less.

While the U.S. weighs its future involvement in the conflict between Iran and Israel, many leaders are looking with fresh eyes at Iran’s activities targeting Americans worldwide over four decades. 

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., posted on Tuesday, ‘The forever war is the war that Iran has waged against the U.S., Israel, and the civilized world since 1979.’ 

The examples of Iran’s involvement in attacks on Americans include direct and proxy attacks on U.S. forces, support for terror groups, and assassination efforts.

1979 US Embassy hostage crisis

In the early days of the Islamic revolution in 1979, radical Islamic students seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s first supreme religious leader, took hold of the situation, spurning international appeals to release the hostages. The last U.S. hostages were released 444 days later.

1983 Beirut bombings

In 2023, Sayyed Issa Tabatabai, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s representative in Lebanon, admitted during an interview with the state-controlled Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) that the Islamic Republic was involved in two 1983 bombings that killed Americans in Lebanon. 

The bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut resulted in the deaths of 63 victims, including 17 Americans. When two suicide truck bombs exploded at the barracks of multinational forces in Lebanon, 220 Marines, 18 U.S. Navy sailors and three U.S. Army soldiers were killed, and 58 French troops were murdered.

In the IRNA interview, Tabatabai said ‘I quickly went to Lebanon and provided what was needed in order to [carry out] martyrdom operations in the place where the Americans and Israelis were.’ He also stated that he received a fatwa from Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordering him to carry out the attacks, though the IRNA removed the assertion ‘shortly after publication,’ according to a report and translation of the interview from the Middle East Media Research Institute.

1996 Khobar Towers bombing

On June 25, 1996, 19 U.S. Air Force members were killed when a truck bomb exploded outside the Khobar Towers. Al Jazeera reported that in 2006, a U.S. court found the Iranian government responsible for the attack, committed by Saudi members of Hezbollah. The court ordered Iran to pay $254 million to victims of the attack. 

Terrorism support in Iraq and Afghanistan 

According to a 2019 Pentagon report cited by the Military Times, Iran bears responsibility for the deaths of 603 U.S. service members in Iraq between 2003 and 2011. This figure accounted for 17% of U.S. deaths in the country during the period. 

Some U.S. victims have been able to prove Iran’s connections to our enemies in court.

In 2022, surviving family members and victims won a case against the Islamic Republic of Iran, using the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act to hold the regime accountable for its support of terror actors who killed or injured 30 U.S. personnel in Afghanistan.

Bill Roggio, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and editor of the Long War Journal, testified in support of the victims. He told Fox News Digital that ‘Iran’s support for the Taliban and al Qaeda and the impact it had on the deaths and injuries to American soldiers and civilians is incalculable. Iran provided money, weapons, training, intelligence, and safe haven to Taliban subgroups across Afghanistan, including in the heart of the country in Kabul.’ In Roggio’s estimation, ‘Iran’s support for the Taliban was only rivaled by that of Pakistan. I would argue that Iran’s extensive support facilitated nearly every Taliban attack on U.S. personnel.’

In 2022, the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., found that Iran likewise owed damages to the families and victims of 40 U.S. service members who were injured or killed in Iraq due to Iran’s support of terrorism in the country.

Proxy involvement, attempts at retribution 

In attempted retribution for the murder of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, Iran targeted two U.S. bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq with surface-to-surface missiles in 2020. 

In January 2024, three Americans were killed, and 25 others were wounded in a drone attack on an outpost in Jordan near the border with Syria. Two Iranians, one of whom had dual U.S. citizenship, were charged in connection with the attack.

At the time of the attack, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex) said that Iranian proxies had ‘launched over 150 attacks on U.S. troops’ following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.

Roggio reported that on June 14, Iranian-backed militias ‘launched three drones’ at Ain al Assad, a U.S. base in western Iraq. The drones were shot down before reaching their target. 

Roggio said that the drone attack ‘appears to be an unsanctioned strike by an unnamed Iranian militia. Unlike past attacks, no group has claimed credit, and there have been no follow-on strikes.’ He believes Iran ‘wants to keep the U.S. out of the fight, as the U.S. military has the capability to hit the underground nuclear facility at Fordow.’ 

Between October 2023 and August 2024, Iranian-backed Islamic Resistance in Iraq militias launched 180 attacks against U.S. forces in Syria, Iraq and Jordan. Throughout their ‘decades of experience,’ Roggio says Iraqi militias ‘are estimated to have killed more than 600 U.S. service members.’

Kidnappings 

Robert Levinson, a retired FBI agent and private investigator, disappeared from an Iranian island in 2007. Levinson was held hostage and was declared dead in 2020, when he was said to have died in Iranian custody. His family blamed the Iranian regime for his capture and imprisonment.

Just last year, Iran executed Jamshid Sharmahd. Sharmahd survived an assassination attempt in California in which an Iranian agent was convicted of the planned murder. He was then kidnapped by the Iranian regime in Dubai in 2020 as part of a business trip.

The history of prisoner exchanges between Iran and the U.S. dates back to 1979. The most recent prisoner exchange of five Americans imprisoned in Iran for five Iranians detained in the U.S. occurred in September 2023. As part of the deal, the U.S. released $6 billion in frozen assets in South Korea. 

Assassinations

In November, the Department of Justice announced charges against an Iranian citizen and two New Yorkers for their role in a murder-for-hire plot targeting multiple American citizens, including President Donald Trump. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Fox News’ Bret Baier on Monday that Trump remains an Islamic Republic target. ‘They want to kill him. He’s enemy number one.’

Fox News’ Benjamin Weinthal contributed to this report.

Iran warned that the United States joining forces with Israel would mean an ‘all-out war,’ as Israel bombarded sites overnight that it says would have allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium, as well as attack Israeli forces.

‘Any American intervention would be a recipe for an all-out war in the region,’ Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei warned Wednesday during an interview with Al Jazeera English.

He did not elaborate, but thousands of American troops are based in nearby countries within range of Iran’s weapons. The U.S. has threatened a massive response to any attack.

Another Iranian official apparently ruled out demands for the country to give up its disputed nuclear program.

Iran’s ambassador to Geneva, Ali Bahreini, told reporters that Iran ‘will continue to produce the enriched uranium as far as we need for peaceful purposes.’

He rejected any talk of a setback to Iran’s nuclear research and development from the Israeli strikes, saying, ‘Our scientists will continue their work.’

Israeli warplanes pounded Tehran overnight and into Wednesday as Iran launched a small barrage of missiles at Israel with no reports of casualties, according to the Associated Press.

Israel says it launched the strikes to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon, after talks between the United States and Iran over a diplomatic resolution had made little visible progress over two months but were still ongoing. 

President Donald Trump has said Israel’s campaign came after a 60-day window he set for the talks.

Iran has long insisted its nuclear program was peaceful, though it is the only non-nuclear-armed state to enrich uranium up to 60%, a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. U.S. intelligence agencies have said they did not believe Iran was actively pursuing the bomb, according to the AP. Israel is believed to be the only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons but has never publicly acknowledged them.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Wednesday that it eliminated Ali Shadmani, identified as Iran’s ‘wartime chief of staff,’ overnight. Shadmani held the role for only four days before meeting the same fate as his predecessor, spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said in a video statement Wednesday. 

‘We have delivered significant blows to the Iranian regime, and as such, they have been pushed back into central Iran,’ Defrin said. ‘They are now focusing their efforts on conducting missile fire from the area of Isfahan. We are aiming at military targets, they are attacking civilian homes.’

‘While we are working to remove threats from Iran, we are still fighting their proxy, Hamas in Gaza, who is still holding 53 of our hostages in brutal conditions,’ he added. ‘We will not rest until they are returned home.’  

More than fifty Israeli Air Force (IAF) fighter jets conducted three waves of strikes over three hours in an extensive operation Tuesday night, hitting an Iranian centrifuge production site ‘that was intended to enable the regime to continue to enhance its uranium enrichment,’ Defrin said in another statement Wednesday. ‘This complements actions from previous operations we have conducted targeting components of the nuclear program.’ 

Israeli forces have struck over 1,100 different components across Iran as of the sixth day of the conflict, Defrin said.

He said IAF jets also struck several weapons and missile production sites in Tehran. On Wednesday morning, Israeli aircraft identified and struck five Iranian AH-1 attack helicopters located at Kermanshah airport.

‘We have clear goals and objectives: removing the existential threat to the State of Israel, significantly impairing the nuclear program in all its components, and inflicting substantial damage to the missile array,’ Defrin said. 

The IDF said it identified around thirty launches fired from Iran towards Israeli territory in two barrages Tuesday night. 

‘Most of them were intercepted, and there were no casualties. I know these are complex days, but we cannot afford complacency,’ Defrin said, warning Israelis to strictly adhere to home-front safety guidelines. 

Trump initially distanced himself from Israel’s surprise attack on Friday that triggered the conflict, but in recent days has hinted at greater American involvement, saying he wants something ‘much bigger’ than a cease-fire. 

The U.S. has also been shifting assets to the Middle East, including sending more warplanes to the region.

Trump said in social media posts on Wednesday that the U.S. knows where Iran’s Supreme Leader is but would not kill him, for now. He also called for the ‘complete surrender’ of Iran.

‘We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran,’ Trump wrote. 

Fox News’ Stephanie Simon and the Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Senate Republicans are gearing up for the first full-scale congressional hearing into the alleged cover-up of former President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline.

Senators John Cornyn, R-Texas., and Eric Schmitt, R-Mo. will co-chair a Senate Judiciary Hearing Wednesday that delves into ‘what exactly went on’ during Biden’s term and why the constitutional power to remove him from office wasn’t triggered.

Cornyn said on the Senate floor that one of the main goals of the hearing was to shine a light on what happened behind the scenes during landmark moments of Biden’s presidency, ‘from the Biden border crisis to the disastrous results from the withdrawal in Afghanistan.

‘And it’s now clear that for many months — no one knows exactly how long — the president was simply not up to the task,’ he said. ‘Whoever happened to be making those decisions and carrying out the duties of the Office of President was not somebody who was authorized by the Constitution or by a vote of the American people.’

Cornyn and Schmitt’s hearing, first announced late last month, will be held after the release of the book ‘Original Sin’ by CNN host Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson, which alleges the Biden White House was trying to control the narrative about the former president’s health and that his allies worked to cover up his decline.

The hearing, ‘Unfit to Serve: How the Biden Cover-Up Endangered America and Undermined the Constitution,’ features a trio of witnesses called by the Senate Republican duo who served during President Donald Trump’s first term and during the Reagan and Bush years.

Among the Republicans’ witnesses are Theodore Wold, who formerly served as acting assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Policy at the Justice Department and deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy during the Trump administration; Sean Spicer, former White House press secretary and communications director; and John Harrison, a legal scholar from the University of Virginia School of Law who previously served during former the Reagan and Bush administrations.

Wold and Harrison told Fox News Digital their testimony would focus on Biden’s alleged usage of an autopen, a device that is used to automatically mimic a person’s signature, typically used signing of numerous documents, and how the usage of the device may have acted as a smokescreen to prevent the triggering of the 25th Amendment.

Biden has rejected assertions by lawmakers and Trump that he habitually used an autopen. Trump recently ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to open an investigation into whether the former president’s aides ‘abused the power of Presidential signatures through the use of an autopen to conceal Biden’s cognitive decline.’

Spicer’s testimony will focus on the media’s treatment of Trump compared to Biden during their respective first terms and how some media outlets were allegedly ‘silent’ when it came to signs of the ex-president’s decline.

Democrats on the panel did not call any witnesses.

The top-ranking Democrat on the committee, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., contended that Cornyn and Schmitt were wasting the panel’s time with their endeavor.

‘We have so many important topics to consider, and this is a totally political undertaking by several of my colleagues,’ he said. ‘It is a waste of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s time.’ 

 The Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has lashed out at China, Russia and Iran for threatening U.S. national security interests in Africa in exclusive comments to Fox News Digital.

In a wide-ranging interview, Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, discussed the Trump administration’s approach to Africa, highlighting terrorism, war and concerns over trade on the continent. Risch emphasized the importance of Africa to the U.S. 

‘The economic opportunities in Africa cannot be understated, and the United States needs to have a seat at the table regarding trade and investment in the region,’ he said. ‘At the same time, there are serious national security challenges we need to address head on to include terrorism, widespread conflicts affecting regional stability, migration and trafficking.’

Russia, China and Iran have been criticized by Risch as being ‘malign actors’ in Africa, accused of military interventions, exploitative trade practices, and in Iran’s case, reported to be working on an agreement to extract refined ‘yellowcake’ uranium for its controversial nuclear program.

‘The malign actions of China and Russia, and even regional actors like Iran, are serious challenges to our national security interests in Africa,’ Risch said. ‘Countering the influence of these aggressors is as much about the U.S. pursuing greater partnerships with African states as it is about responding to the challenges put forward by countries like Russia and China in Africa.’

Risch weighed in on the role of the U.S. military on the continent, saying it ‘is to protect the American people, first and foremost, and that goal should remain the same in Africa. We have serious security threats in Africa, and we must take them seriously. Remember, Osama bin Laden hid in Sudan, bombed our embassies there, and planned his 9/11 attack.’

Then there’s the question of Islamist terror. Risch said he was ‘concerned about the spread of Islamist militants throughout parts of Africa, and has supported efforts to work with countries to help them get this situation under control.’

He added, ‘I am mindful that it is ultimately not up to us to confront this problem, and we have to stop being the only major player providing international support. Others, including African nations, must do more.’

Washington has Somalian terror clearly on its radar. In banning Somalians from entering the U.S. earlier this month, a White House proclamation stated, ‘The United States Government has identified Somalia as a terrorist safe haven.’

Al-Qaeda and Islamic State-affiliated terrorists operate openly. The U.S. military, through its Africa Command, has ramped up action against the groups since President Trump took office. So far this month, the U.S. has already carried out six air strikes against Islamic State in Somalia.

‘I have advocated so strongly for the United States to build an approach that relies less on a central government partner that has not delivered, and more on partners in Somalia and the region to bring about effective counterterrorism gains.

‘Fortunately, President Trump’s Africa policy has already shown he thinks outside the box, as demonstrated by the handling of recent airstrikes on Somalia with less hand-wringing, and more direct and decisive action.’

In Sudan, Russia and Iran have been fingered as protagonists pushing military agendas and war. An estimated 150,000 have been killed, and more than 12 million displaced, since civil war broke out in April 2023.

‘The war in Sudan must end, and the partition of the Sudanese state must be prevented. This is the worst humanitarian disaster in the world, and a playground for malign actors backing both sides,’ he said.

On President Donald Trump’s spearheading of efforts to bring peace to the Eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Risch said, ‘I know this administration is working hard to secure a deal between DRC and Rwanda that will end the fighting. America must serve as a counterweight to China’s critical minerals deals in the region, but can’t fully do so until the region is more stable.’

In South Africa, government ministers continue to meet with senior Russian, Chinese and Iranian officials. The African National Congress political party, which South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is the leader of, has hosted officials from the Hamas terror group. Yet the country benefits from duty-free benefits for products like cars and fruit in the U.S. under the African Growth and Opportunity Act, AGOA, and other trade deals.

Risch told Fox News Digital, ‘I have consistently raised national security concerns about South Africa’s AGOA eligibility. AGOA is set to expire later this year, and President Trump’s current tariff regime already overrides many of its benefits. I remain critical of the South African government’s posture, which is why I applauded Secretary Rubio’s decision not to allow U.S. representation at the G20.’

In November, South Africa is due to hand over the chairmanship of the G20 to the U.S. But at this time Washington is not sending a single official to the handover ceremony.

Fox News Digital reached out to the South African government, but received no response.