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Flaring Iran nuclear crisis provides first major test for pivotal Trump trio
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A trio of key Trump administration officials — Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt — are in the midst of facing their first major foreign policy test in their high-profile admin roles after Israel launched preemptive strikes on Iran and President Donald Trump weighs involving the U.S. in the conflict.
The trio ascended to their roles with widespread fanfare among many MAGA conservatives, though many critics just months ago questioned if their prior careers prepared them for what was to come. The current flaring tensions with the Islamic Republic could be the final arbiter of which side was correct.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. (Fox News / The Will Cain Show)
«President Trump leads from the front, and he has assembled a highly-qualified, world-class team that has helped him achieve numerous foreign policy accomplishments this term,» White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told Fox Digital on Wednesday when asked about the trio’s test on Iran. «The American people trust the President to make the right decisions that keep them safe, and he has empowered his team to meet the moment and advance his foreign policy goals.»
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth
Secretary Hegseth was one of Trump’s more controversial nominees among critics, as Democrat lawmakers and left-wing pundits slammed Hegseth as unqualified for the job.
IRAN WARNS US JOINING CONFLICT WOULD MEAN ‘ALL-OUT WAR,’ REFUSES DEMANDS TO GIVE UP DISPUTED NUCLEAR PROGRAM
«This hearing now seems to be a hearing about whether or not women are qualified to serve in combat. And not about whether or not you are qualified to be secretary of defense,» Illinois Democrat Sen. Tammy Duckworth said during Hegseth’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee in January. «And let me just say that the American people need a secretary of defense who’s ready to lead on day one. You are not that person.»
«Is Pete Hegseth truly the best we have to offer?» asked Democrat Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, ranking member of the committee.
President Donald Trump speaks during a roundtable. (Evan Vucci/The Associated Press)
Hegseth battled against claims he would lower previous standards for the secretary of Defense and that his vows to strengthen the military could be bluster once he was in the role and juggling oversight of the entire military.
«As I’ve said to many of you in our private meetings, when President Trump chose me for this position, the primary charge he gave me was to bring the warrior culture back to the Department of Defense,» he said in his opening statement during his confirmation hearing. «He, like me, wants a Pentagon laser focused on warfighting, lethality, meritocracy, standards, and readiness. That’s it. That is my job.»
Hegseth was confirmed to the role after Vice President JD Vance issued a tie-breaking vote when Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Mitch McConnell joined Democrats in voting against the confirmation.
Hegseth is an Ivy League graduate and former National Guard officer who was deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay during his military career, which began in 2003. He is also the recipient of a handful of military awards, including two Bronze Stars. He appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday and was pressed about the Israel–Iran conflict.
«They should have made a deal,» Hegseth said.
«President Trump’s word means something — the world understands that,» Hegseth said, referring to Trump’s repeated pressure on Iran to make a deal with the U.S. on its nuclear program as the conflict spiraled.
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«And at the Defense Department, our job is to stand ready and prepared with options. And that’s precisely what we’re doing,» Hegseth continued.
He did not reveal if the U.S. would assist Israel in the ongoing strikes on Iran, but that the Pentagon is in the midst of preparing options for Trump.
Any potential U.S. involvement in the strikes could pull the country into war against Iran.
«I may do it, I may not do it,» Trump said Wednesday on whether he would order a strike on Iran. «I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do.»
Hegseth was among high-profile Trump officials who joined Trump in the White House’s Situation Room as the president and his team closely monitor the flaring conflict.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. (John McDonnell/The Associated Press)
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard
Director of National Intelligence Gabbard is another Trump official who faced an intense confirmation hearing as critics argued she was unqualified for the role.
Gabbard is a former Democrat who served in the U.S. House representing Hawaii from 2013 to 2021, a former member of the House Armed Services Committee and an Iraq war veteran. However, she had never held a formal position within the intelligence community before serving as director of national intelligence.
Ahead of her confirmation, Gabbard’s critics slammed her as lacking the qualifications for the role, questioning her judgment over a 2017 meeting with then-Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, labeling her as sympathetic toward Russia, and balking at her previous favorable remarks related to former National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
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«Those who oppose my nomination imply that I am loyal to something or someone other than God, my own conscience and the Constitution of the United States,» she said during her confirmation hearing. «Accusing me of being Trump’s puppet, Putin’s puppet, Assad’s puppet, a guru’s puppet, Modi’s puppet, not recognizing the absurdity of simultaneously being the puppet of five different puppet masters.»
She ultimately was confirmed in a 52–48 vote.
Smoke rises from the building of Iran’s state-run television after an Israeli strike in Tehran, Iran, on Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP Photo)
Gabbard’s March testimony before the Senate dismissing concerns Iran was actively building a nuclear weapon is back under the nation’s microscope after Israel launched preemptive strikes on Iran. Israel’s strikes were in direct response to Israeli intelligence showing Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a short span of time.
Trump was asked about Gabbard’s testimony while traveling back to Washington Monday evening from the G7 summit in Canada, and the president said he did not «care» what Gabbard had to say in previous testimony, arguing he believes Iran is close to building a nuke.
«You’ve always said that you don’t believe Iran should be able to have a nuclear weapon,» a reporter asked Trump while aboard Air Force One on Monday. «But how close do you personally think that they were to getting one?»
«Very close,» Trump responded.
«Because Tulsi Gabbard testified in March that the intelligence community said Iran wasn’t building a nuclear weapon,» the reporter continued.
Trump shot back, «I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having one.»
When Gabbard appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee in March, she delivered a statement on behalf of the intelligence community that included testimony that Iran was not actively building a nuclear weapon.
«Iran’s cyber operations and capabilities also present a serious threat to U.S. networks and data,» Gabbard told the committee on March 26.
The intelligence community «continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon, and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003,» she said. She did add that «Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons.»
«Iran will likely continue efforts to counter Israel and press for U.S. military withdrawal from the region by aiding, arming and helping to reconstitute its loose consortium of like-minded terrorist actors, which it refers to as its axis of resistance,» she warned.
However, as critics picked apart Gabbard’s past comments, the White House stressed that Gabbard and Trump are closely aligned on Iran.
A White House official told Fox News Digital Tuesday afternoon that Trump and Gabbard are closely aligned and that the distinction being raised between Gabbard’s March testimony and Trump’s remarks that Iran is «very close» to getting a nuclear weapon is one without a difference.
The official noted that Gabbard underscored in her March testimony that Iran had the resources to potentially build a nuclear weapon. Her testimony in March reflected intelligence she received that Iran was not building a weapon at the time but that the country could do so based on the resources it amassed for such an endeavor.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt
Leavitt is the youngest press secretary in U.S. history, assuming the role at age 27.
Some liberal critics, such as Joy Behar of «The View,» attempted to discount her appointment when she was first tapped by Trump, and she has since emerged as a Trump administration firebrand during her routine White House press briefings.
Though Leavitt has overwhelmingly been praised by supporters of the president for her defense of the administration and repeated fiery exchanges with left-wing media outlets during briefings, her tenure has overwhelmingly focused on domestic issues.
President Donald Trump is in the midst of monitoring the flaring conflict between Israel and Iran. (Alex Brandon/The Associated Press )
Leavitt has kept the nation updated on issues such as mass deportation efforts, Trump’s ongoing list of executive orders affecting policies from transgender issues to electric vehicles, national tragedies such as the terror attack in Boulder targeting Jewish Americans and Trump’s wide-ranging tariff policy that affects foreign nations.
Though the administration entered office with a war raging between Russia and Ukraine, as well as the ongoing war in Israel after Hamas attacked the country in 2023, the Israel–Iran conflict provides Leavitt with her first major international crisis that could include U.S. involvement.
Leavitt’s highly anticipated first press briefing since Israel launched its preemptive strikes is scheduled for Thursday.
INTERNACIONAL
Federal judge limits Trump’s ability to deport Abrego Garcia after lengthy court battle
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Greenbelt, Md. – A federal judge in Maryland issued an emergency ruling Wednesday blocking the Trump administration from immediately taking Salvadorian migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia into ICE custody for 72 hours after he is released from criminal custody in Nashville, Tennessee — attempting to slow, if only temporarily, a case at the center of a legal and political maelstrom.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis said in her order that the government must refrain from immediately taking Abrego into ICE custody pending release from criminal custody in Tennessee, and ordered he be returned to the ICE Order of Supervision at the Baltimore Field Office— the closest ICE facility near the district of Maryland where Abrego was arrested earlier this year.
Xinis said at an evidentiary hearing this month that she would take action soon, in anticipation of a looming detention hearing for Abrego Garcia in his criminal case. She said she planned to issue the order with sufficient time to block the Trump administration’s stated plans to immediately begin the process of deporting Abrego Garcia again upon release — this time to a third country such as Mexico or South Sudan.
Xinis’s order said the additional time will ensure Abrego can raise any credible fears of removal to a third country, and via «the appropriate channels in the immigration process.» She also ordered the government to provide Abrego and his attorneys with «immediate written notice» of plans to transport him to a third country, again with the 72-hour notice period, «so that Abrego Garcia may assert claims of credible fear or seek any other relief available to him under the law and the Constitution.»
TRUMP HAS CUSTODY OVER JAILED CECOT MIGRANTS, EL SALVADOR SAYS, COMPLICATING COURT FIGHTS
Demonstrators gather outside the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland, to protest the Trump administration’s deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was sent to El Salvador in March in what administration officials said was an administrative error, on July 7, 2025. (Breanne Deppisch/Fox News Digital)
Xinis said in her order Wednesday that the 72-hour notice period is necessary «to prevent a repeat of Abrego Garcia’s unlawful deportation to El Salvador by way of third-country removal.»
«Defendants have taken no concrete steps to ensure that any prospective third country would not summarily return Abrego Garcia to El Salvador in an end-run around the very withholding order that offers him uncontroverted protection,» she said.
The order from Xinis, who presided over Abrego Garcia’s civil case, was ultimately handed down on Wednesday just two minutes after a federal judge in Nashville — U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw — issued a separate order, upholding a lower judge’s decision that Abrego should be released from criminal custody pending trial in January.
Crenshaw said in his order that the government failed to provide «any evidence that there is something in Abrego’s history at warrants detention.»
The plans, which Xinis ascertained over the course of a multi-day evidentiary hearing earlier this month, capped an exhausting, 19-week legal saga in the case of Abrego Garcia that spanned two continents, multiple federal courts, including the Supreme Court, and inspired countless hours of news coverage.
Still, it ultimately yielded little in the way of new answers, and Xinis likened the process to «nailing Jell-O to a wall,» and «beating a frustrated and dead horse,» among other things.
«We operate as government of laws,» she scolded lawyers for the Trump administration in one of many terse exchanges. «We don’t operate as a government of ’take my word for it.’»
FEDERAL JUDGE EXTENDS ARGUMENTS IN ABREGO GARCIA CASE, SLAMS ICE WITNESS WHO ‘KNEW NOTHING’
A person holds up a sign referencing the the CECOT prison in El Salvador during demonstration against President Donald Trump and his immigration policies in Houston, Texas, on May 1, 2025. (Photo: AFP va Getty Images) (AFP via Getty)
Xinis had repeatedly floated the notion of a temporary restraining order, or TRO, to ensure certain safeguards were in place to keep Abrego Garcia in ICE custody, and appeared to agree with his attorneys that such an order is likely needed to prevent their client from being removed again, without access to counsel or without a chance to appeal his country of removal.
«I’m just trying to understand what you’re trying to do,» Xinis said on more than one occasion, growing visibly frustrated.
«I’m deeply concerned that if there’s no restraint on you, Abrego will be on another plane to another country,» she told the Justice Department, noting pointedly that «that’s what you’ve done in other cases.»
Those concerns were echoed repeatedly by Abrego Garcia’s attorneys in a court filing earlier this month.
They noted the number of times that the Trump administration has appeared to have undercut or misrepresented its position before the court in months past, as Xinis attempted to ascertain the status of Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, and what efforts, if any, the Trump administration was making to comply with a court order to facilitate his return.
The Trump administration, who reiterated their belief that the case is no longer in her jurisdiction, will almost certainly move to immediately appeal the restraining order to a higher court.
TRUMP HAS CUSTODY OVER JAILED CECOT MIGRANTS, EL SALVADOR SAYS, COMPLICATING COURT FIGHTS
Demonstrators gather cheering and chanting slogans, during the nationwide «Hands Off!» protest against Trump in Boston, Massachusetts on April 5, 2025. (Joseph Prezioso / AFP via Getty)
The order comes two weeks after an extraordinary, multi-day evidentiary hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland, where Xinis sparred with Trump administration officials as she attempted to make sense of their remarks and ascertain their next steps as they look to deport Abrego Garcia to a third country.
She said she planned to issue the order before the date that Abrego could possibly be released from federal custody— a request made by lawyers for Abrego Garcia, who asked the court for more time in criminal custody, citing the many countries he might suffer persecution in — and concerns about what legal status he would have in the third country of removal.
Without legal status in Mexico, Xinis said, it would likely be a «quick road» to being deported by the country’s government to El Salvador, in violation of the withholding of removal order.
And in South Sudan, another country DHS is apparently considering, lawyers for Abrego noted the State Department currently has a Level 4 advisory in place discouraging U.S. travel due to violence and armed conflict.
Americans who do travel there should «draft a will» beforehand and designate insurance beneficiaries, according to official guidance on the site.
FEDERAL PROSECUTORS TELL JUDGE THEY WILL DEPORT KILMAR ABREGO GARCIA TO A THIRD COUNTRY AFTER DETENTION
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys speak to reporters outside the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland, in July. (Breanne Deppisch/Fox News Digital) (Breanne Deppisch/Fox News Digital)
In court, both in July and in earlier hearings, Xinis struggled to keep her own frustration and her incredulity at bay after months of back-and-forth with Justice Department attorneys.
Xinis has presided over Abrego Garcia’s civil case since March, when he was deported to El Salvador in violation of an existing court order in what Trump administration officials described as an «administrative error.»
She spent hours pressing Justice Department officials, over the course of three separate hearings, for details on the government’s plans for removing Abrego Garcia to a third country — a process she likened to «trying to nail Jell-O to a wall.»
Xinis chastised the Justice Department this month for presenting a DHS witness to testify under oath about ICE’s plans to deport Abrego Garcia, fuming that the official, Thomas Giles, «knew nothing» about his case, and made no effort to ascertain answers — despite his rank as ICE’s third-highest enforcement official.
The four hours of testimony he provided was «fairly stunning,» and «insulting to her intelligence,» Xinis said.
Ultimately, the court would not allow the «unfettered release» of Abrego Garcia pending release from federal custody in Tennessee without «full-throated assurances» from the Trump administration that it will keep Abrego Garcia in ICE custody for a set period of time and locally, Xinis said, to ensure immigration officials do not «spirit him away to Nome, Alaska.»
During the July hearing, Judge Xinis notably declined to weigh in on the request for sanctions filed by lawyers for Abrego Garcia, but alluded to it in her ruling Wednesday.
«Defendants’ defiance and foot- dragging are, to be sure, the subject of a separate sanctions motion,» she said in the ruling— indicating further steps could be taken as she attempts to square months of differing statements from Trump officials.
«The Court will not recount this troubling history in detail, other than to note Defendants’ persistent lack of transparency with the tribunal adds to why further injunctive relief is warranted,» she said.
TRUMP’S REMARKS COULD COME BACK TO BITE HIM IN ABREGO GARCIA DEPORTATION BATTLE
This still from video from July 22, 2015 show Paula Xinis from US Senate Judiciary Committee (US Senate Judiciary Committee)
The Justice Department, after a short recess, declined to agree, prompting Xinis to proceed with her plans for the TRO.
Xinis told the court that ultimately, «much delta» remains between where they ended things in court, and what she is comfortable with, given the government’s actions in the past.
This was apparent on multiple occasions Friday, when Xinis told lawyers for the Trump administration that she «isn’t buying» their arguments or doesn’t «have faith» in the statements they made — reflecting an erosion of trust that could prove damaging in the longer-term.
The hearings this week capped months of back-and-forth between Xinis and the Trump administration, as she tried, over the course of 19 weeks, to track the status of a single migrant deported erroneously by the Trump administration to El Salvador—and to trace what attempts, if any, they had made facilitate his return to the U.S.
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Xinis previously took aim at what she deemed to be the lack of information submitted to the court as part of an expedited discovery process she ordered this year, describing the government’s submissions as «vague, evasive and incomplete»— and which she said demonstrated «willful and bad faith refusal to comply with discovery obligations.»
On Friday, she echoed this view. «You have taken the presumption of regularity and you’ve destroyed it, in my view,» Xinis said.
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A plane carrying nearly 50 people on board reportedly crashed in Russia’s Far East on Thursday and local emergency services have located the wreckage.
The country’s Emergency Situations Ministry said search crews found the plane’s burning fuselage on a hillside south of its planned destination in the town of Tynda, which is located near the Russia’s border with China.
Images of the reported crash site circulated by Russian state media show debris scattered among dense forest, surrounded by plumes of smoke.
LONDON-BOUND PLANE CARRYING MORE THAN 200 PEOPLE CRASHES AFTER TAKEOFF IN INDIA
An An-24 aircraft of Angara Airlines lands at the airport of Irkutsk, Russia April 13, 2014. (REUTERS/Marina Lystseva/File Photo)
An initial aerial inspection of the site suggested that there were no survivors, Russia’s Interfax news agency said, citing unnamed sources in the emergency services. Its sources also said that there were difficult weather conditions in the area.
The transport prosecutor’s office said the plane attempted a second approach while trying to land when contact with it was lost.
Forty-three passengers, including five children, as well as six crew members were on board the An-24 passenger plane as it traveled from the city of Blagoveshchensk on the Russian-Chinese border to the town of Tynda, regional Gov. Vasily Orlov said.
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Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry reported that 48 people were on board the flight, which was operated by Siberia-based Angara Airlines. The reason for the discrepancy was not immediately clear.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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