Fox News anchor Bret Baier said that President Donald Trump’s strikes against Iran on Saturday were especially important because they happened after the sun was already up, making U.S. aircraft more visible to Iran.
On “Fox and Friends Weekend,” Baier, who previously covered the Pentagon for Fox News, asserted that the Pentagon’s Operation Epic Fury against the Islamic theocracy was not conducted in secrecy. He said this decision gave him “confidence” in the U.S. military.
“It is overwhelming force. And one thing that really strikes you is that this happened in daylight. This was not under the cover of darkness. This was not overnight at 3 a.m. their time. This was when the sun was up. So, there is a confidence in this military that they have the ability to take targets out indiscriminately, even in sunlight,” Baier told hosts Lawrence Jones, Ainsley Earhardt, and Brian Kilmeade.
In early January 2026, the Trump administration carried out “Operation Absolute Resolve,” which successfully led to the capture of Nicolás Maduro, the socialist dictator of Venezuela.
The operation in Venezuela happened very early in the morning, when the sun was still down.
The Fox News personality noted major questions “obviously” remain unanswered “as this [Iran] operation has taken off.”
“What comes next? What is the on-the-ground situation look like? How does this transition happen if it happens?” he asked.
Baier noted he was “really struck” by Trump’s eight-minute video posted to Truth Social at 2:30 a.m. EST announcing the strikes, which began after 9:00 a.m., local Iranian time.
“In the president’s eight minutes, he goes back years and years and years about what Iran has done to the U.S. directly. The Beirut bombing, to the terrorist actions to the proxies to the roadside bombs inside Iraq run essentially by General [Qasem] Soleimani,” the anchor elaborated. “The actions of the Iranian regime back decades was part of this preamble of where they are now.”
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“He [Trump] said they [Iran] can’t get a nuclear weapon, their ballistic missiles are a threat to the region, and, at the end there, you heard him implore the citizens on the ground that, ‘This is your time. This is the time to rise up,’” Baier continued, noting several Iranians reported receiving text messages stating, “Help is here.”
WATCH:
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said early Monday that the U.S. military operation in Iran is “laser-focused.”
“Destroy Iranian missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure and they will never have nuclear weapons,” said Hesgeth, who was joined by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine.
Hegseth declined to give a timeframe for the operation, but he insisted it would not be “endless.”
“This is not Iraq,” Hegseth said. “This is not endless. I was there for both — our generation knows better, and so does this president. He called the last 20 years of nation-building wars dumb and he’s right. This is the opposite. This operation is a clear, devastating, decisive mission: Destroy the missile threat, destroy the navy, no nukes.”
Hegseth said there are no U.S. military “boots on the ground” in Iran right now, but said he would not “go into the exercise of what we will or will not do” in the future.
Caine said it will “take some time for us to conduct a battle damage assessment, and the targeting that CENTCOM will run will take those things into effect.”
At least 11 people have been killed in Israel. The Iranian Red Crescent says 555 people have been killed in Iran.
Caine said it will “take some time for us to conduct a battle damage assessment, and the targeting that CENTCOM will run will take those things into effect.”
Hegseth on Monday accused Iran of having started the war, saying Iran’s “stubborn and self-evident nuclear pursuit” as well as “targeting global shipping lines.”
“Iran had a conventional gun to our head as they tried to lie their way to a nuclear bomb,” Hegseth said to a room full of reporters on Monday morning with an important update.
