President Donald Trump says Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is "more rational" than his father, the late Ali Khamenei.
Trump made the comment during an interview with NBC News published on Sunday, telling host Kristen Welker that the new leader may be better for the U.S.
"Is this younger Khamenei any better for the United States than his father was?" Welker asked.
"Younger. I think more rational. Injured. He’s pretty badly injured. So there's a certain bravery there," Trump said. "A lot of people, if they were injured that badly, they wouldn't be talking about, you know, 'How are we doing with the United States?' They'd have other things on their mind. So there's a certain bravery there. But he is very seriously injured."
Earlier in the interview, Trump declined to say where is red line would fall on restarting military operations against Iran. He said he would think about it "very seriously" if any more American lives were lost, but noted that, "We're having very good negotiations with the people that are leading the country now."
"It's the third group that we've been dealing with. And they are different. And you could say it's regime change actually because these are very different people. I find them to be more rational, very smart," Trump said.
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., joined "Fox News Sunday" to weigh in on the ongoing U.S.-Iranian conflict as peace talks with Tehran fail to make progress.
President Donald Trump says the U.S. is willing to work with Iran to remove and destroy its uranium supplies if it agrees to a peace deal.
Trump made the comments during an interview with NBC News' "Meet the Press" published on Sunday. He went on to say that if no deal is reached, the U.S. will resume attacks on Iran's military.
“If we make a deal that now we’re friendly, we’ll all go together. It’ll be our equipment. We’ll take it out and destroy it, whether it’s on-site or whether we take it off-site,” Trump said of the enriched uranium.
“And we will go with them, or without them. But we won’t have people shooting at us, OK?” Trump said. “Now, if we don’t make a deal, then we’re going to take them out militarily very harshly. And we’ll wait till we do that before we go, in which case we’ll have safety either way.”
{{#rendered}}President Donald Trump denied that launching the Iran conflict broke his campaign promise of "no new wars" because it is not an "endless war" on Sunday.
Trump made the statement in an interview with NBC News after being pressed on the issue by host Kristen Welker.
"I didn't promise anything. I don't like these endless wars. This is not an endless war," Trump said.
"So you're saying you didn't break your promise. And yet, Mr. President, in your first term, you held to that promise and it was so fundamental to who you were as a candidate, to a first-term president. What changed, because you insisted 'no new wars'?"
"First of all, I didn't guarantee no war. Why would I have built the strongest military in the world? I built our military. I inherited a terrible military. We had no equipment. We had nothing. I built a tremendous military. Biden gave a lot of it away, but it's still a relatively small portion compared to what I built," Trump responded.
Trump went on to say that Iran was very close to developing a nuclear weapon prior to U.S. intervention, and that he was doing the world a "favor."
Turning Point USA contributor Jack Posobiec, a former Navy intelligence officer, joined Fox News on Sunday to discuss reports of Israel spying on the U.S.
Both the White House and the Israeli Embassy in the U.S. have denied the claims
Fox News senior strategic analyst Ret. Gen. Jack Keane discussed Iran’s demand for billions in frozen assets as the U.S. works to reach a deal with the regime on Sunday.
Iranian negotiators demanded $24 billion in frozen assets as part of a potential agreement, but President Donald Trump's administration has shown no signs of agreeing.
Keane argued that the Trump administration has exhausted its strategic patience, having applied significant economic pressure and military deterrence against Tehran, making a comprehensive deal Iran's only viable option.
{{#rendered}}Fox News' host Mark Levin defended Israel's repeated strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon on Saturday, arguing that Israel is "surrounded by enemies" and must defend itself.
Levin dove into the history of Jewish and Muslim populations in the Middle East, arguing that Israel has no choice but to defend itself.
Pakistan's interior minister is meeting with Iranian officials in Tehran on Sunday in the latest effort to progress peace talks between the U.S. and Iran.
Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi is delivering a message directly to Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, according to Iranian state media.
Naqvi met with Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni late Saturday, and held talks Sunday morning with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, according to official Iranian media.
The reports did not offer details on what was discussed in the meetings.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A coalition of athletes, including several Olympians, have signed a letter advocating against Iran for its history and plans to execute star athletes, as the planned execution of Iranian boxing champion Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani looms.
Sani is a boxing champion, coach and political prisoner who is currently facing an imminent risk of execution in Iran by the Ayatollah.
He was arrested by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in March 2020 following his participation in the November 2019 nationwide protests, which were initially sparked by a sudden hike in gas prices. The Iranian judiciary charged him with "corruption on earth," which is a capital offense in the country.
The Olympians, headlined by women's tennis legend Martina Navratilova and British swimming gold medalist Sharron Davies, call on world governing powers and sports bodies to intervene to prevent the execution.
"Currently, Mohammad Javad Vafaei Sani, a 31-year-old boxing champion and coach, remains on death row," the letter states.
"We call on the United Nations, international sports federations, and governments to act immediately to save the lives of Iranian dissidents, including athletes. The world must not stand by while Iran silences its champions. We stand with the victims. We stand for justice."
The letter also pointed to past incidents of Iranian execution of star athletes in the country, including 19-year-old champion wrestler Saleh Mohammadi, whose execution sparked a global uproar in March.
"Since mid-March, Iran has witnessed a horrific spree of executions of political dissidents, marking one of the most severe crackdowns in the past three decades. Dozens of people have been executed following unfair trials and coerced confessions. The theocratic regime, fearing another uprising, has exploited the cover of war to suppress growing dissent. Several victims of these executions were protesters arrested during the January 2026 uprising. Among them were Saleh Mohammadi, a 19-year-old national wrestling champion, and Sasan Azadvar Joonaghan, a 21-year-old karate champion," the letter states.
"Tragically, Iran has a grim history of executing athletes for their beliefs, including Habib Khabiri, the captain of Iran’s national football team, who was executed for his affiliation with the PMOI, and Forouzan Abdi, captain of Iran’s national women’s volleyball team, who was executed alongside 30,000 political prisoners during the 1988 massacre. In 2020, Iranian wrestling champion Navid Afkari was executed after participating in peaceful protests in 2018."
{{#rendered}}As the Trump administration weighs diplomacy and military pressure against Iran, a political clock is ticking at home.
Even if the Strait of Hormuz — the global oil choke point largely shuttered since the conflict with Iran due to Iranian attacks — reopened immediately, it could take months for oil flows to return due to logistical bottlenecks involving trapped tankers, swollen inventories and damaged oil infrastructure, according to Kpler oil analyst Matt Smith, pushing normalization of global energy markets closer to the Nov. 3 midterm elections.
"It's then going to take until the fourth quarter of the year for things to return to normal," Smith said.
The question facing Republicans is whether the economic consequences of the conflict will outlast the conflict itself. While the White House continues to pursue a diplomatic resolution with Iran, strategists and energy analysts say disruptions to global energy markets could linger long after any agreement is reached, leaving voters with months of elevated costs heading into the midterms.
The economic effects are already visible.
The national average price of regular gasoline stood at $4.241 per gallon Thursday, according to AAA, up from $3.144 a year earlier — an increase of nearly 35%.
Moody's Analytics estimates the conflict has cost American households roughly $100 billion throughout the past three months, or about $750 per household, through higher fuel, transportation and related costs.
To some, the conflict has already gone on long enough to create lasting political consequences.
"There is a timeline, and we've already passed it," GOP strategist Doug Heye told Fox News Digital.
This is an excerpt from an article by Fox News' Morgan Phillips.
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) intercepted six Iranian ballistic missiles fired toward Kuwait and Bahrain after American forces struck Iranian radar sites, as tensions continue to rise amid stalled negotiations between Washington and Tehran.
Fox News foreign correspondent Jeff Paul reported from Dubai that Iran launched seven ballistic missiles toward the Gulf allies after CENTCOM forces shot down four Iranian one-way attack drones and carried out retaliatory strikes on radar sites in Goruk and on Qeshm Island.
“Officials in Kuwait are describing those recent overnight strikes here in the Gulf as a serious escalation,” Paul said on “Fox Report.”
CENTCOM said six of the seven missiles were intercepted, while the seventh failed to reach its intended target.
Former CIA station chief and Fox News contributor Dan Hoffman said Iran appears to be trying to “drive up the costs of the war” for the United States by disrupting trade through the Strait of Hormuz, escalating Hezbollah strikes against Israel and targeting Gulf allies.
“Iran feels like that gives them added leverage,” Hoffman said, referring to domestic political pressure facing the Trump administration ahead of the midterms.
Fox News' Jasmine Baehr contributed to this report.
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