Trump urges Iran to ‘get back to the table’ after missile attack on Israel

[0:00] 4 p.m. on the East Coast. I'm John Scott, and this is a brand new hour of the Fox Report. [0:05] Breaking news out of the Middle East. Just this past hour, sirens blaring across Israel [0:10] as Iran launched a major missile attack, its first since the fragile early April ceasefire. [0:16] Tehran is now warning that U.S. military bases and Israeli assets in the region are, quote, [0:21] legitimate targets. Let's go straight to our chief foreign correspondent, Trey Yinkst. He's live [0:27] in Tel Aviv. Trey. Yeah, John, good afternoon. At least four waves of Iranian ballistic missiles [0:34] have targeted northern Israel over the past hour. Many people still in bomb shelters in the northern [0:40] part of this country. I just got off the phone with President Trump to get his reaction to the [0:45] ongoing missile attack. As I was speaking with the president out the window, I could see some of [0:49] these incoming missiles headed toward the northern part of this country. The IDF says they were able [0:54] to shoot down the majority of the incoming fire, but the president telling Fox News it's certainly [0:59] not going to help negotiations. I asked him if he had a message for the Iranian regime. He said, [1:04] what I would suggest to Iran, you've shot your missiles. That's enough. Get back to the table [1:09] and make a deal. President Trump indicated in our conversation that negotiations with Iran [1:14] were progressing toward a possible agreement as early as Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday of this coming [1:20] week. He told me, and he said, now this takes place. And so the president will likely be briefed [1:26] in the hours ahead about what is happening right now, this exchange of fire that again started earlier [1:32] today with the Israelis striking the Lebanese capital of Beirut in response to Hezbollah attacks [1:37] against their country. And so there's been this back and forth taking place. And I asked President [1:41] Trump if there was coordination with the Israelis regarding the strikes in the Dakhia neighborhood [1:47] of Southern Beirut earlier today. He told me there was not coordination with Israel and added that [1:51] he was not happy about it. And so the president taking in a lot of information right now as it [1:56] relates to what is happening in the Middle East. But the latest information, John, that we have [2:00] four waves of Iranian ballistic missiles targeting civilian populations of Israel and new threats at this [2:07] hour from Iran's IRGC that they will target U.S. bases across the Middle East if the Israelis respond [2:14] to these strikes on their territory. This is a significant ballistic missile attack against Israel, [2:20] the largest that we have seen since the ceasefire went into effect in the aftermath of Operation Epic [2:26] Fury. And again, it's an indication that the Iranians still have some of their ballistic missiles left [2:30] despite the military defeats that they suffered during the operation. And again, President Trump [2:36] indicated that he has sympathy for those in the region who are uninvolved. He talked about the situation [2:42] in Lebanon. He said he didn't want to see it as a firing range. And ultimately, we have seen a lot [2:47] of success on the diplomatic front from the Trump administration to try to reach a normalization [2:52] deal between Israel and Lebanon. But it's this X factor of Hezbollah, Iran's largest proxy in the [2:58] Middle East, that is throwing a wrench in this ongoing process. Remember, the president has been able [3:03] to normalize ties with regional countries and Israel through the Abraham Accords. He has called on other [3:08] regional countries to join this agreement. And he is trying to de-escalate the tension between Israel [3:13] and Lebanon amid this ongoing regional conflict. There is a broader effort here by President Trump [3:19] to reach a negotiated settlement with the Iranian regime that would A, open the Strait of Hormuz, [3:25] B, ensure that Iran never has a path to a nuclear weapon, and C, export or destroy all of their [3:31] enriched material that currently exists inside of Iranian territory. But of course, when something like [3:36] this happens, this exchange of fire that is currently taking place, it complicates the efforts [3:41] by President Trump to reach such an agreement. And I'm just looking right now at the latest updates [3:46] that we have, John. Our team in Tel Aviv reporting that Iraq, that neighbors Iran, has temporarily [3:51] closed its airspace and has suspended air navigation due to safety concerns of air traffic in the region. [4:00] The western part of Iran's airspace is currently closed until further notice. That is according [4:06] to Iranian state media. There are a lot of threats going around right now from the IRGC and from [4:12] Iranian state media to target U.S. bases across the region. But again, the latest information that [4:17] we have, John, four waves of Iranian ballistic missiles have targeted civilian areas of Israel. [4:23] The Iranians say this is in response to the IDF strikes that targeted the Hezbollah stronghold [4:29] of southern Beirut earlier today. President Trump reacting exclusively to Fox News to this [4:35] ongoing Iranian attack, saying it is certainly not going to help negotiations. And again, [4:40] President Trump telling Fox News that his message to Iran is you have shot your missiles, [4:46] that's enough. Get back to the table and make a deal. We will see in the hours ahead how the [4:51] Israelis respond. But we know not only do the Israelis remain on high alert, but also the U.S. [4:56] military that dealt with Iranian threats over the weekend. On Friday evening, they shot down four [5:01] Iranian attack drones that were headed to the Strait of Hormuz. CENTCOM also says they dealt with [5:06] seven incoming Iranian ballistic missiles that were targeting U.S. forces in Kuwait. This speaks to the [5:11] readiness of the U.S. military for a variety of scenarios that could take place in the hours ahead. [5:17] John? Trey, real quick question. Behind you, we see a highway that is clogged with cars as, you know, [5:26] it's pushing midnight in Israel. Are those folks trying to get away from a potential missile threat [5:32] or is it just, you know, pothole repair or something like that? It's a great question. I need to speak [5:40] with sources in Israel to get a better understanding of that specific traffic. But it would not be [5:44] surprising if this is coming from the northern city of Haifa. If you go that direction from where [5:50] these cars behind me, John, are coming from and you drive about 45 minutes on an evening like this [5:55] around 11 p.m., it would take you just about 45 minutes to get to the northern city of Haifa. [6:01] This is a city we have reported in frequently. There are hundreds of thousands of civilians [6:05] in that city that were in bomb shelters tonight amid incoming Iranian ballistic missiles. These [6:11] are not military positions that the Iranians were targeting. The entirety of northern Israel was [6:16] under a missile alert earlier amid those four waves of Iranian ballistic missiles. And again, [6:21] this speaks to just how dangerous these missiles can be. We know that one of the Iranian attack [6:26] drones last week killed someone in Kuwait. And when these attacks take place, there is just a very [6:32] short amount of time that the Israelis have to respond and work to shoot down the incoming fire. [6:37] And just very briefly, I want to talk about the Israeli air defense systems. [6:40] Something that President Trump did that was very important before Operation Epic Fury began [6:44] is that with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and their counterparts here in Israel, [6:48] they planned not just on an offensive level, but also on a defensive level for the possibility of [6:53] incoming Iranian fire. And so the Israelis have a tiered missile defense system with the Iron Dome at the [6:59] lowest level. And then they have David Sling in the middle and then the arrow two and three system. [7:03] But more broadly, they have U.S. THAAD and Patriot systems that have worked previously to shoot [7:09] down incoming Iranian missile fire. And again, this speaks to the coordination that the Israelis and [7:14] the Americans have on a military level. There may be disagreements politically about when and where to [7:19] strike. And again, President Trump telling Fox News on the phone he was not happy about the Israeli [7:24] strikes against Beirut earlier today. But the bottom line here is that the coordination on a [7:29] military level continues. There are U.S. refuelers and cargo planes at Israel's Ben-Gurion airport [7:34] about 20 minutes to my east right now. And they are prepared if orders are given by President Trump [7:41] to strike Iranian territory. And again, there is a posture across the Middle East. President Trump has [7:48] extended an olive branch to the Iranian regime. He is giving them two options here, John. They can either do [7:53] this the easy way or the hard way. The easy way is to sign on the dotted line the deal that President [7:58] Trump has presented to give up their nuclear ambitions and open the Strait of Hormuz. If they [8:03] are unwilling to do so and they continue ballistic missile attacks against U.S. forces and allies [8:08] across the region, we are likely looking at a situation where the war resumes. John? [8:13] All right. Our chief foreign correspondent, Trey Yings, doing spectacular work as always. Trey, [8:18] thank you. So the president, as Trey was just saying, is following all of this from his golf [8:25] club in New Jersey. Trey spoke to him on the phone. Alex Hogan is also reporting live from Bridgewater, [8:31] close to where the president is staying this weekend. Alex. [8:36] Hi, John. Yes. So the president is here in New Jersey this weekend as the war in the Middle East [8:41] takes a turn with those latest Iranian ballistic missile strikes being carried out across Israel. [8:46] And this again underscores just how delicate these potential talks are. And even though we heard the [8:52] president tell Fox that we were potentially just days away from securing a deal, that now all of that [8:59] might be in jeopardy. We've heard the president say that negotiators are getting closer and he's [9:04] underscored some of his hard lines that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and that Iran cannot be able [9:10] to have language in that deal that would allow them to, in the future, potentially buy a weapon. [9:15] We've also heard the president push back saying this is not an endless war. It comes as the war has now [9:21] stretched into the 100-day mark. So there is a lot of pressure from Democrats saying this needs to come [9:29] to an end. There's simply too much strain on the American public when it comes to gas prices and the [9:36] overall impact on the economy. At the same time, of course, we did see that new uptick in the jobs [9:41] numbers report. So that was a positive there. So we have heard some pushback in terms of what the [9:46] administration says it's seeing this. But at the end of the day, the president has reiterated that [9:50] Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and that these kinds of attacks cannot continue to be carried out [9:56] across the Middle East. And this isn't the latest attack that we've seen. It was just in the last two [10:00] day. The U.S. Central Command says that it had to intercept incoming Iranian drones, so aerial [10:07] assaults. There are two taking place over the Strait of Hormuz, according to U.S. Central Command, [10:13] and other drones that were carried out, drone attacks carried out just the day prior. So we've [10:19] been seeing this escalation. Obviously, right now in the last hour, this is taking a dramatic turn, [10:24] with the president saying, you know, Iran, you have fired your missiles, come back to the [10:30] negotiation table. So we'll have to see if that actually does turn into anything. This obviously [10:35] is a very, very scary situation, to say the least, for the people in Israel who have been needing to [10:42] hunker down in bomb shelters. When I was in Israel last summer, when Iran was firing these ballistic [10:49] missiles toward Israel, and all of that was unexpected. There were a lot of American tourists there in [10:54] Israel at the time, and I remember speaking to a lot of Americans on the ground who were terrified, [10:58] wondering how in the world they were going to get out of the country, because the airspace was [11:02] closed, and a lot of them ended up having to go through the border of Jordan, trying to figure out [11:08] how they would cross the border to eventually get home to safety, back to the U.S. So a lot of [11:13] uncertainty at this hour, as people hopefully will be able to come out of those bomb shelters soon, [11:17] but there will be a lot of questions as to what this means for the future of these negotiations. [11:22] John? You said earlier that the president plans to spend another day in the New York metro area. He'll [11:29] be attending the New York Knicks championship game tomorrow night. Any other signs of movement from [11:35] the White House on what this response to Iran is going to be in this barrage of missiles? [11:42] Well, undoubtedly from what we've seen in terms of a reaction from the White House previously, [11:48] we have seen this consolidation of efforts and reiterations across the board on the administration, [11:54] saying that this kind of behavior will not be acceptable. So we imagine that we will likely [12:00] hear from the president and other administration officials within the next 24 hours. But yes, [12:05] as you mentioned, the president will be traveling to New York tomorrow. At least that was the plan [12:09] before he returns to the Capitol. And I imagine we will see a large reaction from other government [12:17] officials as to what this means in terms of the security and defense position within the Middle [12:23] East and if those defensive positions might need to shift given this potential threat. John? [12:30] All right. Alex Hogan, live in Bridgewater, New Jersey. Alex, thanks.