Donald Trump’s most loyal Fox News cheerleader has gone off-script—asking out loud whether the president was ever fully briefed on the risks of his Iran war.
Laura Ingraham, 62, has been one of Trump’s most valued media allies since his first term, acting as an informal adviser and landing multiple interviews with the president. While the sit-downs are generally relatively supportive, occasional moments of friction have made headlines.
But on Monday night, with Operation Epic Fury entering its 31st day, she went considerably further.
“Was the president fully briefed about the risks of all of this from the beginning?” she asked viewers of The Ingraham Angle. “And was he then able to take it all in and understand the complexity of this—how complex it could actually get?”
She then added pointedly: “Or was he told this would be relatively quick, in and out?”
Ingraham’s questions aired on the day Trump, 79, escalated his threats against Tehran, vowing to hit Iran’s electric generating plants, oil wells, and Kharg Island—the terminal through which roughly 90 percent of the country’s crude oil exports flow—unless Iran reopens the Strait of Hormuz.
Oil prices breached $100 a barrel on Monday, hitting a level not seen since the summer of 2022, with the average US gas price now $3.99 according to AAA.
The Wall Street Journal reported the president is weighing a high-risk ground operation to extract close to 1,000 pounds of highly enriched uranium believed to be buried in tunnels at Isfahan and Natanz—with the Pentagon eyeing an additional 10,000 troops for the region.
At a congressional briefing earlier this month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked whether Iran’s enriched uranium would be secured. His answer was that “people are going to have to go and get it.”
On air, Ingraham called the uranium mission “extremely risky” and turned to retired Marine Corps Colonel Mike Jernigan, who described securing an Iraqi nuclear facility during the 2003 invasion, for an operational breakdown.
He said the uranium was likely stored in canisters “about 3 to 4 feet tall, probably 8 to 12 inches wide,” buried beneath rubble in facilities potentially rigged with booby traps, requiring specialists from the 82nd Airborne or Marine Expeditionary Units to locate, secure, and transport the material.
On the same show, Texas Republican Pat Fallon, 58, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, insisted the war was going well. “We’re definitely winning,” he told Ingraham, dismissing comparisons to a quagmire as “absurd” and “obnoxious.”
When Fallon floated the notion of regime change, Ingraham pushed back—noting Trump had consistently said it was not the administration’s goal, even as she admitted she thought it “would be fabulous.”
Trump himself, in a clip played during the segment, was bullish: “They are going to give up nuclear weapons. They are going to give us the nuclear dust.”
The White House has been approached by the Daily Beast for comment.
