{"id":4139,"date":"2026-07-12T07:48:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T02:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=4139"},"modified":"2026-07-12T07:48:26","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T02:48:26","slug":"pete-hegseth-vows-trump-and-us-will-make-iran-pay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=4139","title":{"rendered":"Pete Hegseth Vows Trump and US Will Make Iran &#8216;Pay&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"post-body\">\n<p>Secretary of Defense <strong>Pete Hegseth\u00a0<\/strong>confirmed the U.S. military has launched a new round of strikes against Iran on Saturday after the country <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/trump-strikes-back-at-iran-after-irgc-declares-strait-of-hormuz-is-closed-again\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">attacked a merchant ship<\/a> and announced it was closing the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n<p>Hegseth posted on X that was a dumb decision.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIran made a poor choice. Now they pay,\u201d Hegseth said.<\/p>\n<p>He added his comment to a post from U.S. Central Command that said Iran had \u201cblatantly attacked\u201d a Cyprus-flagged container ship that was moving through the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n<p>CENTCOM posted the U.S. military launched retaliatory strikes at 4:15 p.m. ET based on orders from President\u00a0<strong>Donald Trump<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA civilian crew member is missing and the vessel is unable to continue the journey due to an onboard fire and significant engineroom damage,\u201d CENTCOM posted about Iran\u2019s attack earlier in the day. \u201cIran was provided yet another opportunity to demonstrate adherence to the Memorandum of Understanding after being held accountable for earlier attacks on commercial vessels but has again failed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The post added, \u201cthe United States is imposing a heavy cost by continuing to degrade Iran\u2019s ability to attack civilian mariners and commercial ships freely transiting the strait.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hegseth\u2019s post followed shortly after CNN reported Iranian state media said the Strait of Hormuz was closed after the country fired \u201cwarning shots\u201d at a vessel that was \u201ctraveling on a route it did not approve of.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Axios journalist <strong>Barak Ravid<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BarakRavid\/status\/2076091297165652221?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">reported<\/a> the U.S. had hit several targets so far. Those included, \u201cair surveillance radars, facilities for storing missiles and UAVs, missile and UAV launch sites, maritime surveillance radars, [and] ground-to-air missile launchers,\u201d according to a senior American official.<\/p>\n<p>The latest strikes come after the U.S. and Iran agreed to a 14-point Memorandum of Understanding in mid-June, which gave both sides 60 days to hammer out a long-term peace deal. Vice President JD Vance was sent to Switzerland soon after to negotiate; he said the Iranians <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/extremely-confusing-jd-vance-warns-media-not-to-read-into-enigmatic-iranian-leaders-behavior\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">were \u201cextremely confusing,\u201d<\/a> but that good progress had been made towards a deal.<\/p>\n<p>That progress appears to have been sabotaged in recent weeks, as Iran has continued to violate the fragile ceasefire. Trump\u2019s patience with Iran has seemed to have worn out too, with the president calling Iran\u2019s theocratic leaders \u201cscum\u201d last week; he also warned Iran on Friday night the U.S. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/trump-blurts-bonkers-late-night-threat-if-hes-assassinated-with-weirdly-specific-details-and-shocking-kicker\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">has 1,000 missiles \u201cLocked and Loaded\u201d<\/a> if the country tries to kill him.<\/p>\n<p>Watch<em> The Big Weekend Show<\/em> on Fox News report on the latest strikes above.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>New: The Mediaite One-Sheet &#8220;Newsletter of Newsletters&#8221;<\/strong><br \/>Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/subscribe\">Subscribe now!<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\nn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;\nn.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\nt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,\ndocument,'script','https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth\u00a0confirmed the U.S. military has launched a new round of strikes against Iran on Saturday after the country attacked a merchant ship and announced it was closing the Strait of Hormuz. Hegseth posted on X that was a dumb decision. \u201cIran made a poor choice. Now they pay,\u201d Hegseth said. He&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4140,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Hegseth-Pentagon.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}