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A trio of leading Trump administration officials – Secretary of Defense, Director of National Intelligence, Tarsi Gabbard and White House Press Secretary Karoline Lewitt is in the midst of facing a prominent major foreign policy exam after Israel began preconceived notions about President Donald Trump involving the conflict between Iran and President Donald Trump.
The trio has been promoted to their role in widespread fanfare among many Maga conservatives, but many critics wondered whether their previous careers prepared them for what was to come a few months ago. The current flaring tension with the Islamic Republic may be the last arbitrator of which side was right.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegses. (Fox News/The Will Cain Show)
“President Trump led head on, and he has brought together highly qualified, world-class teams that helped this semester achieve numerous foreign policy outcomes,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told Fox Digital on Wednesday when asked about the trio’s testing in Iran. “The Americans trusted the president to make the right decisions to keep them safe, and he empowered his team to meet in the moment and advance his foreign policy goals.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegses
Secretary Hegses was one of Trump’s more controversial candidates among critics as Democrats and left-wing critics accused Hegses of not qualifying for the job.
Iran warns that participating in conflict means “all-out war,” and rejects demands to abandon a conflicted nuclear program
“This hearing seems like a hearing about whether a woman is eligible to serve in the battle, and not about whether you are eligible to be Secretary of Defense,” Illinois Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth said at a Hegses confirmation hearing before the Senate Army Worship Committee in January. “And just say that Americans need a Secretary of Defense who is ready to lead the first day. You’re not that person.”
“Is Pete Hegses really the best we have to offer?” Senator Jack Reid of Rhode Island asked committee ranking members.
President Donald Trump speaks during the round table. (Evan Vucci/AP)
Hegses argued that he would lower the Secretary of Defense’s previous standards, and contested that his pledge to strengthen the troops could be fierce if he juggled the role and oversight of the entire army.
“As I told many people at our private meeting, when President Trump chose this position, the main accusation he gave me was bringing warrior culture back to the Pentagon,” he said in his opening statement at the confirmation hearing. “He wants a pentagonal laser, like me, that focuses on combat, lethality, meritocracy, standards, preparation. That’s what I do.”
Hegseth was confirmed to the role after Vice President JD Vance announced the bond vote when Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Mitch McConnell joined Democrats voting against confirmation.
Hegses is an Ivy League alumnus and former National Guard officer deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay during his military career that began in 2003. He has also received a handful of military awards, including two Bronze Stars. He appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday and was pressed for the Israeli-Iran conflict.
“They should have made a deal,” Hegses said.
“President Trump’s words mean something – the world understands that,” Hegses said. Trump mentioned Trump’s repeated pressure on Iran to trade with the US in a nuclear program, just as the conflict spiraled.
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“And at the Department of Defense, our job is to be ready and ready with options, and that’s exactly what we do,” continued Heggs.
He did not say whether the US would support Israel in an ongoing strike in Iran, but he revealed that the Pentagon was in the midst of preparing Trump’s options.
The US’s potential involvement in the strike could draw the country into a war with Iran.
“I might do that, I might not,” Trump said Wednesday about whether he would order Iran to strike. “I mean, no one knows what I’m trying to do.”
Hegses was one of the well-known Trump officials who joined Trump in the White House situation room as the president and his team closely monitor the flaring conflict.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. (John McDonnell/Applications)
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard
The director of National Intelligence Gabbard is a Trump official who faced a fierce confirmation hearing as critics claimed she was not eligible for the role.
Gabbard was a former Democrat who served in the US home representing Hawaii from 2013 to 2021, a former member of the House Armed Services Committee and a veteran of the Iraq War. However, she never established a formal position within the intelligence news community before serving as director of national intelligence.
Prior to her confirmation, Gabbard’s critics accused her of not being qualified for the role, questioned her judgment at a 2017 meeting with then-dictator Bashar Assad, labeling her as sympathetic to Russia, and balising her previous favorable remarks in connection with former National Security Agency Whistlebrawler Edward Snowden.
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“Those who oppose my appointment mean that I am faithful to God, my own conscience and the American constitution,” she said at the confirmation hearing. “We accuse them of being a Trump doll, a Putin doll, an Assad doll, a leading puppet, a Modi doll, and a puppet, but do not recognize the absurdity of being a puppet of five different puppet masters at the same time.”
She was eventually confirmed with 52-48 votes.
Smoke rises from construction of Iran’s state television after an Israeli strike in Tehran, Iran on Monday, June 16, 2025.
Gabbard’s March testimony before dismissing concerns about Iran actively constructing nuclear weapons has returned its nuclear weapons under the state’s microscope after Israel launched its preemptive attack on Iran. The Israeli strike was directly responding to Israeli information indicating that Iran could produce nuclear weapons in a short period of time.
When asked about Gabbard’s testimony when he returned to Washington Monday evening from Canada’s G7 Summit, the president said he “doesn’t mind” what Gabbard had to say in his previous testimony, claiming Iran is close to building a nuclear weapon.
“You’ve always said you don’t think Iran should have nuclear weapons,” a reporter asked Trump on Monday while in the Air Force. “But how close do you think they’re going to get it?”
“It’s very close,” Trump replied.
“Tarsi Gabbard testified in March that the Intelligence Television community had said that Iran had not built nuclear weapons,” the reporter continued.
“I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having it,” Trump shot.
When Gabbard appeared before the Senate Intelligence Election Committee in March, she issued a statement on behalf of the Intelligence Election Election community, which included testimony that Iran was not actively building nuclear weapons.
“Iran’s cyber operations and capabilities also pose serious threats to U.S. networks and data,” Gabbard told the committee on March 26.
The intelligence news community “continues to assess Iran as not building nuclear weapons, and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not approved the nuclear weapons programme that was stopped in 2003,” she said. She added, “Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest level and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons.”
“Iran will continue its efforts to counter Israel, to help the US withdrawal, and to support its withdrawal from the region, to reconstruct a loose consortium of armed and like-minded terrorist actors.
However, when critics separated Gabbard’s past comments, the White House emphasized that Gabbard and Trump were closely lined up with Iran.
White House officials told Fox News Digital on Tuesday afternoon that Trump and Gabbard were working closely together and that the distinction between Gabbard’s March testimony and Trump’s statement that Iran was “very close” to getting a nuclear weapon was indistinguishable.
Officials noted that Gabbard highlighted in his March testimony that Iran has the resources to potentially build nuclear weapons. Her testimony in March reflected the intelligence that Iran had not built weapons at the time, but that the state could do so based on the resources it had accumulated for such efforts.
White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt; (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt
Leavitt is the youngest spokesman in US history, with the role he plays at the age of 27.
Some liberal critics like Joy Behar of “The View” tried to downplay her appointment when Trump was first tapped, but later emerged as the brand of Trump’s fire during his everyday White House press conference.
Leavitt has been overwhelmingly praised by the president’s supporters for repeatedly fiery interactions between the administrative defense and left-wing media during the briefing, but her tenure has been overwhelmingly focused on domestic issues.
President Donald Trump is currently monitoring the fire conflict between Israel and Iran. (Alex Brandon/Applications)
Leavitt kept the nation up to date on issues such as deportation efforts, Trump’s ongoing list of executive orders affecting transgender issues and electric vehicles policies, national tragedy such as the Boulder terrorist attacks targeting Jewish Americans, and Trump’s broad tariff policy affecting foreign countries.
The administration took office in a raging war between Russia and Ukraine and an ongoing war in Israel after Hamas attacked the country in 2023, but the Israeli-Iran conflict offers Levitt with her first major international crisis that could include our involvement.
Leavitt’s highly anticipated first press conference is scheduled for Thursday since Israel began its preemptive strike.
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