Conflict in Iran Sparking Political Fights at Home

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1:00I'm Stuart Vaughnick. I'm Martha McCallum. I'm Jason Chafetz, and this is The Fox News rundown. Friday, March 6, 2026. I'm Jessica Rosenthal, Homeland Security Secretary Christy Nomes, been fired by President Trump. After her appearance at two congressional hearings this week, as the administration remains focused on strikes in Iran. Is it about an imminent threat? Is it about the nuclear program that were told was devastated last year with the amazing military operation? The US military carried out what is the justification? I'm Chris Foster, the US military's on drone defense and offense in the fight against Iran. It is nothing for someone to fly in clean to a US airport look completely fine walking through TSA, go pick up a drone and with the knowledge of how to weaponize it, land one of these things on the front steps of the White House. That is a real threat. And I'm Jason Rant. I've got the final word on The Fox News rundown.

2:02President Trump set on a truth social post that he is moving, Homeland Security Secretary Christy Nome, to a special post for the Shield of America, a new security initiative for the Western Hemisphere. Fox News correspondent Jackie Heinrich reported on a pointed statement from someone familiar with the president's thinking on this. Quote, it was a combination of her many unfortunate leadership failures from Minnesota to the ad campaign to allegations of an affair. In a statement, Nome thanked the president for the new post. Oklahoma Senator Mark Wayne Mullin is the president's pick to be the new secretary of DHS. It was a tough week though for Nome who was questioned about a number of items before House and Senate hearings, including slow FEMA payments. And whether she lied when she said U.S. citizens hadn't been detained during ICE operations. Republican Louisiana Senator John Kennedy also asked, The president approved ahead of time you spending 220 million dollars running TV ads across the country in which you are featured prominently. Yes, sir. We went through the legal processes.

3:03Did it correct the president working with OMV? Yes. He did. Yes. This shakeup comes at a crucial time as the U.S. conduct strikes on Iran. The partial government shutdown currently involves DHS funding as Democrats have called for Nome's resignation or firing and Republican Senator Deb Fisher said to that earlier in the week. The very least that we can do is ensure that the agencies defending our homeland here at home have the funding, the personnel and the operational capacity to do their jobs. The Senate this week rejected a war powers resolution meant to pull troops from hostilities with Iran and the House debated a similar resolution. Kentucky Republican Congressman Andy Barr said the president has the legal authority to conduct these strikes. As a legal matter, the president of the United States doesn't need the permission of Congress to engage in hostilities to protect the American people. The House voted to reject a war powers resolution as well.

4:03It's one of those classic article 1 versus article 2 showdowns. Fox News, Senate, Inc., and Brem is also the host of the live in the Brem podcast. And war could not be probably a better example than exactly how these conversations go. When it comes to the president's powers as Commander-in-Chief, we've all heard the White House and the administration articulate these arguments that there were imminent ongoing threats that Iran has been killing Americans directly and through their proxies for a very long time. We know they have ongoing plots to assassinate President Trump. And all you have to do is look back to October 7th and what Hamas did in devastating one of our closest allies, certainly in that region, but also there were dozens of Americans who were killed and captured in that as well. So the administration pointing to all of those imminent ongoing threats saying that the nuclear program continued to progress and the world couldn't afford to have in Iran with the nuclear weapon. On the other hand, you're going to hear the article 1 folks say, listen, the legislative branch has the war powers for a reason that we need to have debate

5:03before American men and women are sent into active conflict and that Congress has got that power. But to me, that's the question of this bigger debate we've been having under the Trump administration, 1 and now 2.0. It's how much power is Congress willing to seed and have they given too much over to the executive branch. It really gets into a glaring spotlight that conversation when something like this happens. To your point about this imminent threat, you know, Democrats insist the President and this administration haven't done enough to explain the war, like why it was needed, what was the imminent threat, even if war powers resolutions don't pass, as the administration explained the reasoning enough. And that's the question, is it a moving target or are there different explanations? I mean, there were critics on the left and the right saying, we need an articulation, prior to the strike, what this is about? Is it about an imminent threat? Is it about the nuclear program that we're told was devastated last year

6:03with the amazing military operation, the US military carried out? What is the justification, even post strike, there have been questions about, is it A or is it B? Is it A and B? What is it? So the left side of the aisle clearly skeptical about what the justification was for the immediacy of this and that continues to kind of trickle out from members of the administration who aren't exactly always on the same page. I think that they're on the general same page, they may not be on the same paragraph with some of this stuff. To that point, when the strikes happened, we were in negotiations with Iran. It wasn't like we weren't talking to some of their leadership. And Steve Whitkopf told Sean Hannity that the Iranians essentially opened negotiations by telling him and Jared Kushner they had enough enriched uranium to make 11 bombs and that they seemed proud of that. When we talk about imminent threats and justifications, how significant is that?

7:07If it's true, it's very significant because it gets to the whole point of, do we wait until these guys one day show up and say, hey, not only do we have ballistic missiles, but we now have nuclear warheads to put on them. We now have nuclear weapons that we could use to our advantage and to insulate ourselves from any further sanctions or demands. I mean, once you're a nuclear equipped power, that changes the dynamic for everybody who has to negotiate with you over everything or anything. And we know that that region, with respect to oil and the state of Hormuz, I mean, it's critical for the entire world. So that definitely lends credence to their argument that there was an imminent threat. But again, it gets back to the conversation of Iran said they wouldn't even negotiate over their missile system. That was a major issue for people throughout that region and certainly for the U.S. as they bettered their capabilities and wanted something that would reach the U.S. homeland. So if you say we're negotiating, but also, oh, we won't negotiate over our missiles, that was always going to be a non-starter, I think, for President Trump.

8:13Shana, what do you make of the global response and the level of support U.S. and Israel are seeing right now from around the world, including from some of these Gulf nations. And even the UK, I know Kierstharmer had said, we're not involved, but now there is some involvement in protecting certain assets, the European assets. Are we seeing some quiet support? I think we all get why a lot of these countries would want to be clear that on the front end of this, they were not involved in this U.S. Israel joint operation that they were not allowing their bases to be used. I mean, things that really ticked off President Trump for people that he considers or nations that he considers to be close allies and there's been a softening obviously with a lot of that. I think when it comes to our Arab partners that we work with in that region, Iran decided to go back hard after a lot of them in the region. That doesn't leave them a place to be neutral. And so, you know, now we see them being drawn in in different ways when you're harming their people and directly firing on their homeland and their interests.

9:22It makes it tough for them to be neutral and maybe Iran's calculation was like, listen, this is it for us. This is potentially an existential threat to the entire regime and to what we're trying to do our nuclear program here. So let's just spark something that gets bigger and uglier and we'll see if we can survive it. It's almost like their Hail Mary pass, like they really don't have a lot left without an active nuke. If we think that they don't, I think if there was something closer to completion, we would have seen or heard about it by now, it seems. On energy, Russia's president Vladimir Putin said he might stop selling energy to Europe. Qatar Energy says they've stopped sending out LNG. Their biggest customers were in Asia. Major maritime insurance companies are dramatically increasing coverage costs for shipping companies that use the straight of war mues. All of this is impacting energy and pricing as we head into summer. But we're also then after that heading into midterms, how do energy prices impact voters? Goodness. Well, if you've seen the reporting from Politico, there's a complete freak out, according to them at the White House, that everybody has been rounded up to say, what can you do?

10:29Energy Secretary Wright, Secretary Bergam, Susie Wiles is very sensitive to this and very upset because the president constantly talks about points to this. If you're going to have the supportability crisis, they want him to focus on that issue. And he constantly talks about rightfully that he's gotten the gas prices down under his tenure that come down. It's been a real positive because that not only people get a really, you know, a daily or weekly check when they fill up their gas tank, that is a real world check for people. But it impacts everything else, you know, the shipment costs and, you know, it drives up everything when it goes up. And you don't want that going into the midterms. I mean, that's the last thing that you want when you're trying to convince people the economy is turning around. You know, but the reporting, at least according to Politico, is that, of course, there was a concern that you go after Iran. It's going to affect straight up, removes that whole region that's going to drive up prices. But the administration is also going to say, listen, we've been warning Europe to get off your Russia's supply. You know, that we've warned them that that's not a place they need to be, especially in the middle of this Russian-Cran conflict.

11:30And it, you know, it sparks the conversation here at home too about more energy production in America and how little environmentalists and climate groups and have really done what they could to slow that down here in the US. Well, just about everybody admits, we have great reserves if companies could be reassured. They'd be allowed to tap into them because it's very expensive. And it's a long-term commitment to be drilling and doing those things that, you know, that gets to policy changes here in the US as well. When it comes over to who could take over in Iran, I found this interesting. You know, the president noted this week that many in leadership in Iran have been killed, obviously, and he brought up Venezuela, saying that was the ideal situation. The vice president, Delci Rodriguez, is now in charge and she's very cooperative. It does sound like he's hoping for someone to emerge in Iran with whom he can negotiate. And as he said, you know, each time they have these gatherings that we think that we're, you know, targeting the next round of leaders, it gets you further and further down the chain. But listen, it's not just the Ayatollah, we know that. I mean, the way that society has set up and has functioned there with that theocratic leadership runs very, very deep.

12:37I mean, the roots are very deep. Just like, you know, the Maduro roots run deep all through Venezuela, not just government through, but through industry and through all factors of society. Same is true in Iran too. So do you have someone that could be considered more moderate? I think there are a lot of people you could find in Iran that would be considered more moderate than the Ayatollah, than the Mullah. But who can the US work with? And for those who say, oh, the US hasn't thought this through, there's a lot of push back from the White House. Like, of course, we've spent a lot of time digging in and thinking this through. We would never go and bomb and take out the current regime and leadership without having seriously wargamed and thought through and had conversations. And with our human intel, they're about who we can possibly work with. So the White House insists that there are options and that there are conversations ongoing. And I think with Delsey Rodriguez, you know, obviously they'll try to do the same thing in Iran. Like, we will threaten them and say, you work with us or we make sure you get replaced. So I'm sure this is the same conversations they're trying to have in Iran.

13:39We have some Fox News pulls out this week's Shannon on support for the Iran strikes Americans are split evenly. But another part of the poll asked about job performance of Congress, 29% approve of congressional Democrats, 36% approve of Republicans. On the Democrats number, does that number reflect feelings from within their own party that they need to move more to the left or a reflection from moderates who feel they're too far to the left? You're getting both of those things because what we do continually hear from within the Democratic base is they want more fighting with President Trump. I think that they see kind of a light at the end of the tunnel like we we've had so much success in these special elections, history shows, we are going to route this president in the midterms. Although the speaker will continue to say he sees the path forward with very specific seats in the house that they're going to hold on. We'll see, but I think there is that that frustration within the Democrat party that they don't control any of the levers of government. Listen, there aren't 60 Republican votes in the Senate. So they can slow things down there.

14:40They can block things. But I think very much their base wants more fighting with Trump more roadblocks in his way. There are a lot of legal fights. They want to see more of that. Fox News Sunday, Anchor Shannon Green, thank you for joining. Thanks, Jess. The American military is using for the first time in combat against Iran. New one way attack drones called Lucas drones stands for the low cost unmanned combat attack system. They're modeled on Iran's drone technology that's been shared with some of America's enemies and is being used now in retaliatory strikes by Iran. They fired more than 500 ballistic missiles and more than 2,000 drones striking innocent civilian targets throughout the region.

15:45That was Joint Chief Chairman General Dan Cain Wednesday with war secretary Pete Hegsiff. He has said some will get through despite the most sophisticated air defense system ever. Thousands of Iranian missiles and drones have been intercepted and vaporized. Tens of thousands of American Allied lives protected. Six members of the Army Reserve were killed by an exploding Iranian drone hitting a trailer used as a command center and co-weight on Sunday. The U.S. military has been using unmanned aerial vehicles for reconnaissance since the Vietnam War. Nothing like what we have now, of course. Drone strikes started in the early 2000s. Our guests now use them to hunt down terrorists in Iraq. I feel a little bit of an OG when it comes to military drone technology. Seems like everyone's a drone expert these days, especially with all the Iranian attacks. Brett Velikovic is a former army special ops intelligence analyst, author, founder of the drone company Power Us and a Fox News contributor. I like to consider myself a real drone expert. I started out in the U.S. Army shortly after 9-11. I spent my 21st birthday on the ground in Afghanistan where I saw my first military drone that we were using to do surveillance on the Taliban.

16:45And since then, I've seen just about every single drone within the U.S. military is arsenal. And spent years in active service managing drones from predators and reapers all the way down to even handheld drones that we use at the tactical soldier level. And then most recently, I've spent a lot of time overseas in active war zones, including Ukraine, doing work, not just humanitarian, but also support to the uses of drone technology out there, whether it's for war or for solving complex humanitarian issues. Yeah, I mean, obviously the tech in warfare has evolved. How has that evolution changed military strategy since their use in Iraq, Afghanistan? I mean, I remember just even a small handheld drone that fits in a soldier's backpack back then would cost you about $250,000. I mean, that cost was just incredible. And frankly, you know, the same systems then you could pretty much buy off Amazon right now for a couple thousand dollars that are frankly just as capable.

17:50Especially in the hands of people that know how to weaponize them. And I think especially what we've seen from Russia, what we've seen from Ukraine, is this capability now to take commercial off the shelf tech that is no longer reserved for nation states with billion dollar defense budgets that can be weaponized and actually cause massive damage. There's a ton of lessons learned just in the last few years of how low cost, highly scalable, rapidly manufactured drones are able to cause just as much damage as US military drones that we've spent tens of millions of dollars on procuring. And that's a scary part. That's why we're seeing drones that cost under $1,000, blowing up million dollar tanks every single day in Ukraine. In Iran, what's your assessment of their drone program, particularly the she had drones? I mean, they're called the poor man's cruise missile. It's a lot more expensive to shoot them down than they heard a build. Well, that's a problem, right? Iran really, in my opinion, has just about perfected the art of low cost one way attack drones. That was because they had to put these things in the hands of their proxy forces that were running around the world trying to kill Americans trying to kill Israelis.

19:01So chaos and those proxy forces didn't have access necessarily to big budget. So Iran started creating drones that were capable of reaching significant distances. And they, in my opinion, in terms of being able to produce that at low cost have surpassed what we did because of where our focus was. And frankly, it's unsustainable, right? When you talk about what is being used right now to shoot these things down cheap $20,000 Iranian Shahids are forcing us to burn multi-million dollar interceptors. That's unsustainable math. Obviously, they're starting to get through some of our sites. I think we probably underestimated at least their ability to send them into locations that we weren't expecting. Locations that probably did not have as much counter drone defenses as we would have wanted. I think that's a wake up call right now for the US government. When embassies are getting hit with these drones, when we assume that the fight would maybe stay a little bit closer to Tehran, that's going to change.

20:02I think the way that we fight going forward because at the end of the day, we can't shoot million dollar missiles at $20,000 drones. Where are they coming from? Are they built domestically? Where do they get the components from? And do the American Israeli militaries have the capacity to, at some point, curtail some of that production? So I think if I was the military planner going into this epic fury operation, my first, one of the first strikes that I look at is knocking out their production capability because they can make these things in the thousands per month. Our procurement channels haven't moved that fast. We get excited when we can build 100 drones a month. I don't know where that started, but it shouldn't be what we do going forward. I mean, my company at power alone can produce thousands of drones per month, but typically the US government has bought these legacy companies drones that they spend years building. And when you look at how Iran did it, they built massive production facilities all around the country, underground areas that could withstand strikes, because they knew at some point we'd probably be looking from above.

21:10They've given this technology to their forces in Yemen, to Hezbollah, Russia, they gave all the schematics to Russia. So Russia just basically reproduces copies of them. And that's, I think, a little bit of the danger is how quickly they can stand up these manufacturing facilities virtually overnight with systems that you don't need a lot of money to make. I've personally been on the other end of Shahed attacks. It's pretty scary. These things move slowly. Sound like a lawnmower above. That's part of the terror. That's part of the psychology. I've seen the inside of Shahed when they've been captured when they haven't exploded. What fascinates me is just how many US parts are inside an Iranian Shahed. I've seen multiple US companies parts inside these systems and not to say that they're selling them direct to the Iran, but somehow Iran is getting those parts. And that's a thing that we've got to get a handle on as well. Again, they're just looking how to build these things as quickly as possible at the cheapest and most effective. And over time, it will continue to get worse as they adapt to our defenses.

22:18What do you know about the Lucas platform that I guess in my understanding is it was sort of reverse engineered after the Shahed and now it's being used in combat by the Pentagon. What do you know about those? Lucas is really impressive. I've been paying attention for paying attention to it for a while. I think our strikes really represent a new chapter in American innovation and capability because we use the Lucas system and actual combat. That's a significant evolution. I think in how we're going to fight wars in the future. It's a reverse engineered version of the Shahed that essentially was stolen out of Ukraine. I suspect that our government somehow got their hands on a downed Shahed that was captured and then reverse engineered it. There's kind of an irony there. When you think about it, we took a weapon that Iran developed and fielded against our own forces and sent it right back against them. I think that's a message to our adversaries when you think about it. You might be able to build and innovate a little bit faster than we can when it comes to drones.

23:20But in the end, we're going to steal that technology and don't be surprised when we send it right back against your own facilities. What are defense measures that don't involve $3 million a shot or whatever it is, missiles in some cases? Can we eventually just have fleets of defensive drones nearly everywhere where American troops might be in harm's way and train them to take out enemy drones? 100%. We have my company has interceptor drones that are about the size of children's children's toy that basically costs less than $5,000 each that can be manufactured in the thousands that has the capability to be fired up in the air and actually have a proper cost per kill ratio. And when you set something up like that around base perimeter, sort of as a last resort, if things hit the fan, you can imagine that now we don't have to waste a million dollar missile. It's no big deal if one or two of these things fail, we'll send 30 of them up into the air at a time and it'll be much more cost effective in that.

24:23We're not the only company out there that has that capability. Ukraine's exploring this every single day. They're using them every single day right now to take out shot heads. And our counter drone defenses, I think, will start utilizing that as we get more comfortable that we're not going to accidentally take down a commercial airliner. And so pairing that also with like electronic warfare is important. Electronic warfare isn't enough to stop shot heads alone. You have to be more kinetic, but it helps detect them and helps triangulate them. But in the end, I think if anything, this Operation Epic Fury has taught us in Iran's responses that we have to get better at making more systems domestically and quicker. A lot of Ukrainians have been killed in drone strikes. And that's in war. I wonder what happens if this doesn't have to be a nation state that puts this together. It wouldn't be that difficult. I'm assuming you believe for almost anyone to use these in a terrorist attack in an urban area.

25:23I don't know how you possibly defend against it. These drones are not things that are restricted behind state department licenses and military, you know, hardware situations where before nobody could get their hands on the technology. It is there right now. And so it is nothing for someone to fly in clean to a US airport, look completely fine walking through TSA, go pick up a drone and with the knowledge of how to weaponize it, land one of these things on the front steps of the White House. And there are experts out there who have been talking about this for a long time. And I think we don't have, we don't have time any longer to wait on that. That is a real threat today. The world's changing. The battlefield's changed in the last few years. And now non-state actors with access to these systems can cause real damage with just a little bit of knowledge. Brett Vellak-Vitch, Fox News contributor, founder of the drone company, Power Us from Army Special Ops, intel analyst.

26:26As you said, a bit of an OG when it comes to this stuff, author of Drone Warrior and Elite Soldiers Inside Account of the Hunt for America's Most Dangerous Enemies on Social Media at the Drone Warrior. Thanks Brett. Thank you. Thanks Brett. There was a unanimous Supreme Court immigration decision this week that didn't get any attention because of the military strikes in Iran. But that decision actually matters. It decided who calls the balls and strikes in asylum fights, the immigration system or left-wing federal judges who want to re-litigate everything from scratch. The case is Urias Oriana Vibondi and it was decided on March 4th. So here's the basic backdrop.

27:31As Salvadoran family entered the United States without authorization back in 2021, they applied for asylum claiming threats from a hitman back home. Now the immigration judge said, yeah, look, your testimony sounds credible. But it was still denied for asylum because legally the facts didn't add up to persecution as the asylum statute uses the term. The Board of Immigration Appeals agreed. So what was the Supreme Court fight really about? Now whether you feel sympathy for an asylum seeker, the question was the legal standard federal appeals courts must use when reviewing whether or not the action qualifies as persecution by the agency. The claimants wanted courts to treat that persecution call more like an open-ended legal question, meaning judges could take the same facts and freely substitute their own judgment, making it easier to overturn denials. The government argued the opposite. Congress said immigration cases up so courts must be differential and uphold the agency as long as their substantial evidence supporting the agency's conclusion. The Supreme Court sided with the government. It held that courts of appeals have to apply the same substantial evidence standard to the Board of Immigration Appeals persecution determination.

28:38Now in English, that means no judicial do-overs unless the record basically forces the opposite answer. Now why is this decision good for those of us who actually believe in immigration enforcement and borders? Well, it's real simple. It rains in judge-driven immigration policy. It restores nationwide consistency and it cuts down on the law fair that turns every denial into years of delay, making enforcement more predictable and closer to what Congress actually wrote. That's a win for us all. I'm Jason Rance. Apple Podcasts and Prime members can listen to the show Add Free on Amazon Music and for up to the minute news, go to FoxNews.com