The Trump administration’s successful surprise strikes on Iran on Saturday night were executed without issue after the National Security Council saw massive overhauls earlier in 2025, and the national security advisor was replaced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to fulfill an additional job role that critics said would likely end in failure. 

President Donald Trump made a surprise announcement on Truth Social Saturday evening announcing the U.S. military carried out successful strikes on a trio of Iranian nuclear facilities as tensions and conflict heightened between Iran and Israel since June 12. 

‘A short time ago, the U.S. military carried out massive precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime: Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan,’ Trump said from the White House in an address to the nation just hours after the Truth Social announcement. ‘Everybody heard those names for years as they built this horribly destructive enterprise. Our objective was the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity, and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s number one state sponsor of terror. Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success.’ 

By Monday evening, Iran and Israel agreed to a ceasefire with Trump declaring the ’12 Day War’ was over following the U.S. strikes. 

The operation, which was also praised by Pentagon brass as a total success, was executed after the Trump administration slashed the National Security Council and replaced former national security advisor Mike Waltz with Rubio, who currently serves four different roles within the administration. 

Democratic lawmakers and former National Security Council staffers seethed against potential and finalized cuts to the council, alleging that Trump was politicizing and potentially crippling national security. 

The Trump administration and its supporters, however, viewed the overhauls as the president coming through on his campaign promise to strip Washington of the ‘deep state’ and streamline the office. 

The National Security Council operates within the White House to advise the president on foreign policy issues. 

It is chaired by the president, with other members including the vice president, the secretaries of state, treasury and defense, and the assistant to the president for national security affairs. Other staffers on the council include foreign policy experts who frequently join the team on loan from the Pentagon or State Department.

The Trump administration has made a handful of cuts to the National Security Council since Inauguration Day, most notably trimming roughly half of the National Security Council’s 350-person team in May, Fox Digital previously reported. Waltz, who served as Trump’s national security advisor for roughly 100 days, was removed from the post May 1 and named Trump’s nominee to serve as ambassador to the U.N. following a Signal chat leak with a journalist. 

Following Waltz’s departure, Trump named Rubio as his acting national security advisor, and he carried out a massive overhaul to the office, including trimming it of more than 100 staffers ahead of Memorial Day. 

‘The NSC is the ultimate Deep State. It’s Marco vs. the Deep State. We’re gutting the Deep State,’ a White House official told Axios in May as Rubio took a hatchet to the NSC staff. 

A White House official told Fox Digital on Monday that Rubio’s joint roles have allowed for ‘greater coordination between the State Department and White House,’ which they said has led to ‘more efficient execution of the president’s foreign policy agenda.’ 

Democrats, however, predicted that Rubio serving simultaneously as chief of the State Department and Trump’s national security advisor, would prove to be a failure. They argued that he would be unable to juggle the high-profiled roles, in addition to serving as acting archivist of the U.S., as well as acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

‘There’s no way he can do that and do it well, especially since there’s such incompetence over at DOD with Pete Hegseth being secretary of defense and just the hollowing out of the top leadership,’ Illinois Democrat Sen. Tammy Duckworth said on CBS’ ‘Face the Nation’ last month. ‘There’s no way he can carry all that entire load on his own.’

‘I don’t know how anybody could do these two big jobs,’ Democrat Virginia Sen. Mark Warner said Sunday on CNN’s ‘State of the Union.’

Fast-forward less than two months; Trump and his national security team executed ‘Operation Midnight Hammer’ in Iran, which has received widespread support among Republicans and a handful of Democrats. Historic critics of the president, such as Democrat New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Republican Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, however, have railed against the operation as bypassing congressional authority. 

‘The success of Operation Midnight Hammer speaks to the unmatched capabilities of the United States military, as well as President Trump’s brilliant foreign policy strategy, which included working closely with his national security team to flawlessly execute this mission and obliterate Iran’s ability to possess a nuclear weapon,’ White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told Fox Digital on Monday. 

‘As usual, Democrats and the legacy media were wrong – President Trump has rightfully placed immense trust in his top officials, including Secretary Rubio, Secretary Hegseth, and Director Gabbard, to help him make the world safer,’ she added. 

Trump repeatedly met with the National Security Council and other administration leaders between June 12 and last Saturday, when the strikes were ordered on Iran. 

Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and Vice President JD Vance were fixtures of the discussions, with photos showing them criss-crossing in and out of the White House last week as they reported to the Situation Room to meet with the president. The trio of U.S. officials flanked Trump as he addressed the nation about the operation Saturday night. 

‘For 40 years, Iran has been saying, ‘Death to America. Death to Israel.’ They have been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their legs with roadside bombs,’ Trump said in his address Saturday with the trio standing behind him. ‘That was their specialty. We lost over a thousand people, and hundreds of thousands throughout the Middle East and around the world have died as a direct result of their hate, in particular.’

‘Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated,’ Trump said. ‘And Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not, future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier.’ 

The operation itself was cloaked in secrecy and took Iran and the world by surprise. Trump had said on Thursday – via comment from press secretary Karoline Leavitt – that he would make a decision on Iran within two weeks, which signaled a longer time frame than 48 hours for such a mission. 

There were no media leaks or speculation that such strikes were imminent, while earlier on Saturday, six B-2 stealth bombers from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri were spotted en route to a U.S. Air Force base in Guam, which signaled the U.S. was likely making moves on Iran, but not in just mere hours from when news broke of the stealth bombers. The bombers were later revealed to be decoys. 

Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, held a press conference Sunday from the Pentagon, where they celebrated that strategic deception and misdirection played a key role in the operation. 

‘At midnight Friday into Saturday morning, a large B-2 strike package comprised of bombers launched from the continental United States,’ Caine said on Sunday. ‘As part of the plan to maintain tactical surprise, part of the package proceeded to the west and into the Pacific as a decoy – a deception effort, known only to an extremely small number of planners and key leaders here in Washington and in Tampa.’ 

Hegseth said in his remarks before the media Sunday morning that the U.S. military had leveraged ‘misdirection’ and total secrecy, aside from top national security officials, to carry out the strikes ‘without the world knowing at all.’

‘It involved misdirection and the highest of operational security. Our B-2s went in and out of… these nuclear sites, in and out and back, without the world knowing at all,’ Hegseth said. ‘In that way, it was historic.’

It was the longest B-2 spirit bomber mission since 2001, the second-longest B-2 mission ever flown and the largest B-2 operational strike in U.S. history, Hegseth and Caine said during the Sunday press conference. 

Rubio spoke to the media on Sunday morning shows, telling ‘Sunday Morning Futures’ host Maria Bartiromo that the ‘most important thing’ Iran should realize following the strikes is ‘the game is up’ and it’s time for peace. 

‘They have played the world for 40-something years with these nuclear talks and delaying things… they’re not going to play President Trump, and they found out last night that when he says he’s going to do something, he’ll do it. And he doesn’t want to do it. It’s not his first choice, but it’s the only choice. That’s the choice the Iranian regime left us, because they play too many games,’ he said. 

Trump celebrated on Monday evening in another Truth Social post that Iran and Israel had reached a ceasefire deal and that the 12 Day War had ended.

‘On the assumption that everything works as it should, which it will, I would like to congratulate both Countries, Israel and Iran, on having the Stamina, Courage, and Intelligence to end, what should be called, ‘THE 12 DAY WAR.’ This is a War that could have gone on for years, and destroyed the entire Middle East, but it didn’t, and never will! God bless Israel, God bless Iran, God bless the Middle East, God bless the United States of America, and GOD BLESS THE WORLD!’ he wrote. 

Tensions are still flared in the Middle East, as both Israel and Iran accuse each other of violating the ceasefire on Tuesday morning, with Trump urging them to put down their weapons while triumphantly declaring Iran’s nuclear capabilities have been crippled. 

‘IRAN WILL NEVER REBUILD THEIR NUCLEAR FACILITIES!’ Trump posted on Tuesday morning while heading to a NATO summit at the Hague in the Netherlands.

Fox News Digital’s Morgan Phillips contributed to this report. 

President Donald Trump, fresh off announcing a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, is off to The Hague, Netherlands for the yearly summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a conference where he’s hoping to drum up another foreign policy win by pushing European leaders to increase defense spending.

The president is expected to land in the Netherlands on Tuesday and return to the White House on Wednesday. 

It’s Trump’s first NATO summit since becoming president for a second term. In the past, he’s railed against NATO members for ‘freeloading’ off U.S. military protection. This time, European allies are eager to prove him wrong. 

NATO reached an agreement for all nations to boost their defense spending to five percent of their gross domestic product, except Spain. 

Trump initially made the demand, which is expected to be finalized at the summit. 

‘This summit is really about NATO’s credibility, and we are urging all of our Allies to step up to the plate and pay their fair share for transatlantic security,’ U.S. NATO Ambassador Matthew Whitaker said.

Spain complicated the consensus when Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez demanded an exemption from the new spending target – which would be a sharp increase from the 2 percent target Spain has had trouble meeting. 

‘We fully respect the legitimate desire of other countries to increase their defence investment, but we are not going to do it,’ Sanchez said. 

Trump is expected to meet with Rutte and other world leaders and hold a press conference. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is also expected to attend, continuing his push for Ukraine’s admission into the alliance and its collective defense pact.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte boasted that allies were ‘stepping up to equal sharing of responsibility for our shared security.’

Trump has said he does not think the U.S. needs to hit the 5% target. ‘I don’t think we should, but I think they should,’ he told reporters last week. 

The President’s time at the summit will be brief, spending approximately 24 hours on the ground. His meetings ‘will focus on issues of shared concern and reaffirm the United States strong ties with our allies and partners,’ according to an administration official.

But they come after Trump can boast of a ceasefire between Israel and Iran. 

‘It has been fully agreed by and between Israel and Iran that there will be a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE (in approximately 6 hours from now, when Israel and Iran have wound down and completed their in progress, final missions!), for 12 hours, at which point the War will be considered, ENDED!’ Trump wrote on Truth Social. 

Rutte has suggested NATO would stand behind the U.S. after Iran launched a counterstrike on its air base in Qatar, following American attacks on three Iranian nuclear sites.

‘My biggest fear would be for Iran to own and be able to use a nuclear weapon,’ Rutte told reporters ahead of the summit.

He defended the U.S. strikes on Iran after being asked about parallels between the U.S. and Russia when it invaded Ukraine in 2022. 

‘This is a consistent position of NATO: Iran should not have its hands on a nuclear weapon,’ he said. ‘I would not agree that this is against international law — what the U.S. did.’

Rutte had wanted the summit to be a show of NATO unity to Russian President Vladimir Putin amid the ongoing war in Ukraine. But conflict between the U.S., Israel and Iran makes the conference less predictable. 

The Iraq War in 2003 deeply divided NATO: France and Germany were opposed to the invasion while Britain and Spain joined the coalition forces. 

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, called the prospect of caucusing with Democrats an ‘interesting hypothetical,’ but she fell short of fully committing to doing so if the Democrats pick up three seats in the 2027 midterms. 

‘It’s an interesting hypothetical,’ Murkowski said on the ‘GD Politics’ podcast with Galen Druke. ‘You started off with the right hook here, is if this would help Alaskans.’ 

The senator is promoting her new book, a memoir titled, ‘Far From Home.’ She was repeatedly asked if she would caucus with Democrats if the party divide in the upper chamber of Congress becomes 50-50 after the next election. 

‘That’s why this book is kind of scary, because now people know what motivates me, and it’s this love for Alaska and what I can do,’ she said. ‘So, that’s my primary goal. I have to figure out how I can be most effective for the people that I serve.’

Murkowski said the ‘problem’ she had with Druke’s hypothetical was that ‘as challenged as we may be on the Republican side, I don’t see the Democrats being much better.’ 

She said the Democrats also have policies that she inherently disagrees with. 

‘I can’t be somebody that I’m not,’ Murkowski said, describing how she received pressure to run as a Libertarian after narrowly losing the GOP Senate primary in 2010. She went on to win as a write-in candidate in a historic victory, launching her Senate career. ‘I can’t now say that I want this job so much that I’m going to pretend to be somebody that I’m not. That’s not who I am.’  

Druke, arguing that Murkowski would not have to become a Democrat to caucus with them, asked, ‘Is there world in which by becoming unaligned or an independent that you could help Alaskans, you’d consider it?’  

‘There may be that possibility,’ she said, noting that the Alaska legislature currently features a coalition with members of both parties.

‘This is one of the things that I think is good and healthy for us, and this is one of the reasons people are not surprised that I don’t neatly toe the line with party initiatives, because we’ve kind of embraced a governing style that says if you’ve got good ideas, and you can work with her over there, it doesn’t make any difference if you’re a Republican or Democrat,’ Murkowski said. ‘We can govern together for the good of the state.’ 

‘If Democrats won three seats in the next election and offered you a way to pass bills that benefit Alaskans if you caucused with them, you’d consider it?’ Druke pressed. 

Murkowski said in response that a coalition is ‘not foreign to Alaskans,’ but it is at the federal level in the U.S. Senate.

‘I’m evading your answer, of course, because it is so, extremely hypothetical, but you can tell that the construct that we’re working with right now, I don’t think is the best construct,’ Murkowski said, adding: ‘Is it something that’s worthy of exploration?’ 

Murkowski joked that Druke was trying to ‘make news’ and said the rank-choice voting system in Alaska means candidates are more likely to get elected if they are not viewed as wholly partisan.

‘It is a different way of looking at addressing our problems rather than just saying it’s red and it’s blue,’ she added. 

Druke hammered the senator again, saying, ‘Was that a yes? There’s some openness to it?’ 

‘There’s some openness to exploring something different than the status quo,’ she said. 

Murkowski, one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict President Donald Trump during his second impeachment trial after the Jan. 6 riot, recently called the July 4 deadline that GOP leadership wants to pass Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ by ‘arbitrary.’  

‘I don’t want us to be able to say we met the date, but our policies are less than we would want,’ Murkowski told Axios. ‘Why are we afraid of a conference? Oh my gosh.’ 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., are hesitant about going to conference with the upcoming debt ceiling ‘X date’ approaching and the party lines so tight. 

Murkowski, a critic of Trump’s foreign policy, particularly on Ukraine, told the Washington Post that she was in a ‘lonely position’ in the Senate, and sometimes feels ‘afraid’ to speak up among Republican colleagues out of fear of retaliation. 

‘We used to be called the world’s greatest deliberative body,’ she told the Post in a recent interview promoting her book. ‘I think we’re still called it, but now I wonder if it’s in air quotes.’