How Long Could 'Operation Epic Fury' Last?

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I'm Madison Hallworth.

I'm Juan Williams.

I'm Liz Claimon, and this is the Fox News rundown.

Tuesday, March 3, 2026, I'm Jessica Rosenthal.

The Trump administration says they're ahead of schedule as they make progress in their objectives in Iran.

But how long Operation Epic Fury takes, all depends on meeting those goals.

The president said, like, the worst hasn't even...

We haven't even done our best or biggest volley or whatever.

You want to call it.

And I think people are underestimating what the United States can bring.

I'm Dave Anthony.

The 2026 selections start today, with the first primaries at in Texas.

There are close contests in both parties for a Senate seat, and this adds to the intrigue.

You can choose which primaries to vote in.

So every voter in Texas can vote in either the Republican or the Democratic primaries can't vote in both.

And I'm Brian Kilmeade.

I've got the final word on the Fox News rundown.

President Trump says the objectives in Iran are clear to target their capability to launch missiles,

to build new missiles, to dismantle their navy, and ensure they cannot obtain a nuclear weapon.

We're already substantially ahead of our time projections, but whatever the time is, it's okay.

Whatever it takes, we will always, and we have right from the beginning,

we projected four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that.

Secretary of War, Pete Hexeth noted the many Iranian attacks against the U.S. over the last 47 years,

from hostages taken in our embassy in Iran to the bombing of Marines in Beirut,

rocket attacks on our ships, and roadside bombs in Iraq.

My generation of veterans carried the names of brothers who never came home.

Brothers butchered by Iranian-backed roadside bombs and well-armed militias, thousands of our own.

We didn't start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it.

Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dan Cain said within the first 24 hours of the operation,

more than a thousand targets were struck, and that the operation took months,

and in some cases years of planning.

It was historic not only in the operational scope, but in the level of joint integration displayed across every element of the joint force.

But Secretary of State Marco Rubio Monday echoed what the President has said,

that the hardest hits are yet to come.

It's always conditions-based.

John Spencer is Executive Director of the Urban Warfare Institute.

We spoke yesterday afternoon.

There is this kind of you want to give people an idea of how long could it take?

Although the President said he's already been surprised in ahead of schedule on what was achieved in the opening minute.

Of course, with the IOTOLA, his minister of defense, the head of the military,

40 senior leaders killed in the opening minutes of the operation.

But you never want to give the enemy an idea of how long they need to hold out.

You want war is a contest of will.

It is psychological more than it is physical.

I know you don't want your enemy, believe in they can just hold out,

even though it's clear that they are disorganized and in paralysis, like they should be.

What was done on the opening day of this operation?

It should put the fear of God in every Iranian general.

One, not to take that job because we're already getting the people who now have been assigned as the new person,

but into all the enemies of the United States.

And that is possible.

Whether it takes four weeks or four days, you don't want the enemy knowing.

Tell me your thoughts on this idea of the Iranian people rising up and taking back their country.

This is not a country of armed citizens.

The people who are armed are the IRGC and the police.

So what would it take more of those in authority to be taken out and killed?

Like to your point about, don't take this role if it's open.

I do think it's absolutely plausible.

And the president has multiple times in our community directly to the Iranian people.

I said, help is on the way.

It's here.

This is a one, it's in a generation lifetime.

But as we've seen in just January, what this regime is willing to do to its population,

if they're just protesting, mowing them down literally with machine guns.

35,000 dead, depending on what the estimate is.

Yes, you have to reduce the regimes.

So it's like a byproduct goal, right?

Regime changes not to go have been very specific.

But in order for the people to rise up, and that's why the president said, stay low.

Be ready.

Is it the fact that you do have to take out these levers of oppression that the regime has demonstrated?

Just very recently, but also in the past, like in the women life freedom,

the besiege, there's thousands of these besiege, like paramilitary forces,

the IRGC commanders.

But it isn't just the re-killing of all of these individuals.

Although they have, that's a big target on the target list.

Just from a deterrent and changing their behavior.

So that's the goal, right?

To change the regime's behavior.

And the byproduct is you create this regime changing conditions.

But you also want defectors, right?

Even if you go back to the 1979 revolution, the Air Force joined with the revolution.

You want some of those, and this has been the messaging as well from the beginning

from the president on his first speech, like, look,

you can get immunity, you can defect, you can do whatever, or you can die.

How does this not end up like Iraq?

If the people can't rise up, or there is a vacuum,

what fills it is the essential answer to that question, right?

Is this a country in which we could see sectarian violence,

or like a deeper war between different Iranian factions,

or is that sort of not the political makeup of Iran?

Not the political makeup, although there are,

I mean, it's not all Persian, right?

It's not Arab.

So one, just comparing it to an Arab nation with that.

I mean, and I live that, that deep shia, Sunni device, sectarian violence.

Iran is not Iraq.

I mean, it's just a lot different than what Saddam, as this, you know,

Sunni minority was doing to his people.

There is that, but then there's the economic aspects of, it's just a lot different.

So I don't see, personally, the comparisons that act,

although we learn lessons of, you can't do that, right?

So you can't impose Western democracies on other things and all those values.

So I see there's some difference, but more importantly,

the people have shown with their feet.

I was on the ground when all this happened in Iraq in 2000.

It wasn't the same.

It wasn't that mass millions coming out, wanting to change.

And they have, there are people who are in the intelligentsia, let's say,

that would be involved.

And imagine the power of Iran, what it could become once that

resettling happens, but it's dirty business for sure.

Regime changes.

And one of the fears is getting something worse, right?

This is that IRGC takeover that you don't want to see as well.

And that's why this continuing of trying to change behavior,

because you either get one thing.

You get a regime that is going to change its behavior, or you get a new regime.

And what's happening in this Operation Epic Fury is setting the conditions for

that to happen, but not being the people that do it.

I want to go back to some of the operational capabilities we're talking about here.

On Monday, Fox's Jennifer Griffin reported that the four to five week timeline

for ending this might have to do with the US assessment that Iran had enough

missile stockpile for a month.

And she said that does not include an assessment of drones, which are essentially harder to

defend against that they can fly under radar, and our missile defense systems aren't built

for drone detection.

What do you make of these notes?

And is a month of missile stockpile a lot?

Absolutely.

Depending on how frequency and what we've seen them sending over 100 to Israel and comparison

what they did before, but 300, you know, they've sent a lot.

So what the prediction of what they were able to rebuild, although 50% of the launchers

and 50% of the missiles rough estimates were destroyed during the 12-day war, but they

have been working 24 hours a day showing their intent to rebuild that supply clearly.

I wouldn't differ a little bit on the threat of the drones, because the drone moves a

lot slower.

And like Saudi Arabia, how to 100% interdiction rate is, it's the ballistic missiles that

when fired in Bali, especially in combination with drones, that are the greater threat

than those slow moving, still lethal as we've seen them impacting into luxury hotels

and things.

They're still lethal.

They're a little different to deal with, but it's the ballistic missile program and

why that's our goal, right?

That's our goal as the United States of this operation is to degrade and destroy that

ballistic missile program.

To be clear, they were developing longer and longer range for these ballistic missiles,

and that supply matters as much.

I think that estimate, again, you don't want to put estimates on timing.

It is always conditions based on what I've seen.

And the President said, like the worst hasn't even, we haven't even done our best or biggest

volley or whatever you want to call it.

And I think people are underestimating what the United States can bring, although the

B2 was involved thus far, but some of the other heavy bombers have not been.

The amount of firepower we could put on the ground, but we're trying to achieve multiple

objectives.

So, yes, it could be tied to what we believe they had, those 3,000 ballistic missiles,

in the drone factories, all of that.

As you see this target list, as we get information, although your Sinkcom is doing a really good

job saying, here are the targets that were hit, but there's sheer scale of what we're

hitting in different locations around Iran, which is a giant country, of course.

Another logistical point.

How important is it to destroy naval assets, given how much commerce and energy flows through

the straight-of-formers?

Vital.

And I really was happy to see that being a part of the objective of the operation was to

destroy that navy because of the real threats and history of the Islamic regime on the

Iran blockading, mining, sinking ships on purpose and to block that vital, which is,

you know, again, if you want to go to America and interest America first, it's not America

alone.

It's definitely not America isolated.

We have interest in the global economy continuing to prosper.

And that one choke point, or 20% of the world's crude oil comes through, and depending on

what country it's a lot more than that, destroying the navy is a vital part of that

while also protecting oil infrastructure as we've seen Iran attacking the Gulf States

oil infrastructure, which is reckless as well.

Just a couple more for you.

Monday morning, General Cain kind of zoomed out for us and gave us a little bit of an

operational picture and a timeline, saying that the first shooters at sea were Tomahawks

unleashed by the navy that this was a massive overwhelming attack across all domains of

warfare, striking more than 1,000 targets in the first 24 hours that the level of coordination

was historic across space and cyber operations, disrupting communications and sensor networks.

When you hear all of this and you hear the timeline and just the scope of this operation,

given your expertise, what are your thoughts?

I have a lot of job security in trying to record history because this was history changing.

It honestly was.

I mean, the one, the synchronization of what you just talked about, right?

So cyber space, incoming missiles of bombs, but you also had this really aircraft, I mean,

creating a corridor for them because they are the ones who dropped the munitions on

the Ayatollah's head, although it was a joint CIA, Musad operation.

You know, sometimes in what we say Klauselist says in war, things seem simple, but even

the simple is hard.

Things look easy, understanding that level of synchronization that all of that was time

to the minute of opening this to create that paralysis that we created is unlike any other

operation.

Although we've done amazing operations, you know, in a Persian Gulf, in the invasion

of Iraq, you know, it took us nine months to get Saddam Hussein.

It took us nine years to get Osama bin Laden.

The US military that was, that demonstrated itself in the opening of this operation is not

the US military that's ever been seen or not a military that's ever been seen on the planet.

To those who question how this is an America's interest, what is your answer?

They need to look at history.

The Iranian regime has been a threat to the United States and attacking the United States

for literally 47 years.

I lost soldiers and he rocked to Iranian IEDs, agents on the ground, proxy forces, and

it was a imminent threat because it showed even after since June of 2025 that it was not

giving up on developing nuclear weapons and we can't have a terrorist regime with a

nuclear weapon or the entire world to include the United States in safety changes.

John Spencer, Executive Director of the Urban Warfare Institute, Chair of War Studies

at the Madison Policy Forum as well.

Thank you so much for joining us.

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This is Brian Kilmeade with your Fox News commentary coming up.

The midterm elections with control of Congress on the line are still eight months away, but

the primaries start today with voting in three states, Arkansas, North Carolina and Texas,

which has the races getting the most attention and where President Trump campaigned Friday

for Republicans in Corpus Christi.

We brought this country back.

We don't want to lose the midterm.

We got to win the midterms.

We got to get out.

You got to get out.

We got to vote and we'll keep it all going better even than it is now as good as it is.

And all the president has endorsed GOP candidates in today's primaries.

He is staying out of the race for Senate, not backing incumbent Republican Senator John

Cornyn or his challengers, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Congressman Wesley Hunt.

And there is a close contest on the left for that Senate seat as well.

What we're seeing right now is that we're seeing that people are turning out and they're

turning out on the Democratic side.

This woman Jasmine Crockett is facing state rep James Taloriko in the Democratic Senate

primary.

If you have voted for Democrats, but you are tired of Democratic politicians always folding,

you have a place in this campaign and making these races harder to predict any voter in

Texas and either party can vote for any of the above probably worth noting just so everybody's

on the same page that Texas has what we call an open primary system.

Karen Shaw is a professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin and a

Republican pollster and a member of the Fox News Decision Desk.

That is that when you register in Texas, you don't register as a partisan as a Republican

or a Democrat.

You just register.

You can choose which primary to vote in.

So every voter in Texas can vote in either the Republican or the Democratic primary can't

vote in both.

And the only real constraint is that if you vote in, let's say the Democratic primary,

you can only vote in the Democratic runoff, which is the other thing to bear in mind.

You have to get 50% of the vote to wrap up the nomination on primary day.

Otherwise, the top two vote getters advance to a runoff six weeks from now.

Okay.

Let's start with the Republican side.

Senator John Corden has had four terms.

He's looking for number five, but he's facing Attorney General Ken Paxton and also Congressman

Wesley Hunt.

So that's a three person race, though, Hunt has seemed to be well behind in the polling.

And this is not common.

I mean, most incumbent senators don't lose their primaries, correct?

It's rare.

It is starting to happen.

And you're hearing talk not only in the Texas where we're seeing it, but people are

talking about seats like Chuck Schumer's seat, you know, where long standing incumbents

may not accrue the sorts of advantages they have normally accrued and maybe vulnerable.

What is it about Ken Paxton's campaign that has resonated against an incumbent?

Ken Paxton is a firebrand.

He's the sitting Attorney General.

He's had all sorts of controversies and issues involving ethics and the operation of his

staff and his administration as Attorney General.

He was impeached, but not convicted by the Texas legislature.

But he remains very popular amongst conservative Republicans in the state.

So he has this intensity of support that Corden has never seemed to have.

So while Corden is tremendous as a general election candidate, because he ends up winning

Republicans, maybe somewhat reluctant, but he wins Republicans, it is decently with moderates

and independence, you know, that doesn't help you in a primary.

And right now, he's in the battle of his life.

And I think actually the odds are that Paxton is a slight favorite heading in, although

it's almost certain that neither candidate will get 50%.

So we're probably looking at a runoff in a few weeks.

On the Democratic side, you have Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, and you have state representative

James Tallerico, and polls have been wild on this one, correct?

That's right.

You've had a lot of recent polls showing Crockett with a small, but significantly.

The Tallerico campaign has released just a slew of their own internal polls, suggesting

that Tallerico is ahead.

And there have been one or two public polls that also show Tallerico ahead.

So the average is close to tied, but that masks wide variance.

And it's an open primary, and it's very fluid.

The Crockett Tallerico race, as I'm sure you know, has been scuttled several times, not

the least of which recently by the whole Colbert episode involving Tallerico, which some

people think is sufficient to maybe even put him over the top on election day.

Right, because Stephen Colbert tried to have him on a show, then he didn't, and then

it was only online, and that got even more views.

Lots of free publicity.

Yeah, and the thing about this open primary, there's strategy here.

You might have Republicans who will go and vote for Jasmine Crockett, because they want

her to be the candidate, because they believe she's easier to beat.

And you might have the same thing for Democrats going to the Republican primary, and voting

for Paxton, because they think he might be easier to beat in November, correct?

Yes, I think.

I'll use a line here as some trepidation, but it's several people I've talked to in

Texas have said that the race we want is corn and versus Tallerico, to sort of, you

know, kind of more traditional representatives of the Republican Democratic sides.

The race that we deserve is Crockett versus Paxton, which I think is kind of a funny line.

I think the one the Democrats really would like is Paxton Tallerico.

You know, I'd say Democrats, I mean, establishment Democrats, who think that if that's the

matchup, then Texas joins Alaska, Maine, North Carolina, and Ohio as potential pickups

for the Democrats, right?

Remember, they need four to flip the Senate.

There are only four races that are in marginally competitive right now.

If Texas, if they get the match, if they want in Texas, it could be a fifth, which opens

the door slightly to a Democratic takeover.

All right.

There are some house races of note as well, including the 23rd District, which has more

area of the Mexico border than India District in the US, the current Congressman is Tony

Gonzalez.

He is facing a primary challenge from Brandon Herrera, who almost beat Gonzalez two years

ago.

Gonzalez is dealing with allegations of an affair with a staffer who committed suicide

last year.

He is resistant calls to drop out and to resign.

But the timing of this has put him in a bull's eye in a spotlight that he didn't expect

I would imagine.

Yes, it's, you know, as most of the audience knows, Texas has redrawed their maps not only

after the 2020 census, but had a mid-decade redraw.

Actually, that's perhaps ironic that one of the reasons Crockett is in the Senate race

as her district was redrawed and she was facing a pretty competitive primary.

So, you know, she ends up winning that seat, comes under the heading of be careful what

you wish for, I guess.

But, yeah, you mentioned the 23rd District, which is Gonzalez.

I haven't seen much through reliable polling, and that's not casting his spursons on

poll.

A primary poll is, you know, they are rare, and I haven't seen any that sort of suggests

anything definitive, but Gonzalez has got to be in a pretty tough contest.

Whatever name recognition he has has got to be a two-edged sword right now, given the

recent news.

You know, the other seat Republicans I know are looking at is a crenshot in the second

district.

So, those two seats are something everybody should keep their eye on on election night,

because it's possible long-standing, high-profiling Republican incumbents could possibly lose

or at least face a runoff.

Dan Crenshaw has recently lost the support of Senator Ted Cruz, who was now backing

state representative Steve Toath in this race, and the House Freedom Caucus is also backing

Toath.

So, Crenshaw's got some negative campaigning out there against him in the last couple

of days.

Yeah, he's always been a bit of a maverick, and that, you know, comes with some upside.

Bucking the establishment is not a bad thing these days, and, you know, particularly attractive

in Texas in some respects.

But the way he's bucked the party has caused some real issues.

There has been a lot of writing about whether or not Republicans are losing Latino support.

They'd gained it in Texas in 2024, but with immigration enforcement and the controversy,

there's a lot of stories that they're losing some of that Hispanic and Latino support.

Do you see that?

There seems to be kind of the regional split amongst Latinos in Texas, and more specifically,

those in the Rio Grande Valley, Hispanic Latino voters in the Rio Grande Valley, basically

south of San Antonio, seem to be kind of holding fairly well for the Republicans and for Trump.

You've got both economic and border security issues that seem to be motivating that particular

cohort.

If you get San Antonio in North, it seems like Hispanics are beginning to drift back towards

a Democratic party, back towards their historical patterns.

So in places like Houston and Dallas, the Latino population, looks like it's probably moving

back closer to a, like a two-to-one split, a 66 to 33 type split.

You know, if the economy bucks up, I think that'll probably change.

I think it's, you know, at least as much the economy probably more so compared to immigration.

But the immigration narrative isn't helping.

North Carolina has primary voting as well.

Michael Wattley is on the Republican side of a Senate race, Roy Cooper, the former governor

on the Democratic side, vying for retiring Republican Senator Tom Tillis' seat.

They seem set to win and then they face each other off.

You think is this the best seat potentially for Democrats?

You talked about several that are possible for them to win in the midterms.

Is this one their best one, polling-wise so far?

I think so.

Democrats, especially Cooper, have one statewide there, even though, you know, they've come

close, but no cigar and a lot of presidential and Senate races there.

Given that their, those races are close anyway, and given the sort of conditions of the country

and short-term forces that are favoring the Democrats, and they've got a good candidate.

Yeah, I think that's probably their best chance for a pickup.

What's happening with Operation Epic Fury, the U.S. and Israel attacking Iran?

Any effect in your history dealing with, like, prime areas that that kind of a conflict

would creep into people's decisions on, on primary day?

Boy, I'd be lying if I said I had a sense of how it would affect primary elections.

My expectation is that it's going to be yet another reason for Democrats to dislike Donald

Trump, and it's going to be yet another reason for Republicans to rally behind Donald Trump.

You know, I think it'll probably just increase an already intense environment, which means

it could drive turnout even higher.

But outside of a turnout expectation, I don't have a party vote choice expectation one way

or the other.

Well, you have a long night ahead of you counting votes after the polls, close on primary

day, especially for Texas.

Darren Shaw is a member of the Fox News decision desk, a Republican pollster, professor of government

at the University of Texas at Austin.

Thanks for joining us.

Great to have you back.

Always a pleasure.

I'm John Jalosi with your Fox True Crime Minute, former MLB pitcher Daniel Sarafini was sentenced

to life in prison without the possibility of parole in the 2021 shooting of his wife's

parents during a burglary at their home by Lake Tahoe.

51 year old was convicted in July of first degree murder of his father-in-law, Gary Spore,

attempted murder of his mother-in-law, Wendy Wood, and first degree burglary.

While Spore was killed on the spot, Wood survived with life-altering injuries and died

a year later.

During his sentencing hearing, Sarafini addressed the court, saying he was innocent, claiming

he was out partying with his wife the night of the shooting.

But prosecutors say Sarafini hated his wife's wealthy parents and was heard saying he was

willing to pay $20,000 to have them killed before deciding to do it himself.

Sarafini was drafted by the Minnesota twins in 1992 in a career spanning 11 years.

The left-hander played for the Chicago Cubs, San Diego Padres, Pittsburgh Pirates, Cincinnati

Reds, and the Colorado Rockies.

There's more on this story at FoxNews.com or subscribe to the Fox True Crime podcast.

I'm Gianna Jalosi with Your Fox True Crime Minute.

Available now at FoxNewsPoncasts.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

Subscribe to this podcast at FoxNewsPoncasts.com.

It's time for your Fox News commentary.

Ryan Kilmeade.

What's on your mind?

When I find it unbelievably disappointing at the time in which we're engaging with Iran,

our 47-year enemy that is thwarted and undermined seven separate presidents.

I mean, we've had presidents to tell with them directly.

We have a head presidents like Jimmy Carter who are victim.

We had Ronald Reagan who won Adam, but also tried to deal with them and then he ended up

in the Iran Contra scandal.

We had George W. Bush focus on Iraq and find out that Iran wanted to get involved and

kill many of our guys.

But now we have a president that says, I'm not going to look to a deal.

I'm not going to look for any paperwork.

I'm looking for your word and proof that you're not going to make a nuclear weapon, not

going to have ballistic missiles, not going to fund your proxies.

But all three were no, no, no, he had no choice.

Now for those people that want him to pick a government, that would be outrageously stupid.

Let the Iranian people make their choice.

All we could do is plow the ground to allow their voice to be heard and that's what he's

doing.

We tried seven other presidents and nothing's worked.

Now we have a president dealing with this directly and all you do is criticize.

Can you at least keep your powder dry until you see the outcome and support your Americans

involved in a foreign war, not a war of choice, a war of necessity that's been ignored

for far too long.

Don't ask why you're doing it now after 47 years.

Ask why did it take 47 years to do it.

I'm Brian Kilmeet, those are my thoughts on the Fox News rundown.

Just and prime members can listen to the show Add Free on Amazon Music and for up to

the minute news, go to FoxNews.com.