Fox News host Maria Bartiromo questioned the continued military capabilities of Iran after President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that the United States has "obliterated" its military.
Bartiromo posed the question to former White House national security advisor Victoria Coates on Sunday, two days after an Iranian missile strike on a military base in Jordan killed two American service members. On Saturday, a third U.S. soldier died during the controlled detonation of a downed Iranian drone in Iraq.
"CENTCOM says there will be outsized action in retaliation, but I don’t understand how it’s possible that Iran has the capabilities to fight this way and continue to try to lash out at Gulf countries and US military bases," Bartiromo said on her show. "Because the US has obliterated Iran’s military, and the president continues to reiterate that."
Coates responded that Iran's military has been "very seriously degraded," noting a significant reduction in daily missile firings and a halt in targeting Israel for months. "So I think their capabilities are lessened, but they’re not zero, and that’s the important thing. They are a nuisance," she added.
U.S. Central Command announced Sunday night that forces began firing at Iran at 7 p.m. EST after a soldier was confirmed killed at a base in Northern Iraq. CENTCOM vowed to "continue degrading Iranian military capabilities used to attack commercial vessels and civilian mariners transiting the Strait of Hormuz."
President Trump, speaking with reporters Sunday night, expressed his condolences for the American fatalities. "But you know, those great patriots were out there fighting [so] that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon," he said. "Iran has been very, very badly damaged. They've lost everything almost militarily... We control the Strait; they don't control anything. So we'll see what happens, but we hit them very hard again tonight, and we did that in honor of the... three great patriots."
U.S. forces had previously conducted airstrikes over the weekend targeting Iranian missile depots, drones, and air defenses. These strikes, which concluded Saturday at 11:30 p.m., were aimed at the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forces blamed for the fatal attack on U.S. assets in Jordan on Friday.
On Monday, the service members killed in the Jordan attack were identified as Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas. In addition to the fatalities, one service member was reported missing in action, and four others were medically evacuated to Jordanian hospitals following the incident. CENTCOM stated that these troops have since been discharged.
According to CENTCOM, the total number of deaths in the conflict with Iran stands at 17. Iranian authorities reported that at least 50 people have been killed and over 500 wounded in U.S. strikes over the past three weeks, including eight individuals killed in a strike on a bridge on Friday. The conflict has also resulted in casualties among individuals working on ships and foreign workers in Gulf nations, Israel, and Lebanon.