President Trump told Fox News that U.S. forces struck a significant amount of Iranian radar infrastructure overnight, describing a deliberate strategy of letting Iran nearly finish rebuilding its air defense systems before destroying them again. Speaking with Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst, Trump explained the reasoning behind the timing. "They tried to rebuild their radar because they can't see anything," he said. "We waited until it was almost built and then we hit it." According to Trump, this approach has effectively blinded Iran's ability to monitor its own airspace amid the ongoing conflict between the two countries.

The president didn't stop at describing the strike itself. He issued a pointed warning about what would happen if Iran chooses to retaliate, making clear that any response would be met with significantly more force than what's already occurred. "If they do respond, they'll be hit much harder," Trump said, adding that the latest strike was already substantial in scale. He went further still, raising the stakes dramatically for any future round of hostilities: "If it goes a third time, they're going to be totally wiped out as a country." The remarks reflect an increasingly aggressive posture from the administration as tensions with Tehran continue to intensify.

This latest exchange comes against the backdrop of a broader and increasingly volatile standoff between the U.S. and Iran, one that has included repeated strikes on Iranian military targets and warnings from Iranian officials threatening their own response. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has stated that the United States "will regret its new attacks," signaling that Tehran has no intention of standing down despite the mounting pressure. At the same time, Iran has also faced compounding economic strain, including a currency in freefall and tightening U.S. sanctions, even as reports suggest some Iranian officials have expressed interest in returning to an earlier ceasefire framework.

Trump's comments add another layer of uncertainty to an already tense situation in the region, one where rhetoric on both sides continues to escalate alongside actual military engagement. Whether Iran responds to the latest radar strikes, and how the U.S. reacts if it does, will likely shape the next phase of this conflict in the days ahead. For now, Trump's message was unambiguous: further Iranian retaliation would be met with a response far more severe than what has come before, with the president explicitly framing a third round of strikes as an existential threat to the Iranian state itself.