Fox host Bret Baier: “I just got off the phone with the president. ... He points to Venezuela as a template” for Iran
Fox hosts try “reading between the lines” to glean what Trump meant when he compared the two military operations
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From the March 2, 2026, edition of Fox News' America Reports
BRET BAIER (GUEST): Dana, Bill, good morning. I just got off the phone with the president. He is very pleased with how things are going. Obviously is disheartened about the loss of life, and there may be more he said along the way. But as far as the progress, he said they are ahead of where they thought they would be.
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He said there is a plan. He points to Venezuela as a template, which means to me that going in, they had some sense on the ground of what was coming next. As far as the military operation, he said there is no greater military in the U.S., and he was praising General Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth for the news conference that he just watched. Cut and dry, as he said, central casting, and they have a job to do, and they are getting it done. So from the president of the United States, he is pleased, does believe that this is going faster than they thought. And he believes that four weeks is something that they had put as a kind of calendar of what they were looking at as setting the table for the Iranians to do what they do.
BILL HEMMER (HOST): Good stuff there, Bret. Let me just follow up on this Venezuela comparison. Two different theaters, obviously two different countries, two different nations, two very different situations, honestly. When I hear him talk about Venezuela, I interpret that to mean the length of time that a military operation would take. Is that your read on that?
BAIER: Yeah, I also think that maybe, reading between the lines here, that there was intel interaction, whether it's with the Israelis on the ground, Mossad, or some kind of knowledge about what the after-plan looks like. And I think that we are going to learn over time that in Venezuela, that was the case as far as a succession to Maduro. He's saying that the success that they're seeing right now in Venezuela, is the success that he believes is possible in Iran based on what they know. And again, I'm reading between the lines here. This is a much different theater; it's a much different operation. It's much bigger in scope, and there are a lot of variables that we don't know. But from the president's point of view, right now, it is going as well or better than they expected going in.