Ever since the United States, Israel, and Iran entered into a fragile ceasefire on April 8, Fox News figures have been demanding President Donald Trump restart the war and, in their words, “finish the job.” It now appears they may get their wish, as Trump on Thursday promised to attack Iran “VERY HARD TONIGHT” and possibly invade Kharg Island, a key export node in the country’s oil industry.

Also on Thursday morning, Trump called in to Fox & Friends, during which host Ainsley Earhardt told him that Americans are supportive of attacking Iran, which is not true. The interview was, however, a fitting illustration of the feedback loop between the network and the president that has defined the Iran war.

As early as June 2025, it was clear that Fox’s push for war with Iran was influencing Trump and making open conflict more likely. Days later, the U.S. bombed multiple Iranian nuclear sites. The pattern was repeated in February — in the days before Trump joined Israel in starting a new war against Iran, Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Mark Levin were doing everything they could to tip the scales in favor of a U.S. attack.

In the opening days of the fighting, Fox News’ institutional ties to the war effort became even more apparent. Pundits on the network vociferously supported the conflict from the outset, even as others in MAGA media began to voice their opposition. Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade said that he “was fortunate enough to be in a briefing with high-ranking Trump officials” on the day the war began, and Fox senior security analyst Jack Keane said that three Gulf states “are preparing for combat, offensive operations,” suggesting a granular level of insider information. 

It soon became clear that Iran would not be a replay of Trump’s capture of Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro, but that didn’t stop pundits on Fox from offering ill-conceived improvisations to right the sinking ship. Hannity, Kilmeade, and fellow host Jesse Watters all floated the idea of flooding Iran with small arms to provoke an uprising, a plan so undercooked even Keane, an ultra-hawk on Iran, shot it down. Watters and others on the network soon went even further, embracing the goal of a total “regime collapse” in Iran. When Iran predictably closed the Strait of Hormuz in response to Trump’s war, provoking global shortages of oil, fertilizer, and other key commodities, Kilmeade’s solution was simply for ships to “show some guts and go through that strait and do it.” 

As public opinion on the war soured further, Fox News — and others in right-wing media — returned to an old playbook of blaming the press for the government’s failures. The network found scapegoats everywhere, from NATO allies who wouldn’t send their military to the Iranian people themselves, who had failed the talking heads at Fox by not overthrowing their government on cue. 

Even that point was murky, though, as Fox’s own on-air talent couldn’t decide if regime change had happened, was about to happen, or even if Trump wanted it at all. 

As the ostensible ceasefire declared on April 8, which national security journalist Spencer Ackerman referred to as “a fig leaf for continued aggression,” kept the hostilities at relatively low level, Fox News repeatedly pushed for escalation. One popular talking point at the network was that Trump was only “two weeks” away from achieving a decisive military victory, if only he would unleash the joint military power of the United States and Israel. That fantasy appears to have at least some purchase in the White House, as Axios reported on June 10 that Trump was weighing “an operation that is big in scale but short in duration.”

The United States, Israel, and Iran may yet find a way to scale down the escalation ladder. But if Trump returns to a full-blown war footing, it will be in no small part due to the efforts of his semi-formal advisers at Fox News.