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Pictures show tense moment President Trump and JD Vance orchestrated Operation Epic Fury in Iran
Tensions in the Middle East reached a boiling point as dramatic images revealed the high-stakes moments President Trump and Vice President Vance oversaw a sweeping US military operation targeting Iran.
Photographs shared by the White House captured Trump, sporting a “USA” cap, leading critical discussions from Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, per the New York Post.
Hundreds of miles away in Washington, DC, Vance directed a parallel team from the Situation Room as the strikes unfolded.
The operation, dubbed Operation Epic Fury, marked one of the most significant displays of American military force in the region in a generation, with US Central Command later releasing explosive footage of missiles tearing into Iranian targets.
Trump and Vance coordinate Operation Epic Fury from two locations
While spending the weekend at his club in Palm Beach, Trump remained deeply engaged in the unfolding crisis. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had said earlier Saturday that Trump would be monitoring the situation in the Middle East from Mar-a-Lago.
“The President and his national security team will continue to closely monitor the situation throughout the day,” she wrote in a post on X.
Inside the room with Trump were Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine. The images showed a tense atmosphere as officials tracked developments in real time.
At the same time, Vance oversaw a second cohort of top officials from the Situation Room in DC, which was dialed in to the Mar-a-Lago operations.
Seated at the head of the table, Vance was joined by US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Shortly after Operation Epic Fury was carried out, Trump spoke by phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Why the US launched strikes on Iran
Senior administration officials later briefed reporters on the tense hours leading up to the attack on Tehran.
One official described Iran’s missile inventory and said it posed “an intolerable risk to the United States.”
According to officials, the US had “indicators” that Tehran was preparing to launch a preemptive strike against American assets in the region. They pointed to Iran’s retaliatory strikes on US bases in Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain as evidence of the growing threat.
“The president decided he was not going to sit back and allow American forces in the region to absorb attacks from conventional missiles. We had analysis that basically told us, if we sat back and waited to get hit first, the amount of casualties and damage would be substantially higher than if we acted in a preemptive, defensive way to prevent those launches from occurring,” the official said.
Another senior administration official detailed the final negotiations in Geneva with Iranian representatives, revealing what they described as a remarkable US proposal.
“One of the things we offered – we said, we will give you free nuclear fuel forever,” the official said. “And they basically said that didn’t work for them. They needed to enrich uranium.”
The Trump administration had previously said Iran’s nuclear capabilities were destroyed in Operation Midnight Hammer last year, but officials expressed concern that Tehran was preparing to ramp them up again.
Dramatic CENTCOM footage shows missiles hitting Iranian targets
As the political and military leadership coordinated behind closed doors, US Central Command released gripping video of the strikes in action.
The footage showed Tomahawk cruise missiles being launched from a US Navy vessel and various types of fighter jets taking off from a ship. Aerial clips captured missiles striking five separate targets, including an aircraft and a radar station.
“As the President stated, our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime,” CENTCOM wrote on X.
“The President ordered bold action,” the post continued. “CENTCOM forces are delivering an overwhelming and unrelenting blow.”
According to CENTCOM, Operation Epic Fury involves “the largest regional concentration of American military firepower in a generation.” The mission aims to “dismantle the Iranian regime’s security apparatus” and is focused on “imminent threat” locations.
US and Israeli forces began striking targets at 1:15AM ET, including Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command and control facilities, Iranian air defense systems, missile and drone launch sites, and military airfields.
In addition to “precision munitions launched from air, land, and sea,” CENTCOM’s Task Force Scorpion Strike deployed “one-way attack drones for the first time in combat.”
“The President ordered bold action, and our brave Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, Guardians, and Coast Guardsmen are answering the call,” Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of CENTCOM, said in a statement.
Following the initial barrage, CENTCOM forces repelled “hundreds of Iranian missile and drone attacks.” There have been no reports of US casualties or combat-related injuries, and US installations in the Middle East sustained “minimal” damage that has not impacted operations.