Fox & Friends Admits Trump’s Ceasefire Leaves ‘Objectives’ Unmet — Praise Him Anyway

Fox & Friends delivered a surprisingly candid accounting of the Trump administration’s Iran ceasefire than you might expect from the network’s remarkably pro-Trump flagship morning show: It admitted that the objectives set forth by the Trump administration had not been met.

Co-host Lawrence Jones walked through the initial demands one by one, in plain language. “We have not reached any of those objectives,” he said.

The list of objectives? Dismantling nuclear facilities (“that has not happened”), ending uranium enrichment (“they are still enriching”), transferring uranium stockpiles out of Iran (“that hasn’t happened”), accepting international inspections (“they are still not willing to do it”), and suspending the ballistic missile program (“they’re still firing them off”).

That is not spin or a paraphrase. Jones said it on air, on the network that critics believe often functions as the administration’s de facto communications operation.

Of course, he didn’t let Iran off easy either. All 10 of Iran’s proposed terms, he said, are “nonstarters for the United States.” So the picture at that point in the segment was unambiguous: U.S. objectives unmet, Iranian demands unacceptable, conflict unresolved.

Then, perhaps because the co-hosts knew that President Donald Trump might be watching, the framing shifted to a decidedly “dear leader” tone.

“You know, Lawrence, I think this is good news,” co-host Griff Jenkins said. He pointed to oil prices and rising stock futures, then landed on his thesis: “President Trump succeeded in putting so much fear in this new regime that they were willing to come to the table,” echoing Trump’s own “complete victory” comments from his first interview after the deal was announced.

Jenkins acknowledged Jones’s point about Iran’s demands being a “laundry list of nonstarters,” but recast the ceasefire as “a possible offramp for the new regime to consider as they bunker down, knowing we can hit them with overwhelming force at any moment.”

Ainsley Earhardt closed the loop. “The president didn’t chicken out,” she said. “Up until the 11th hour, he almost had to do it and Iran, obviously, they came to the table.” She credited Pakistan’s prime minister for helping negotiate the deal, noted that Trump himself called it “a big day for world peace,” and described the terms as “a workable basis on which to negotiate.”

So: none of the objectives met, and also, success.

The bridge between those two positions is a redefined scorecard. Jones had listed specific, concrete demands. The new standard is atmospheric: Iran came to the table, markets reacted well, the president didn’t blink. “The president deserves some room to negotiate,” Jones said, before adding that he’s “not influenced by oil prices” and doesn’t think Trump has caved to Iranian pressure.

That’s a defensible read. Leverage is real even when outcomes aren’t. Getting a hostile regime to the table is not nothing.

But it’s a different argument than the one Jones was making 60 seconds earlier. The original demands were specific. The new metric is momentum. And the segment moved between those two standards without quite acknowledging the distance.

That’s the case Fox & Friends made Wednesday morning, in its own words.

Watch above via Fox News.

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