Pete Hegseth Vows US Will Make Iran ‘Pay’ for Attacking Ship and Closing Strait of Hormuz

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth confirmed the U.S. military has launched a new round of strikes against Iran on Saturday after the country attacked a merchant ship and announced it was closing the Strait of Hormuz.

Hegseth posted on X that was a dumb decision.

“Iran made a poor choice. Now they pay,” Hegseth said.

He added his comment to a post from U.S. Central Command that said Iran had “blatantly attacked” a Cyprus-flagged container ship that was moving through the Strait of Hormuz.

CENTCOM posted the U.S. military launched retaliatory strikes at 4:15 p.m. ET based on orders from President Donald Trump.

“A civilian crew member is missing and the vessel is unable to continue the journey due to an onboard fire and significant engineroom damage,” CENTCOM posted about Iran’s attack earlier in the day. “Iran was provided yet another opportunity to demonstrate adherence to the Memorandum of Understanding after being held accountable for earlier attacks on commercial vessels but has again failed.”

The post added, “the United States is imposing a heavy cost by continuing to degrade Iran’s ability to attack civilian mariners and commercial ships freely transiting the strait.”

Hegseth’s post followed shortly after CNN reported Iranian state media said the Strait of Hormuz was closed after the country fired “warning shots” at a vessel that was “traveling on a route it did not approve of.”

Axios journalist Barak Ravid reported the U.S. had hit several targets so far. Those included, “air surveillance radars, facilities for storing missiles and UAVs, missile and UAV launch sites, maritime surveillance radars, [and] ground-to-air missile launchers,” according to a senior American official.

The latest strikes come after the U.S. and Iran agreed to a 14-point Memorandum of Understanding in mid-June, which gave both sides 60 days to hammer out a long-term peace deal. Vice President JD Vance was sent to Switzerland soon after to negotiate; he said the Iranians were “extremely confusing,” but that good progress had been made towards a deal.

That progress appears to have been sabotaged in recent weeks, as Iran has continued to violate the fragile ceasefire. Trump’s patience with Iran has seemed to have worn out too, with the president calling Iran’s theocratic leaders “scum” last week; he also warned Iran on Friday night the U.S. has 1,000 missiles “Locked and Loaded” if the country tries to kill him.

Watch The Big Weekend Show on Fox News report on the latest strikes above.

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