“U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the United States is conducting its most intense day of strikes inside Iran with the most fighters, bombers and strikes, during a press conference Tuesday at the Pentagon,” Bloomberg reports.

President Trump said Cuba is in “deep ​trouble” on a humanitarian basis and ‌that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was dealing with the issue which may or may ​not be a “friendly takeover,” Reuters reports.

Said Trump: “He’s dealing with it ​and it may be a friendly takover, ⁠it may not be a friendly takeover. ​Wouldn’t really matter because they’re really down ​to…as they say, fumes. They have no energy, they have no money.”

CNBC: “His latest comments come less than a week after he suggested that his administration would turn its sights on Havana after U.S. military operations in Iran ended.”

“In the days after President Trump launched U.S. forces in an attack against Iran, support for the strikes is far lower than what it has been at the beginnings of previous foreign conflicts,” the New York Times reports.

“So far, polls have found that most Americans oppose the Iran attacks. Support ranges from 27 percent in a Reuters/Ipsos poll to 50 percent in a Fox News poll. The wide variation suggests that public opinion is still taking shape as more Americans learn details of the attacks and the aftermath.”

“But even the highest level of public support for this conflict falls far lower than that at the start of most other conflicts, including World War II, the Korean War and the Iraq War.”

“Nearly seven months ago, Ukrainian officials tried to sell the U.S. their battle-proven technology for downing Iranian-made attack drones. They even made a PowerPoint presentation — obtained exclusively by Axios — showing how it could protect American forces and their allies in a Middle East war,” Axios reports.

“The Trump administration dismissed the Ukrainians, only to reverse course last week because of more-than-expected drone strikes from Iran.”

“Snubbing Ukraine’s offer ranks as one of the biggest tactical miscalculations by the administration since the bombing of Iran began Feb. 28.”

“President Trump said he was eyeing a quick end to the war in Iran, as some of his advisers privately urged him to look for an exit plan amid spiking oil prices and concerns that a lengthy conflict could spark political backlash,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Trump won’t stop fighting until he can claim a satisfactory victory, a senior administration official said, especially when the U.S. has a military advantage. Trump has at times been surprised that Tehran won’t cave despite the unrelenting joint U.S.-Israeli military campaign.”

Aaron Blake: Trump contradicts himself on Iran repeatedly in just a few hours.

“Planning for President Donald Trump’s state visit to China remains scattershot with barely three weeks to go, people familiar with the preparations said, with no final list of officials and executives joining the American leader in Beijing,” Semafor reports.

“The Trump administration has ordered more U.S. diplomats to leave the Middle East, an indication of the ongoing security threat posed by Iran’s retaliatory attacks more than a week into the conflict,” the Washington Post reports.

“The Pentagon burned through $5.6 billion worth of munitions during the first two days of its military assault on Iran, a figure that underscores the deepening alarm among some on Capitol Hill over the speed at which U.S. forces have eaten into the scarce supply of America’s most advanced weaponry,” the Washington Post reports.

After comments that seemed to suggest President Trump was looking towards an exit from his war with Iran, Trump said in a speech to Republican lawmakers in Florida that “we have won in many ways, but not enough,” the New York Times reports.

He added: “We go forward more determined than ever to achieve ultimate victory that will end this long-running danger once and for all.”

President Trump told House Republicans that the war in Iran will only be “a short-term excursion” as he tries to tamp down fears of a drawn-out Middle Eastern conflict, Punchbowl News reports.

Said Trump: “It’s going to be finished pretty quickly.”

Robert Pape: “Iran’s strikes cannot be dismissed as acts of scattered retaliation, the flailing lashing out of a dying regime. Rather, they represent a strategy of horizontal escalation, a bid to transform the stakes of a conflict by widening its scope and extending its duration.”

“Such a strategy allows a weaker combatant to alter the calculus of a more powerful foe. And it has worked in the past, to the detriment of the United States.”

“In Vietnam and Serbia, U.S. adversaries responded to overwhelming displays of American airpower with horizontal escalation, eventually leading to American defeat, in the former case, and, in the latter, frustrating U.S. war aims and spurring the worst episode of ethnic cleansing in Europe since World War II. Decapitation strikes, in particular, create powerful incentives for horizontal escalation: when a regime survives the loss of its leader, it must demonstrate resilience quickly by widening the conflict.”

“Although the United States has hugely battered Iran, it must reckon with the implications of Iran’s response. Otherwise, it will find itself losing control of the war it started.”

A new Quinnipiac poll finds 53% of voters oppose the U.S. military action against Iran, while 40% support it.

Sixty-two percent of voters think the Trump administration has not provided a clear explanation of the reasons behind the United States’ military action against Iran, while 35 percent think the Trump administration has provided a clear explanation.

President Trump said that the war against Iran could be over soon, CNBC reports.

Said Trump: “I think the war is very complete, pretty much”

New York Times: “The U.S.-Israeli war in Iran risks redirecting world attention away from the war in Ukraine. But it has also given Kyiv an opportunity to use its hard-won expertise and advanced technology on a new front.”

“Kyiv is hoping to score points with the United States in American-brokered peace talks.”

President Trump told the New York Post that he has “a plan” to tackle surging oil prices caused by the war with Iran after the cost per barrel briefly neared $120.

Said Trump: “I have a plan for everything, okay?” 

He added: “I have a plan for everything. You’ll be very happy.”

President Trump “left open the prospect of acquiring Iranian oil as the U.S. proceeds with a war officials have said is aimed at depriving Iran of a nuclear weapon and defanging it so that it no longer poses a threat to the U.S. or Middle East neighbors,” NBC News reports.

Trump said he did not want to discuss whether he would like the U.S. to seize Iranian oil, but added: “Certainly people have talked about it.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused Iran of “trying to hold the world hostage” by attacking other Middle Eastern nations even as the United States and Israel continue to bomb Iranian sites, Punchbowl News reports.

Said Rubio: “They are attacking neighboring countries, their energy infrastructure, their civilian population, they’re attacking embassies.”

He added: “This is a terrorist government, this is a terroristic regime. And we are seeing them conduct terrorism using nation-state elements. Using weapons like missiles and one-way attack drones. And the objective of this mission is to destroy their ability to continue to do that. We are well on the way to achieving that mission.”