The concept of revolutionaries giving up and stepping down is not part of our vocabulary.

If the Cuban people say that I am not fit for office and that I should not be holding this position of president — I would respond to them.

But it's not the United States that can impose anything on us.

The U.S. government that has implemented that hostile policy against Cuba has no morals to demand anything from Cuba.

They have no morals, not even to say that they are concerned about the situation of the Cuban people and claim that the Cuban government has taken Cuba to this situation when they have all this responsibility on their shoulders.

I think the most important thing would be for them to understand how much it has cost the Cuban people the policy that they have implemented in terms of what they've done.

Iran is doing a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing Oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz.

That is not the agreement we have!

I'm just wondering if Trump's been held hostage or something. I'm not mad about this.

He's mad that he's wrong and he's mad that he got set up by Israel.

"Once a man, twice a child." This is dementia.

He knows he was wrong about our Iran. He's throwing a fit, and it's okay; we're going to continue to be adults and just respond to this.

Trump sat facing the wall screens rather than at the head of the table, with Netanyahu directly across from him. On the screens behind the Israeli Prime Minister were Mossad chief David Barnea and other Israeli military officials, visually framing him as a wartime leader backed by his full team.

In the room were Susie Wiles, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, Gen. Dan Caine, John Ratcliffe, Jared Kushner, and Steve Witkoff. The meeting was kept deliberately small to avoid leaks; other top cabinet officials were unaware it was happening, and JD Vance was absent because he was in Azerbaijan and could not return in time.

Over the next hour, Netanyahu made a hard sell for war, arguing that Iran was vulnerable, meaning retaliation against U.S. interests in the region would likely be limited, and that a joint U.S.-Israeli operation could not only cripple the regime but potentially bring about regime change.

The next day, U.S. intelligence reviewed Netanyahu’s four-part pitch: killing Iran’s supreme leader, crippling Iran’s regional military reach, sparking an uprising, and achieving regime change. Officials said the first two were feasible, but the latter two were not.

CIA Director Ratcliffe called the regime-change plan “farcical,” and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “In other words, it’s bullshit.”

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine was similarly skeptical of the Israeli pitch, telling Trump, “Sir, this is, in my experience, standard operating procedure for the Israelis. They oversell, and their plans are not always well-developed. They know they need us, and that’s why they’re hard-selling.”

Trump said regime change would be “their problem" but remained focused on destroying Iran’s missile capabilities and leadership targets.

Vice President JD Vance was the leading internal skeptic, warning a war could be “a huge distraction of resources,” trigger regional chaos, strain U.S. munitions, and hand Iran leverage over the Strait of Hormuz.

Meanwhile, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth strongly backed military action in Iran.

As diplomacy stalled, Witkoff and Kushner told Trump that talks with Iran could take months and were unlikely to succeed soon.

When fresh intelligence in late February indicated that Iran’s top leadership, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was about to gather in the ayatollah’s compound in Tehran, it accelerated the whole timeline.

The C.I.A. director told President Trump that regime change was possible depending on how the term was defined. “If we just mean killing the supreme leader, we can probably do that,” he said.

In a final February 26 Situation Room meeting, Vance told Trump, “You know I think this is a bad idea, but if you want to do it, I’ll support you.” Rubio said strikes made sense only if the goal was to destroy Iran’s missile program, not force regime change.

Military leaders outlined the risks, including munitions strain and regional escalation, but stopped short of opposing the plan.

White House counsel David Warrington said the operation was legally permissible, while political advisers warned of possible backlash but ultimately deferred to Trump.

In the end, no one in the room firmly tried to block the decision.

After hearing out each of his advisers, Trump said, “I think we need to do it,” and approved Operation Epic Fury from Air Force One the next day: “No aborts. Good luck.”

Netanyahu and his team argued that Iran’s ballistic missile program could be crippled within weeks, that Tehran would be too weakened to close the Strait of Hormuz, and that retaliation against U.S. interests in the region would likely be limited.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, repeatedly warned that securing the Strait of Hormuz would be extremely difficult and that Iran most likely would disrupt shipping there. But Trump largely dismissed that risk, believing Tehran would fold before it reached that point and expecting a short conflict.

Bibi and the Israeli team said Mossad's intelligence indicated that renewed street protests would erupt inside Iran again and that a sustained bombing campaign, combined with covert Israeli support for unrest, could help topple the regime.

Israeli officials even raised the possibility of Iranian Kurdish fighters crossing from Iraq to open a northern front.

Netanyahu and his team presented the video and intel with confidence, and it appeared to resonate with Trump, who said, “Sounds good to me."