Iran war pushes oil prices to 4-year high as Hegseth set to face fresh round of questioning

In his latest jab at Germany’s leader, who earlier in the week accused the White House of lacking a clear strategy for the Iran war and being “humiliated” by Tehran’s negotiators, President Trump on Thursday urged Chancellor Friedrich Merz to “spend more time ending” the Russia-Ukraine war and to fix “his broken country.”

“The Chancellor of Germany should spend more time on ending the war with Russia/Ukraine (Where he has been totally ineffective!), and fixing his broken Country, especially Immigration and Energy, and less time on interfering with those that are getting rid of the Iran Nuclear threat, thereby making the World, including Germany, a safer place!” said Mr. Trump on his Truth Social platform.

President Trump has recently defended his decision to launch the joint U.S.-Israeli war with Iran by saying it was necessary to end a nuclear weapons threat posed by the regime in Tehran, though he has previously stated other objectives, too.

Lebanon’s public health ministry said Thursday that the death toll from almost two months of Israeli military attacks in the country had risen to 2,586 people, with at least 8,020 others wounded.

Israel has fought with the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah in Lebanon off and on for years, but it dramatically ramped up airstrikes across the country — and later launched a ground invasion — in response to Hezbollah firing rockets and drones at northern Israel in response to the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran that began on Feb. 28.

At least 40 people have been killed in Israel by Israeli and Hezbollah attacks since the Iran war began. 

The Israeli military has issued regular evacuation orders to Lebanese civilians, forcing more than 1 million people to flee from their homes, largely in the south of the country. Israeli military commanders and political leaders say the country will keep forces in a buffer zone across southern Lebanon indefinitely, and that residents cannot return to their homes, until the safety of northern Israeli residents can be guaranteed. 

Israel warned residents of 15 villages in southern Lebanon to evacuate and head north ahead of new attacks on the Iranian-backed group Hezbollah Thursday, saying if they didn’t leave, they would be “putting their life at risk.”

Israel Defense Forces spokesman Avichay Adraee said in his latest “urgent warning” to civilians on X that “the terrorist activities of Hezbollah are forcing the Israel Defense Forces to act against it.” The statement told civilians in the towns to move to “open areas” at least 1,000 meters (yards) away.

The IDF published a video Thursday of what it said were strikes on “military structures” used by Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Israel and Lebanon signed a ceasefire agreement in mid-April, which was later extended, but Hezbollah and the IDF have continued trading fire since it came into effect, each accusing the other of violating the deal.

Iranian-backed Hezbollah said Thursday that it struck two Israeli tanks “in response to the Israeli enemy’s violation of the ceasefire.”

Hezbollah politicians in Lebanon have decried the country’s government for negotiating with and signing the ceasefire agreement with Israel, calling it “appeasement.”

Lebanese authorities say Israel’s ongoing military operations have killed more than 2,530 people and displaced more than 1 million since the Iran war started at the beginning of March.

Hezbollah started launching drones and rockets at Israel just two days after Israel and the U.S. began striking Iran on Feb. 28. At least 40 people have been killed in Israel amid Iranian and Hezbollah attacks since the war started, according to the independent National Institute for Security Studies in Israel. 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will face a second day of grilling from Democrats on Capitol Hill, with senators getting their first opportunity on Thursday to question the Pentagon chief over his handling of the war.

Hegseth and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, are expected to stress the need for more drones, missile defense systems and warships. They are appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, which will hear a presentation on the Trump administration’s 2027 military budget proposal, which would boost defense spending to a historic $1.5 trillion.

Hegseth battled with Democrats — and some Republicans — during a nearly six-hour House Armed Services Committee hearing on Wednesday. He faced sharp questioning over the war’s costs in dollars, lives and diminishing stockpiles of critical weapons.

Democrat Rep. Adam Smith, the ranking member of the committee, said President Trump’s remarks earlier this month that Iran had agreed to give up everything, including its nuclear program and its hold on the Strait of Hormuz, have not borne out. 

“So wish fulfillment is not really a strategy,” Smith said. “What we need to hear today is what is going to work.”

CBS/AP

Israeli forces have intercepted 22 vessels taking part in a pro-Palestinian flotilla trying to carry aid to the Gaza Strip.

The Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) said its vessels were “abducted” near the Greek island of Crete by Israeli naval forces who intercepted and boarded their boats.

“After smashing engines and destroying navigation arrays, the military retreated — intentionally leaving hundreds of civilians stranded on powerless, broken vessels directly in the path of a massive approaching storm,” the group posted on X.

“This is piracy,” the group said in a separate statement. “This is the unlawful seizure of human beings on the open sea near Crete, an assertion that Israel can operate with total impunity, far beyond its own borders, with no consequences.”

Israel’s foreign ministry said that around 175 activists from more than 20 boats were “now making their way peacefully to Israel,” calling it “the condom flotilla,” a reference to prophylactics having been found on a previous convoy. 

It described the flotilla as “another PR stunt … professional provocateurs on pleasure cruises.”

The GSF website shows that while 22 boats were intercepted, 36 still appeared to be heading toward Gaza, which is under an Israeli naval blockade. Tracking showed the flotilla boats edging along the south coast of Crete.

Last October, Israeli forces stopped GSF’s previous flotilla from reaching Gaza, arresting and deporting more than 470 people, including Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.

A senior U.S. official told CBS News on Thursday that President Trump has not yet been given any options for a reduction of American military forces in Germany. 

Senior military leaders can indeed provide such options if requested, but none have been provided at this point, the official said, adding that Germany continues to provide quiet support to U.S. forces in the Middle East, which is a consideration.

So far the only NATO member to flatly refuse any role in support of the ongoing U.S. military operations in the Middle East is Spain, but President Trump and Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz have exchanged barbs this week.

In a brief post on his Truth Social platform Wednesday evening, Mr. Trump said the “United States is studying and reviewing the possible reduction of Troops in Germany, with a determination to be made over the next short period of time.”

Merz said Wednesday that his relationship with Mr. Trump remained “as good as ever,” but that he had “had doubts from the very beginning about what was started there with the war in Iran.”

“We are suffering considerably in Germany and in Europe from the consequences of, for example, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz,” Merz said.

Mr. Trump bashed Merz on Tuesday, saying on Truth Social: “The Chancellor of Germany, Friedrich Merz, thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about!”  

Mr. Trump was responding to Merz saying the previous day that the U.S. was being “humiliated” by Iran’s leadership and criticizing what he called Washington’s lack of strategy in the war.

The price of global benchmark Brent crude oil briefly surged past $126 a barrel early Thursday as stalled U.S.-Iran talks raised doubts over the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and a permanent end to the Iran war. The $126 mark for a barrel of Brent crude is a four-year high. The last time it was priced so high was soon after Russia launched its ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.

Brent crude to be delivered in June jumped 3.3% to $121.90 after briefly soaring past $126 per barrel. Brent to be delivered in July rose 1.4% to $112.02. Benchmark U.S. crude climbed 1.3% to $108.28 per barrel.

Before the war began in late February, Brent crude was trading around $70 per barrel.

The U.S. has continued its blockade of Iranian ports and vessels, prompting Iran to reinstate severe restrictions on commercial ships using the Strait of Hormuz, and the ensuing gridlock of tankers is pushing oil prices higher. 

According to a Thursday report by Axios, citing two anonymous sources with knowledge of the planning, President Trump is expected to receive a briefing later in the day on new plans for a potential resumption of military action in Iran from Admiral Brad Cooper, the commander of U.S. Central Command. Axios said the options given to the president would include a wave of “short and powerful” strikes on Iran, including against infrastructure.

“The breakdown of talks between the U.S. and Iran, along with President Trump reportedly rejecting Iran’s proposal for a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, has the market losing hope for any quick resumption in oil flows,” ING Bank strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey wrote in a research note.

Oil prices vary depending on the type of crude oil, where it is being traded and under what terms, for futures contracts. By some measures, Brent has hit its highest level since its peak of $147.50 per barrel in 2008 during the global financial crisis. 

Read more here.

CBS/AP

Iran’s president said Thursday that the ongoing U.S. naval blockade of his country’s ports and Iranian-linked vessels was “doomed to fail,” challenging President Trump’s repeated assertions that the economic pressure of the blockade will force Tehran to accept a deal to end the war on his terms. 

“Any attempt to impose a maritime blockade or restrictions is contrary to international law … and is doomed to fail,” President Masoud Pezeshkian said in a statement, warning that the blockade initiated on April 13 would be “a disruption to lasting stability in the Persian Gulf.”

Iran is already working to build new warships to replace those destroyed by U.S. and Israeli strikes, according to Iranian Navy Commander Admiral Shahram Irani. 

His announcement, carried by Iranian state TV, came about seven weeks after a U.S. submarine blew up the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean, killing as many as 80 Iranian soldiers, according to state media. 

The new ships will be seen in the “very near future,” Irani claimed, challenging assertions by the Israeli and U.S. militaries to have severely degraded Iran’s ship and weapons building capacities. 

Multiple U.S. officials with knowledge of intelligence on the matter told CBS News last week that Iran has maintained more military capabilities than U.S. officials have admitted. Roughly 60% of the naval arm of Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps remains intact, despite statements from the White House and Pentagon suggesting otherwise, the sources said.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell had previously said that 92% of the Iranian navy’s largest vessels had been destroyed.

By Audrey Ellis

A statement attributed to Iran’s new supreme leader, who has not been seen or heard from directly since he rose to the position to replace his father, said Thursday that the Islamic Republic would protect its “nuclear and missile capabilities” as a national asset, as President Trump tries to force the country to abandon its nuclear material and program as part of a deal to end the war.

The statement attributed to Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei was read aloud by a presenter on Iranian state TV. He has not appeared in public since he took over after a U.S. or Israeli airstrike on Feb. 28 killed his 86-year-old predecessor and father, Ali Khamenei. U.S. officials say Mojtaba Khamenei was badly wounded, and possibly incapacitated in the same strike.

“Honorable Iranians inside and outside the country regard all of Iran’s identity-based, spiritual, human, scientific, industrial and technological capacities — from nanotechnology and biotechnology to nuclear and missile capabilities — as national assets, and will protect them just as they protect the country’s waters, land and airspace,” the statement said.

Mr. Trump has expressed optimism that economic pressure on Iran from the ongoing U.S. blockade of the country’s ports will force Tehran to accept a peace deal that includes largely abandoning its nuclear program and handing over enriched uranium stockpiles, something Iran has publicly rejected doing.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was asked by Democratic Rep. Chrissy Houlahan Wednesday how many more months he expected might be needed to “conclude operations successfully” against Iran.

“And how many more billions of dollars do you think you’re going to ask this body for?” Houlahan added.

Hegseth said the U.S. military would never tip its hand to an adversary about how long it would be committed to a mission.

Hegseth was also questioned over the costs of the war for Americans, with Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, asking: “Do you know how much it will cost Americans in terms of their increased cost in gas and food over the next year because of the Iran war?”

“I would simply ask you what the cost is of an Iranian nuclear bomb,” Hegseth said.

Khanna accused Hegseth and the Trump administration of failing to live up to the president’s campaign promises of lowering the cost of living for Americans. He argued that Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz would cause American households to pay thousands more dollars for gas and food.

“I’m sad for all the people who voted for Trump. I’m sad for them because you betrayed them,” Khanna said.

The Iran war has cost an estimated $25 billion so far, a Pentagon official told Congress during the hearing attended by Hegseth.

“We will formulate a supplemental through the White House that will come to Congress once we have a full assessment of the cost of the conflict,” Jules Hurst III, the acting undersecretary of war for finances, said in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee.

CBS/AP

President Trump said Wednesday he is considering reducing the number of U.S. forces in Germany, amid a spat with Germany’s chancellor and the NATO alliance over Iran.

“The United States is studying and reviewing the possible reduction of Troops in Germany, with a determination to be made over the next short period of time,” he wrote on Truth Social. 

The president has grown increasingly frustrated with the U.S.’s allies in Europe, which have sought to keep their distance from the U.S.-Iran war. He has threatened to leave NATO, calling the alliance a “paper tiger” for not entering the war. A 2023 law prevents the president from withdrawing the U.S. from NATO without approval from Congress.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz appeared to draw Mr. Trump’s ire after he criticized the U.S.’s handling of the war earlier this week, saying “the Americans clearly have no strategy” on Iran and suggesting the U.S. is being “humiliated” by Iranian negotiators.

On Tuesday, Mr. Trump wrote on social media that Merz “thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon” and “doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” 

Read more here.

In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance pushed back on a report in The Atlantic that he questioned if the Pentagon was misrepresenting the U.S.’s missile stockpiles.

Vance said the story “ascribed the views to me and things that I had allegedly said that I am just 100% certain that I have never said.”

He added: “Nobody who actually knows what I think, nobody who’s close to me was speaking to that reporter, because if they did, then it would have been a totally different story.”

Vance acknowledged that “of course, I’m concerned about, you know, our readiness,” but said it’s his job to be concerned about such things. 

“It’s, of course, my job to ask these questions,” he said. “It’s, of course, my job to make sure that we’re on top of every issue.”