Trump says he’s ‘willing to live with’ final US report on deadly missile strike near Iranian girls’ school
A view of the debris of a school, where many students and teachers lost their lives on the first day of the wave of attacks launched by the United States and Israel against Iran on March 5, 2026. (Photo by Stringer/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump said on Monday he doesn’t “know enough” about the strike on an Iranian elementary school that Iran says killed at least 168 people, including dozens of children, but that he was “willing to live” with the findings of a U.S. investigation into the incident.
A newly surfaced video appears to show a U.S.-made missile, a Tomahawk, hitting a building in Iran adjacent to the girls’ school, experts told ABC News.
Trump suggested Monday it could have been a Tomahawk fired by Iran.
“I will say that the Tomahawk, which is one of the most powerful weapons around, is used by, you know, it’s sold and used by other countries, you know that,” Trump said. “And whether it’s Iran, who also has some Tomahawks, they wish they had more, but, whether it’s Iran or somebody else, the fact that a Tomahawk — a Tomahawk is very generic, it’s sold to other countries. But that’s being investigated right now.”
The U.S. makes and sells Tomahawks to its closest allies, including the U.K. and Australia. But it has never sold the technology to Iran or other adversaries. While other countries like Russia use cruise missiles, only the U.S. makes Tomahawks, as the missile experts say appears to be seen in the video of the school strike.
Israel has already said it wasn’t operating in the area of the school bombing.
The president faced questions Monday on the Feb. 28 incident during a news conference at Trump National Doral Miami, including his comment over the weekend that Iran was behind it.
“Based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Saturday. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, standing just behind the president on the plane, said the matter was under investigation and that “only side that targets civilians is Iran.”
But pressed on those remarks, Trump said on Monday, “I just don’t know enough about it.”
“I think it’s something that I was told is under investigation. But Tomahawks are –are used by others, as you know. Numerous other nations have Tomahawks. They buy them from us,” Trump said.
“But I will certainly, whatever the report shows, I’m willing to live with that report,” the president continued.
The U.S. military was striking targets in the country last Saturday in an area where an elementary school was hit and dozens of children were killed, two people familiar with the initial findings previously told ABC News.
An analysis of satellite imagery by ABC News suggests the Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab was near an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps compound but had been separated from it more than decade ago.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, rejected Trump’s claim that Iran was behind the hit on the girls’ elementary school.
US President Donald Trump arrives for a medal of honor ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Monday, March 2, 2026. President Trump is awarding the Medal of Honor to three US Army soldiers. (Photographer: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday said it’s “too late” for talks with Iran and warned the U.S. has enough munitions to fight “forever.”
“Their air defense, Air Force, Navy, and Leadership is gone,” Trump wrote of Iran in a post to his social media platform. “They want to talk. I said ‘Too Late!'”
The comments come as the administration’s war with Iran enters its fourth day and as questions remain on why the urgent military action was necessary and how long it will last.
Trump could face those questions and others from reporters when he hosts German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the Oval Office at 11:15 a.m. ET.
The president has not given a formal address to the nation on the attacks on Iran, instead posting video statements to social media or speaking to individual reporters at various news outlets.
Overnight, apparently responding to questions raised about stockpiles of U.S. weapons being used to intercept Iranian missiles and drones, Trump posted that the U.S. has a “virtually unlimited” supply.
“Wars can be fought ‘forever,’ and very successfully, using just these supplies,” Trump wrote in a social media post, despite having said on Monday that the U.S. would “easily prevail” in the conflict and campaigning in opposition to “forever wars.”
Trump, though, did acknowledge in the post that the stockpile of some of the country’s highest-grade munitions is “not where we want it to be” and blamed that on U.S. support for Ukraine in fighting Russia’s invasion.
Still, Trump concluded the post by stating: “The United States is stocked, and ready to WIN, BIG!!!”
Trump’s social media post on Tuesday that it’s “too late” for talks with Iran comes just days after he told The Atlantic: “They want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them.”
Plus, mixed messages have come from the administration on Iran’s future. Trump over the weekend encouraged Iranians to rise up and topple the government, though Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday rebuffed the idea that regime change was the U.S. objective for striking Tehran.
Meanwhile, the war is widening in the Middle East as Iran seeks retaliation for the U.S. and Israeli attacks, which killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several senior leaders. Tehran’s struck more nearly a dozen countries, and the State Department has warned U.S. citizens to leave the region and closed several embassies.
So far, six U.S. service members have died in the war and more have been wounded. Trump, in an interview with NewsNation, teased retaliation for the killing of American troops.
ABC News’ Fritz Farrow and Meghan Mistry contributed to this report.
Three minutes and two seconds before the first shot is fired, Alex Pretti holds a phone before a federal officer on Nicollet Ave in Minnesota. Obtained by (ABC News)
(MINNEAPOLIS) — The interaction that ended in the death of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday morning began at least three minutes earlier when Pretti appeared to be using his phone to record CBP officers, according to videos reviewed and verified by ABC News.
Minutes later, Pretti was pinned on the street by multiple federal agents — visibly being hit by one of them — when one of the officers can be seen leaving the struggle with what appears to be a gun.
Those videos appear to contradict, at least in part, claims by federal officials that Pretti “approached U.S. Border Patrol officers with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun” and “attacked” officers carrying out immigration duties.
During a news conference Saturday, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said Pretti “arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement.”
Videos verified by ABC News show that Pretti appeared to be using his phone to record the agents before he was shoved by a federal officer. Seconds later, a federal officer repeatedly pepper-sprayed Pretti and then appeared to pull him into the street.
While Pretti seems to have been pinned on the street by officers, one of the agents is seen in multiple verified videos emerging from the scrum with a handgun that appears to match the weapon federal officials say Pretti was carrying. Before the first shot is fired, another agent can be seen drawing his own handgun, while another repeatedly hits Pretti.
In total, 10 shots were fired in less than five seconds, according to a forensic audio analysis of the videos. Pretti was declared dead on the scene.
“What the videos depict is that this guy did not walk up to anybody from CBP in a threatening manner,” said former acting DHS undersecretary for intelligence John Cohen, a police trainer and ABC News contributor. “For [DHS] to construe that he arrived at that location with the intent to shoot those border patrol officers, there’s nothing in the video evidence that we’ve seen thus far that would support that.”
This is a timeline based on five different verified videos of the incident.
8:58:11 a.m. — Three minutes and two seconds before the first shot is fired, Alex Pretti holds a phone before a federal officer on Nicollet Ave. in Minnesota, in what appears to be an apparent attempt to record a nearby detention by immigration authorities.
8:58:22 a.m.— A second federal officer carrying a canister of pepper spray approaches Pretti, who continues to hold up his phone.
8:58:29 a.m. — One federal officer appears to push Pretti towards the sidewalk.
8:59:08 a.m. — Another eyewitness begins recording the incident, showing Pretti continuing to lift his phone towards officers, as they appear to detain someone in the street.
8:59:24 a.m.— Pretti is seen lifting a phone towards the officers as they move a detainee into a nearby vehicle.
9:00:12 a.m. — Pretti continues to lift his phone towards nearby federal officers as they interact with two unidentified individuals, one with an orange backpack and another in a parka.
9:00:21 a.m. — The two individuals, who were later pepper-sprayed alongside Pretti, speak with a federal agent. Several people honk and whistle. “Watch out for that car,” the officer says as a car passes the group.
9:00:41 a.m. — Three different cameras capture the next interaction. The officer shouts at one of the civilians, “Do not push them into traffic,” and pushes them towards Pretti. Pretti continues to raise his phone towards the officers.
9:00:44 a.m. — The individual who was pushed appears to hold onto Pretti as the federal officer approaches them.
9:00:45 a.m. — The federal officer appears to push Pretti.
9:00:47 a.m. — The officer is seen pushing the individual with the orange backpack.
9:00:50 a.m. — The officer uses pepper spray on Pretti, and Pretti appears to raise his hand towards the officer to get between the officer and the person with the backpack, but the officer immediately pepper-sprays him. According to ABC News contributor and former acting DHS undersecretary Cohen, it appears Pretti used his hand in an attempt to signal that he was not a threat to officers.
9:00:53 a.m. — The officer pepper-sprays the other two civilians again.
9:00:54 a.m.— After being sprayed, Pretti appears to fall into the person with the backpack and possibly grab that person to stabilize himself.
9:00:56 a.m. — The federal officer appears to pull Pretti into the street, appearing to tug him by the hood of his coat.
9:01:02 a.m.— Three officers hold down Pretti, while another group of officers surrounds Pretti. According to ABC News contributor and former acting DHS undersecretary Cohen, the officers do not appear to be following the tactical steps to control and arrest Pretti. “This just seemed to be a free-for-all, and they didn’t seem to have any understanding from a tactical perspective on how to gain control of that individual,” he said.
9:01:05 a.m. — A nearby woman can be heard screaming, “That is police brutality. They are hitting an observer. They’re kicking them in the face.” At one point, at least five officers are on top of Pretti, pinning him down.
9:04:11 a.m. — One of the agents appears to hit Pretti, swinging his hand to repeatedly punch Pretti.
9:01:12 a.m. — One of the officers appears to draw a handgun.
9:01:13 a.m.— One of the federal officers appears to remove a gun from Pretti’s waist that seems to match the handgun federal officials said he was carrying.
9:01:14 a.m. — Another video shows the officer in the grey jacket emerging from the scrum, holding a firearm that appears to match Pretti’s weapon. The video of the officer entering the scrum did not show the agent carrying a weapon. Three cameras capture the moment.
9:01:14 a.m. — First shot is fired. At least one officer immediately steps away from Pretti.
9:01:16 a.m. — One second after the first shot, three additional shots are fired. Pretti appears to go limp and fall to the ground.
9:01:19 a.m.— Within three seconds, six more shots are fired. The six agents have stepped back from Pretti’s body.
9:01:45 a.m. — Twenty-nine seconds after the first shot, an officer approaches Pretti. According to a sworn affidavit from a doctor who says they treated Pretti at the scene, Pretti had at least three bullet wounds in his back, an additional wound on his upper chest, and another possible wound on his neck.
09:02:28 a.m. — Seventy-four seconds after the first shot is fired, the officer in a grey jacket is heard saying, “I got the gun. I got the gun,” and walks towards the officers surrounding Pretti.
An analysis conducted by Robert Maher, a professor at Montana State University specializing in audio forensics, concluded that 10 shots were fired in less than 5 seconds.
The Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, Va., Jan. 17, 2026. (Kendall Warner/The Virginian-Pilot/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
(RICHMOND, Va.) — Early voting begins Friday in an unusual off-cycle election in Virginia that could have major implications for control of the House of Representatives in the 2026 midterm elections.
Voters in Virginia are heading to the polls for a statewide election, set for April 21, on a constitutional amendment that would allow their legislature to redraw the state’s congressional map.
This would let the Democratic-controlled legislature implement a new proposed map that would make four GOP-held congressional districts favor Democrats. Given the razor-thin margins of the House — where Democrats only need to net three seats in November to regain control — even flipping that many seats in Virginia could be decisive for control of the chamber.
It’s a gambit that Democrats both in Virginia and nationally say is necessary after Republican-led redistricting in 2025 gave the GOP nine redrawn seats that now favor Republicans across four states.
Former President Barack Obama, in a video released Thursday to promote a yes vote on the amendment, claimed that Republicans pursued mid-decade redistricting “for a simple reason: to give themselves an unfair advantage in the midterms this fall … This amendment gives you the power to level the playing field in the midterms this fall.”
Republicans have called the plan to redraw seats a political power grab, decrying the move as going against the will of voters in Virginia who previously voted in favor of a redistricting commission.
Rep. Ben Cline, one of the Virginia Republicans whose seat is among those targeted, wrote on X on Wednesday, that “The Democrats’ plan to steal Congressional seats and disenfranchise Virginians is unconstitutional, but we’re going to have to defeat it at the ballot box on April 21.”
Democrats in Virginia’s legislature have already passed their proposed congressional map through the legislature and it has been signed by the governor; it gets implemented if voters approve the amendment. While the map is technically not on the ballot, Democrats have argued that it’s important that voters see the new lines that they are essentially voting on.
Virginia’s Supreme Court ordered twice to let the election proceed in the face of legal challenges to how Democrats passed the amendment through the legislature, although litigation continues to play out.
