Fox host who can't 'understand' sparks mockery: 'Consider the possibility Trump lied'

Fox News' Maria Bartiromo was widely ridiculed Sunday after she voiced confusion over Iran's ability to strike back at the U.S., despite President Donald Trump's oft-repeated claim that Iran's military had been completely destroyed.

Trump has declared Iran’s military to have been totally destroyed countless times, proclaiming on March 14 that the United States had “already destroyed 100% of Iran’s military capability.” He’s repeated similar claims a number of times over the next several months.

And yet, following a wave of U.S. strikes on Iran this past week, Iran mounted a considerable response, launching strikes at U.S. military assets in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Jordan and Syria, killing at least two U.S. service members stationed at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan on Friday.

“I don’t understand how it’s possible that Iran has the capabilities to fight this way and continue to try to lash out at Gulf countries and U.S. military bases because the U.S. has obliterated Iran’s military, and the president continues to reiterate that,” Bartiromo said Sunday on Fox News.

Bartiromo’s confusion left countless onlookers stunned at how she appeared “so close” to the realization that Trump’s claims may have been false.

“You might have to consider the possibility that Trump lied,” wrote MeidasTouch Editor-in-Chief Ron Filipkowski in an online post on X. “I know, hard to believe that might be [the] case.”

Podcast host and television personality Hemant Mehta argued that Bartiromo was “so close to figuring it out,” as did writer Michael Freeman, who wrote Bartiromo was “so close to getting it.”

“Maybe, and we’re just going off of decades and decades of experience, maybe THE PRESIDENT AND HIS CRONIES ARE LYING,” wrote former CIA case officer Patrick Skinner in a tongue-in-cheek post on X.