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The Israeli Air Force on Tuesday struck the building housing Iran's Council of Experts in the holy city of Qom in an attempt to disrupt the process of appointing a new supreme leader, an Israeli defense official said. 

Why it matters: The Council of Experts is the body within the Iranian regime with the authority to appoint a new supreme leader. The clerics on the council vote on a shortlist of candidates being drafted by a smaller secret committee.

Former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was assassinated Saturday in the first wave of Israeli strikes, along with dozens of senior Iranian leaders.

Driving the news: The Israeli defense official said the strike took place while votes were being counted. It isn't clear how many of the council's 88 members were in the building at the time, or the extent of the damage.

"We wanted to prevent them from picking a new supreme leader," the official said.

This story is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

Israel bombs council choosing Iran's next supreme leader, official says

Israel bombs council choosing Iran's next leader, official says

Iranians mourn the death of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei  at the Hazrat Masumeh Shrine in the city of Qom on March 1. Photo: Stringer/Anadolu via Getty Images

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A line chart that tracks daily Brent crude oil prices from Feb. 1 to March 3, 2026. Prices rose from $66.21 to $83.97 per barrel. The chart shows steady increases with minor fluctuations, peaking sharply above $80 in early March.

Brent crude oil prices

Data: Financial Modeling Prep; Chart: Axios Visuals

Crude oil prices are at their highest levels since the military campaign against Iran after climbing again overnight and Tuesday morning.

Why it matters: The latest rise — and how it ripples through consumer prices — raises the stakes of Trump officials' upcoming plans to address costs.

The latest: The Energy and Treasury Departments will begin rolling out new efforts Tuesday to address energy price increases from the Iran conflict, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.

"We anticipated this could be an issue," he told reporters in the Capitol on Monday. He didn't offer details but said it's designed to "mitigate against" the price impact.

State of play: The U.S. doesn't have immediate plans to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Bloomberg reports.

But ING analysts said in a note: "The longer the Middle East disruptions last, the more likely we are to see coordinated emergency releases from several countries."

The intrigue: The White House provided no details on the plans that Rubio said will start emerging Tuesday.

Oil analyst Rory Johnston posted on X that Trump's options would include an SPR release, gas tax holiday, and easing restrictions on Russia.

By the numbers: The global benchmark Brent crude is trading at roughly $83 Tuesday morning, up over $10 per barrel since last week.

U.S. regular gasoline prices are averaging $3.11 per gallon Tuesday after beginning the week just under $3, per AAA.

Zoom out: Tankers avoiding the Strait of Hormuz are pushing up prices, and so are fresh signs of the conflict widening to energy-related infrastructure.

"On Tuesday, a fuel tank at Oman's Duqm commercial ​port was hit and a fire broke out at the United Arab Emirates' Fujairah, one of the key regional oil hubs," Reuters reports in a wider, helpful look at what's been damaged.

What we're watching: President Trump is scheduled to meet Tuesday afternoon with Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Sign up here for Axios' Future of Energy newsletter.

Oil prices surge as Trump team readies to "mitigate" costs

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Breaking climate science and policy coverage as extreme weather events reshape communities. Keep tabs on the race to a low carbon economy, which may be bumpy as governments, climate tech startups and major oil and gas companies race to find their niche amid the changing energy landscape.

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2024 will be an election year like no other, as President Biden seeks re-election amid economic uncertainty, two wars and questions about his age. His likely foe, former President Trump, faces felony charges and vows revenge on his political enemies. Meanwhile, Americans generally are dissatisfied with those choices and are divided over immigration, race, education and more.

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Katie Miller interviewed Fox News' Sean Hannity for an upcoming episode of "The Katie Miller Podcast," and Hannity jabbed at former prime-time colleague Tucker Carlson:

"I don't ever talk to him, ever," Hannity said. "I wish him well. I've read a lot of what he says. I just completely disagree with it. And it's not the person that I knew when he was at Fox."

What they're saying: Miller asked Hannity if he thinks conservative media stars have become too focused on fighting each other instead of the left. 

Hannity replied: "I do. … And I've stayed out of it, if you've noticed. … That's by design. To me, the big fight in this country is against the radical left. And [if] they all want to kill each other, have at it."

"I'm way past the point in my career, Katie, that I care at all about what other people are doing or saying," Hannity added. "I watch it 'cause I have to be aware — and I read so much news, I can't miss it. However, my interest in involving myself in it is zero. I don't believe my success is predicated on tearing somebody else down, or their failure."

Drops 6 p.m. ET Tuesday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Rumble and X.

First look: Sean Hannity jabs Tucker Carlson on Katie Miller podcast

Hannity says Carlson has changed since leaving Fox.

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MAGA's ascendant "America First" wing erupted after Secretary of State Marco Rubio effectively blamed Israel for drawing the U.S. into war with Iran.

Why it matters: Rubio's remarks were the first time a Trump official had so explicitly acknowledged Israel as a driving force behind the war — landing at a moment when Americans' public support for Israel has hit historic lows.

"We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action" against Iran, Rubio told reporters on Capitol Hill on Monday. "We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces" by the Iranian regime.

"And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties ... And then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn't act," Rubio continued.

Rubio added later: "Obviously, we were aware of Israeli intentions and understood what that would mean for us, and we had to be prepared to act as a result of it.  But this had to happen no matter what."

The widely repeated translation: The U.S. couldn't stop its ally — a far smaller nation that America arms, funds and protects — from attacking Iran on Saturday. So the U.S. had to strike Iran, too.

Not quite, U.S. officials said later. Regardless of Israel, they said, Trump ordered the strikes because he felt Iran was negotiating a nuclear deal in bad faith, and the U.S. needed to destroy the country's offensive military infrastructure.

"This operation needed to happen," Rubio told reporters, because Iran was developing too many missiles too quickly and was rebuilding its nuclear capabilities.

The big picture: Rubio's remarks were widely interpreted as making the U.S. look subordinate to Israel's interests. And they inflamed already angry MAGA elites who had spent the day railing against President Trump's decision to go to war.

On their podcasts and social media, frustrated pro-Trump influencers argued the president had become beholden to the military hawks and neocons he explicitly ran against.

Anti-Israel voices on the right — as well as openly antisemitic influencers who've clawed toward the mainstream in recent years — claimed vindication.

Between the lines: Even some traditional Trump allies think the White House's messaging has been muddled. The Daily Wire's Matt Walsh wrote on X as MAGA fractured over Rubio's remarks: "So he's flat out telling us that we're in a war with Iran because Israel forced our hand. This is basically the worst possible thing he could have said."

But Philip Klein, editor of National Review Online, wrote that those who think Rubio "said that Netanyahu forced the U.S. into war ... are conflating the question 'Why?' with the question of 'Why now?' ... Rubio was not trying to argue that Israel dragged the U.S. into this war."

Zoom in: Rubio was on Capitol Hill to make the case for military action to Congress — and to bring clarity to a series of open questions and shifting explanations for Trump's war against Iran.

On Saturday, administration officials told reporters in a background briefing that the U.S. struck because Iran was preparing to attack American forces in the region. No intelligence backed that claim.

What the briefing left out: Iran was preparing to retaliate only because Israel was about to strike first.

Reality check: The picture critics are painting — of a U.S. reluctantly pulled into war by a smaller ally — obscures the deep coordination between the two countries in the weeks before the strike.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been urging Trump to strike Iran since December — but Israeli officials say he wouldn't have moved without Trump's explicit approval.

It's highly unlikely Netanyahu would've struck Iran without Trump's green light, Israeli officials added. If Trump had preferred to keep negotiating, the strike would have been postponed.

Over the past year, Trump has repeatedly reined in Netanyahu from aggressive military operations, including his bombing campaign last year in Syria.

And Trump essentially forced the Israeli prime minister to accept a Gaza peace plan that resulted in Hamas releasing all of its remaining hostages and the remains of others.

Netanyahu pushed back Monday night, telling Fox News' Sean Hannity that Trump "can't be dragged" into anything — and that the president acts on his own judgment.

Mike Cernovich, a prominent pro-Trump social media figure, said on X: "Rubio's comments are a record scratch moment. He said what most guessed was the case. That he said [this] out loud ... is a sea change in foreign policy. There will be massive calls for a walk back."

Megyn Kelly said on her show that she has "serious doubts about what we're doing."

Trump donor Erik Prince, who founded the Blackwater security firm, said the decision would "uncork a significant can of worms and chaos and destruction."

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon expressed befuddlement on his "War Room" podcast.

"If we knew Israel would strike and Iran would retaliate against us, where was the coordination?" Bannon said. "We need a strategic explanation."

Nick Fuentes, the influential white nationalist who opposes Trump over his support for Israel, wrote Sunday: "This is a war of aggression for Israel."

"Americans will die in terrorist attacks and in missile strikes so that Israel can expand its borders in every direction. Trump, Vance, and Rubio sold us out," Fuentes said.

Zoom out: As with last year's bombing campaign, which many of the same critics opposed, a majority of Republicans still back Trump's decision, and a small minority opposes it.

The GOP support level for Trump, however, varies from poll to poll.

A supermajority of independent and Democratic voters oppose the bombing.

Some in the MAGAsphere are lining up in support of Trump's Iran attacks.

Laura Loomer, a pro-Trump activist, took to X to recount a phone call she had with Trump over the weekend in which she congratulated him on the strikes. "He's a hero, and he makes our country proud," she posted Saturday.

Radio host Mark Levin said Saturday that Trump's move shows "what a real leader looks like."

What they're saying: White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that "President Trump's courageous decision to launch Operation Epic Fury is grounded in a truth that presidents for nearly 50 years have been talking about, but no president had the courage to confront: Iran poses a direct and imminent threat to the United States of America and our troops in the Middle East."

"The rogue Iranian regime under the evil hand of the ayatollah has killed and maimed thousands of American citizens and soldiers over the years — and that ends with President Trump."

Rubio's war remarks blow open MAGA's Israel divide

The secretary of state's comments inflamed already angry MAGA elites.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks to reporters on Monday before briefing congressional leaders about Iran on Capitol Hill. Photo: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

Donald Trump

An expensive Democratic civil war is brewing this election cycle, with a staggering 30 House Democrats facing at least one primary challenger who has raised $100,000 or more, an Axios analysis found.

Why it matters: These primaries are drawing tens of millions of dollars from Democrats' efforts to retake the House while priming House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) to inherit a rebellious class of new freshmen.

The collective fundraising in these races adds up to more than $64 million — out of roughly $500 million raised by all Democratic House campaigns so far this cycle.

Nearly a dozen House Democrats are facing primary challengers who have raised more money than they have.

Many of these primary insurgents — along with a huge cohort of outsiders and progressives running in open primaries  — have declined to commit to supporting Jeffries' leadership if elected.

A table showing the total receipts in the 30 Democratic primary races where at least one challenger to the incumbent has raised more than $100,000 as of Q4 2025. Rep. Torres (NY-15) has raised the most among incumbents at $5 million. David Throne, running for MD-06, has raised the most among challengers at $6 million.

Total receipts in select Democratic primaries

Flashback: Contrast that with the 2018 election cycle, in which progressives rode a wave of grassroots energy spurred by Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign two years earlier to make huge gains.

2018 was the year Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) unseated veteran Democratic incumbents.

Dem leaders fume as insurgents wage costly civil war

A staggering 30 House Democrats have at least one primary challenger who has raised $100,000 or more.

Axios

Wednesday's top stories

Israel bombs council choosing Iran's next supreme leader, official says

Oil prices surge as Trump team readies to "mitigate" costs

First look: Sean Hannity jabs Tucker Carlson on Katie Miller podcast

Rubio's war remarks blow open MAGA's Israel divide

Dem leaders fume as insurgents wage costly civil war

Iran targets U.S. allies, hits American Embassy in Riyadh

DOJ drops cases against law firms targeted in Trump orders

Trump to attend White House Correspondents' Dinner