Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Briefs Members of the Media, Mar. 4, 2026

March 4, 2026 · The White House · 0:42:25

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt briefed members of the media at the White House on March 4, 2026, devoting the briefing to Operation Epic Fury. She laid out the operation’s four objectives as the President had stated them at its launch: destroy Iran’s ballistic missiles and raze its missile industry; annihilate the regime’s navy; ensure its proxies can no longer destabilize the region; and guarantee Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon.

The results she reported, as she stated them: more than 20 Iranian ships destroyed, “including their top submarine last night using a torpedo for the first time since World War II”; no Iranian ship underway in the Arabian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, or the Gulf of Oman; more than 2,000 targets struck; and 49 and counting of the most senior Iranian leaders, including the Supreme Leader, killed. A military update presented at the briefing added that Iranian ballistic missile launches were down 86 percent from day-one levels and that complete dominance over Iranian airspace was expected in the coming hours. On the reported school strike in southern Iran, Leavitt said the Department of War was investigating and reaffirmed that United States forces do not target civilians.

Leavitt also walked through the administration’s account of the diplomacy that preceded the strikes: sanctions relief, free nuclear fuel for a civil program, and possible U.S. investment in peaceful nuclear energy, offered in exchange for Iran forfeiting enrichment capacity — offers she said Iran rejected. On Ecuador, she pointed to the U.S. Southern Command statement that Ecuadorian and U.S. forces had launched operations on March 3 against designated terrorist organizations. She closed by announcing the weekend’s Latin America summit in Miami, with heads of state from 12 nations across the Western Hemisphere — Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, and Trinidad and Tobago named, “and maybe some others as well.”

Why it matters

This briefing is the White House’s formal day-4 statement of the war — the objectives, the tallies, and the diplomatic record as the administration presents them — and it publicly sets up the Shield of the Americas Summit held three days later. It is recorded on the Foreign Policy & Defense hub.

Scoreboard watch

This is a candidate item for the weekly scoreboard: the Epic Fury figures as stated at this briefing — more than 2,000 targets, more than 20 ships including a submarine sunk by torpedo, missile launches down 86 percent — checkable against Department of War releases. The scoreboard entry itself remains review-gated.

Sources: The White House, “Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Briefs Members of the Media, Mar. 4, 2026,” The White House, March 4, 2026 (official upload, embedded above). All figures and characterizations as stated by Press Secretary Leavitt and the military update presented at the briefing.