Vance, Rubio, Hegseth and others held hourslong talks while Trump says the war should end after the midterms.

Article:
Senior Trump administration officials met at Camp David on Friday for hourslong discussions on the Iran war and the escalating conflict between Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government, sources familiar told CBS News on Saturday. The meeting was first reported by Axios.

Who attended. According to CBS’s sources, attendees included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and no details of any decisions have been released.

What Trump said. At a campaign event in Mobile, Alabama, on Friday night, Trump said that if the US ended the war immediately, it would still take Iran years to rebuild, claiming Tehran “played their cards too tough”. He repeated his view that the war will end soon after the midterm elections and that oil prices will drop sharply when it does, CBS reported. On Thursday he said Iran “is ready to fold up”. In an interview with TIME, he said it was possible he could order strikes after the November election and that he does not think there can ever be peace with Iran, according to CBS.

Hegseth: “ironclad” blockade. On Saturday, Defense Secretary Hegseth said the US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is ironclad and running almost at prewar throughput levels at night, while Iran has “literally gotten nothing through.” He said Trump has all the options he needs if Iran continues to play games, and that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.

Military build-up. A US official confirmed the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group and the USS Makin Island amphibious group are heading to the Middle East. The Associated Press reports about 7,000 sailors and 2,000 Marines, which would bring US forces in the region to about 20,000, arriving possibly by the end of October. Axios also reported that two more Patriot batteries were sent to Saudi Arabia and Qatar to protect oil and gas sites.

Iran’s response. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, mocked Trump on X, saying reality is shaped by Iran and its missiles.

Our analysis: Washington is sending two messages at once: it projects confidence that Iran will give in, while adding forces and holding closed-door crisis talks that now include Yemen. The meeting suggests the administration sees the Saudi–Houthi fighting as part of the same energy and security crisis as Hormuz, with oil prices and the midterms in the background.

Related: Iran readies wider response if the US strikes again · Tankers attacked again in Hormuz
Sources: CBS News live updates (2–3 October 2026, ✅ read in full); Axios; Associated Press.