President Donald Trump said the United States is sending a larger naval force toward Iran, led by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, as Washington pressures Tehran over its crackdown on protesters and seeks to deter attacks on U.S. troops and regional allies while urging renewed nuclear talks.
The USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, which had been operating in the South China Sea earlier this month, has moved into the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) area of responsibility amid renewed tensions with Iran. The move adds roughly 5,700 personnel, according to reporting by The Daily Wire and other tracking-based accounts.
The Daily Wire reported that the Lincoln is accompanied by three Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and is part of what it described as 10 U.S. warships believed to be in the region. It also cited Agence France-Presse as identifying other ships operating nearby, including the guided-missile destroyers USS McFaul and USS Mitscher, as well as littoral combat ships USS Canberra, USS Santa Barbara, and USS Tulsa.
Separately, the Daily Wire reported that the guided-missile destroyer USS Delbert D. Black made a port call on Friday at Eilat, Israel, describing it as a rare visit. The outlet said the ship is an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer equipped with the Aegis combat system and able to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles.
Trump described the buildup on Truth Social, saying a “massive Armada” was headed to Iran and comparing it to a U.S. deployment he said was sent to Venezuela. In that post, he said the force was “ready, willing, and able” to carry out its mission “with speed and violence, if necessary.”
U.S. Central Command has also publicized flight operations from the Lincoln. In one statement highlighted by the Daily Wire, CENTCOM described an F/A-18E Super Hornet launch from the carrier as part of “routine flight operations” in the Arabian Sea.
Beyond carrier-based aircraft, the Daily Wire said additional U.S. assets were being repositioned toward the region, including an RC-135V Rivet Joint surveillance aircraft to Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar based on online flight tracking, and an E-11A Battlefield Airborne Communications Node aircraft that it said The War Zone reported landing in Crete. The outlet also cited CENTCOM as saying an F-15E Strike Eagle assigned to the 494th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron had landed earlier this month at a base in the Middle East.
The Daily Wire further reported that the Associated Press tracked dozens of U.S. military cargo aircraft heading toward the region. It also quoted Jonathan Schanzer, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, as saying the United States has placed enough capability in the area to destroy major Iranian regime assets, while cautioning that it is unclear whether any strike would be aimed at toppling the regime or degrading it.
In testimony before the Senate cited by the Daily Wire, Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that 30,000 to 40,000 U.S. service members at facilities across the region are within range of “thousands” of Iranian one-way drones and short-range ballistic missiles, arguing the United States needs sufficient baseline forces to defend against a potential Iranian attack.
The buildup follows the June 2025 U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites and Iran’s subsequent missile attack on Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. In an official White House statement published in the Federal Register-style compilation on June 23, 2025, Trump said Iran fired 14 missiles, that no Americans were harmed, and that he thanked Iran for providing advance notice—remarks that U.S. officials and open-source reporting have described as part of a limited retaliation.
Some claims circulating about the June 2025 operation—such as the precise number of Tomahawk missiles used—vary across public accounts. While the Daily Wire said “more than 30” Tomahawks were used, other reporting has put the figure closer to around 30 fired from a U.S. submarine, underscoring that full operational details have not been uniformly confirmed in official public releases.
