Fox News host Sean Hannity Sean Patrick HannityFormer Florida attorney general calls Kyle Rittenhouse 'a little boy out there trying to protect his community' Sunday shows preview: Justice Ginsburg dies, sparking partisan battle over vacancy before election Cruz: Trump should nominate a Supreme Court justice next week MORE opened his show Thursday with a vow that President Trump Donald John TrumpSteele Dossier sub-source was subject of FBI counterintelligence probe Pelosi slams Trump executive order on pre-existing conditions: It 'isn't worth the paper it's signed on' Trump 'no longer angry' at Romney because of Supreme Court stance MORE would soon declare war on Iran unless Iran's leader take a "small opportunity" for peace.

Hannity said Thursday night that if the "Mullahs are smart enough" they will take a quickly disappearing option to negotiate peace with the U.S. following the downing of a U.S. surveillance drone overnight Wednesday.

If not, Hannity said, Trump would proceed to "bomb the hell out of" the country.

Tucker opened his show by praising Trump for resisting calls to war with Iran.



When his show ended, Sean Hannity promised Trump "will bomb the hell out of" Iran, because this is "simple peace through strength"



normal news networkpic.twitter.com/WUrUdpXZOw — Madeline Peltz (@peltzmadeline) June 21, 2019

A Media Matters reporter who first posted the clip online noted that Hannity's warning to Iran came just minutes after his lead-in, Tucker Carlson Tucker CarlsonJudge tosses Karen McDougal's defamation suit against Tucker Carlson OVERNIGHT ENERGY: House passes sweeping clean energy bill | Pebble Mine CEO resigns over secretly recorded comments about government officials | Corporations roll out climate goals amid growing pressure to deliver Former Florida attorney general calls Kyle Rittenhouse 'a little boy out there trying to protect his community' MORE, praised the president for avoiding calls for war with Iran.

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Trump's love for Fox News programming is well-known, and it was reported by The Daily Beast on Wednesday that Carlson has been personally advising Trump on the subject and urging him to resist voices in favor of war from within his administration. Carlson has also publicly criticized Trump's national security adviser John Bolton John BoltonJudge appears skeptical of Bolton's defense of publishing book without White House approval Maximum pressure is keeping US troops in Iraq and Syria Woodward book trails Bolton, Mary Trump in first-week sales MORE, who is seen as a hawk on the issue of Iran.

Tensions escalated overnight between the Trump administration and Iran after Iran claimed to have shot down a surveillance drone flying over its southern Hormozgan Province. U.S. Central Command confirmed the drone's destruction in a statement Thursday, but denied that the drone was over Iranian territory, countering that it was over international waters.