Fox News White House Correspondent Peter Doocy made headlines when he asked President Donald Trump about Iran retaliating against the Gulf states.

“You were talking about Iran a couple of times today and what they did after Epic Fury began. You said they hit Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, and Kuwait. Nobody expected that. We were shocked. Are you surprised that nobody briefed you ahead of time that that might be their retaliation?” Doocy asked the president.

“Nobody — nobody. No, no, no. No, the greatest experts — nobody thought they were going to hit. They were, I wouldn’t say friendly countries. They were, like, neutral. They were — they lived with them for years. Peter, they were going to take over the Middle East. They were going to knock out Israel with their nuclear weapons,” Trump began.

“But after we knocked out their nuclear potential, their nuclear potential weapon, they started building missiles, thousands and thousands of missiles, and they were going to do it with missiles while they developed,” Trump added.

“You know, if I didn’t terminate Barack Hussein Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, you would right now — well, Israel would be gone,” the president argued.

“It would be incinerated, and probably the Middle East likewise. And remember, they have all of those missiles and I heard they were sending missiles to UAE. You know, UAE is like the banker for Iran. They’re, like, the banker. Qatar, their neighbors, they got along OK. Saudi Arabia — all of a sudden, Kuwait, Kuwait is getting hit. Bahrain is getting hit. All these countries are getting hit,” Trump added.

“We hit them so hard, like nobody’s ever been hit. We hit them very hard. And we’ve extinguished most of their missiles. We’ve extinguished most of their drones. We’ve extinguished most of the places where the missiles and the drones are built. We’ve fully extinguished two layers of leadership, and probably a third, if you believe some stories,” the president argued.

“We’ve taken out their entire navy, we’ve taken out every one of their — they call it a drone layer, a mine layer,” Trump said.

Trump concluded, “But they had 22 of them. We’ve taken out all of them. But you can probably — you can probably drop them off on the bus. So we don’t even know.”

WATCH:

Secretary of State Marco Rubio revealed on Friday that back-channel discussions to halt the U.S.-Israel war with Iran is “a little bit of movement.”

However, Rubio warned that the window won’t be open forever, and Washington is keeping another option on the table.

“The latest signs are encouraging, but I’m not popping champagne yet,” Rubio said Friday.

“I don’t want to exaggerate it, but there’s been a little bit of movement, and that’s good,” he said, while stressing he doesn’t “want to be overly optimistic.”

As Islamabad seeks to keep the discussions going, Pakistan’s Army Chief Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, identified by security sources as a major intermediary between Washington and Tehran, is heading to Tehran for consultations with Iranian officials.

Rubio’s measured tone carries a stark red line: Iran’s efforts to impose what it terms a “tolling system” in the Strait of Hormuz.

Rubio called the notion a nonstarter, saying it would make diplomacy difficult and would reach well beyond the region.

The pressure point remains the Strait of Hormuz.

The small river transports almost a fifth of global oil exports, and disruptions have unsettled markets and governments, with shipments slowed and costs rising. Iran claims ownership over the strait and says it will only completely reopen it if it can charge commercial vessels to pass through.