Fact-checking Watters on the Iran blockade, minesweepers and Khamenei’s status

What the video says

In a segment dated April 24, 2026, Fox News host Jesse Watters runs through a string of claims about the ongoing US confrontation with Iran. He says President Donald Trump has given the US Navy “shoot to kill” orders against Iranian boats laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz, that two Avenger-class minesweepers, the USS Chief and USS Pioneer, have been surged into the region, and that one sailor was sidelined after a macaque monkey scratched him during a port call in Thailand. The blockade, Watters says, has turned around 33 ships and is squeezing Iran’s oil economy.

Watters also reports that US Marines boarded a sanctioned Iranian shadow tanker, the Majestic X, with two million barrels of crude on board, and that Iran’s lead negotiator, the parliament speaker, has resigned under pressure from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He further claims that Iran’s Supreme Leader has been gravely wounded — missing a leg, with severe burns to the face, and unable to speak — and that messages now reach him only by hand-delivered note. The segment closes with stock-market figures: the S&P 500 and Nasdaq at all-time highs and the S&P 500 up 19% at this point in Trump’s presidency.

Checking the claims

Claim 1: Trump ordered the Navy to “shoot and kill” Iranian boats laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz

Verdict: TRUE

President Trump did issue that order publicly. According to DefenseScoop, Trump posted on Truth Social that he had directed the Navy “to shoot and kill any boat … that is putting mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, on the same day, said US forces would “shoot to destroy, no hesitation” any vessel mining the strait or threatening American shipping.

The War Zone and the Associated Press, via the Philadelphia Inquirer, confirm the order and tie it to a specific incident in which Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy was reported to have laid mines in the strait. Watters’s phrasing of the order is essentially accurate, though Trump’s exact words were “shoot and kill,” not “shoot to kill.”

Sources: - DefenseScoop: U.S. prioritizes mine-clearing ops after Trump makes ‘shoot and kill’ warning - The War Zone: Trump puts out kill order on Iran’s small boats

Claim 2: The USS Chief and USS Pioneer are en route to the strait, and a sailor on the Chief was scratched by a monkey in Thailand

Verdict: TRUE

Both ships exist, both are Avenger-class mine countermeasures vessels homeported at Sasebo Naval Base in Japan, and both are confirmed to be heading toward the Middle East. Stars and Stripes reported that the two ships departed Singapore on April 10 and were tracked moving northwest through the Strait of Malacca, supported by helicopters, undersea drones, surveillance aircraft and destroyers, in line with what Watters described.

The monkey incident also checks out. Military Times and Axios reported that during a refueling stop on Phuket Island, a Navy electronics technician assigned to the USS Chief was scratched by a macaque ashore and was evacuated to Japan for medical care after standard wild-animal exposure protocols. The Navy said the injury was a light scratch and that the Chief’s mission timeline was unaffected. Watters’s description matches the public record, although the port call was specifically Phuket, not just “Thailand” generally.

Sources: - Stars and Stripes: Navy mine-clearing ships depart Asia - Military Times: US sailor deploying to Middle East injured in monkey attack in Thailand - Axios: U.S. sailor en route to Strait of Hormuz sidelined by monkey attack

Claim 3: US forces boarded the sanctioned tanker “Majestic X” with two million barrels of Iranian crude

Verdict: PARTIALLY TRUE

The seizure happened, but the cargo figure reflects the ship’s capacity rather than a confirmed bill of lading. Multiple outlets, including Bloomberg, Military.com and World Oil, reported that US forces boarded the Majestic X — a Very Large Crude Carrier previously named Phonix and sanctioned by the US Treasury Department in 2024 for moving Iranian oil — in the Indian Ocean between Sri Lanka and Indonesia. The vessel was reportedly bound for Zhoushan, China.

The two-million-barrel figure that Watters cites lines up with the maximum capacity of a VLCC of the Majestic X’s class, but published reporting has not confirmed the precise volume on board at the time of the boarding. There is also some inconsistency in flag-state reporting, with different outlets citing Guyana or Guinea as the flag of registry. The seizure is genuine; the headline number is best understood as an estimate, not a confirmed quantity.

Sources: - Bloomberg: US Intercepts Iran Oil Supertankers as Tehran Keeps Hormuz Shut - Military.com: US Military Says It Seizes Another Oil Tanker Associated With Iran - World Oil: U.S. boards Iranian oil supertanker in Indian Ocean

Claim 4: Iran’s Supreme Leader is severely wounded — missing a leg, severely burned, unable to speak, communicated with via hand-delivered notes

Verdict: PARTIALLY TRUE

The description matches recent reporting, but it applies to a different person than Watters’s audience may assume. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s longtime Supreme Leader, was killed in a joint US-Israeli strike on his Tehran compound on February 28, 2026, the opening day of Operation Epic Fury, according to the Wikipedia entry summarizing the event drawn from NBC News and Al Jazeera. His son Mojtaba Khamenei was named Supreme Leader by the Assembly of Experts on March 8, 2026.

The injuries Watters describes are those reported about Mojtaba, not Ali. According to The Times of Israel, citing four officials briefed on US intelligence, Mojtaba Khamenei has had three operations on one leg and is awaiting a prosthetic, has had at least one hand surgery, and has severe facial burns that have impaired his speech. The same reporting, summarized by CNN and Khaleej Times, says messages now reach him via a human chain of handwritten, sealed notes because senior commanders fear visiting him will give Israeli intelligence a target. So the medical specifics are accurate; the figure being described is Iran’s new Supreme Leader, not the one most viewers grew up hearing about.

Sources: - NBC News: Mojtaba Khamenei named Iran’s new supreme leader - Times of Israel: Iran’s supreme leader has disfiguring facial wounds and may have lost a leg - CNN: Iran’s new supreme leader is nowhere to be seen

Claim 5: Iran’s parliament leader has resigned from the negotiating team

Verdict: TRUE, with caveats

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament and the head of Tehran’s negotiating team in talks with the United States, has stepped down from that role, Iran International reported on April 24. Ghalibaf, considered a relatively pragmatic figure within the leadership, was reportedly reprimanded for trying to put the nuclear file on the negotiating table over the objections of officials close to Mojtaba Khamenei’s office; the Seoul Economic Daily described it as an internal power struggle in which the IRGC pushed back against him.

Watters’s framing — that the Revolutionary Guard “put a gun to his head” and forced him out — is a colorful version of what reporting describes more clinically as IRGC pressure. The resignation has not been formally confirmed by Iranian authorities, and reports note the possibility that hardliner Saeed Jalili or Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi may take over the file. The fact of the resignation is well-attested, but readers should treat the more dramatic phrasing in the segment as commentary, not a direct quote.

Sources: - Iran International: Iran negotiating team head Ghalibaf quits - Seoul Economic Daily: Iran’s ‘Moderate’ Negotiator Ghalibaf Reportedly Resigns Amid Power Struggle

Claim 6: The S&P 500 and Nasdaq are at all-time highs, with the S&P up 19% at this point in Trump’s presidency

Verdict: PARTIALLY TRUE

The first half of the claim is solid. CNBC reported that the S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed at record highs on April 21 after Trump extended the Iran ceasefire, and Yahoo Finance reported a fresh record on April 22, with the Nasdaq up 1.6% and the S&P 500 up roughly 1% on the day.

The 19% figure for the S&P 500 “at this point in a presidency” is shown on a Fox News graphic and is harder to independently verify. U.S. Bank’s market commentary puts the S&P 500’s total return since the November 2024 election at more than 25% as of April 20, 2026, which is a different starting point than Inauguration Day. Without a clearly stated start date and methodology, the precise 19% comparison cannot be confirmed from independent sources, even though the broader picture — record highs, strong returns to date — is accurate. This is not financial advice; consult a licensed financial professional before making investment decisions.

Sources: - CNBC: S&P 500, Nasdaq close at records after U.S. extends Iran ceasefire - Yahoo Finance: S&P 500 and Nasdaq hit fresh records - U.S. Bank: Stock Market Under the Trump Administration

Bottom line

The hard, factual scaffolding of the segment holds up. Trump did issue a “shoot and kill” order; the USS Chief and USS Pioneer are real Avenger-class minesweepers heading to clear mines in the Strait of Hormuz; the monkey-scratch incident on the Chief is documented; the Majestic X seizure happened; Iran’s lead negotiator Ghalibaf has reportedly resigned under IRGC pressure; and US markets have hit record highs as the ceasefire holds. There are also three US carrier strike groups — Gerald R. Ford in the Red Sea, Abraham Lincoln in the Arabian Sea and George H.W. Bush newly arrived in the Indian Ocean — the largest American naval concentration in CENTCOM since 2003, according to Stars and Stripes.

Where Watters drifts is on specifics and on identification. The two-million-barrel figure for the Majestic X is the ship’s capacity, not a confirmed cargo volume. The injuries he describes are those of Mojtaba Khamenei, the new Supreme Leader, not Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the February 28 strike that opened Operation Epic Fury. And the precise stock-market comparisons cited on screen are not directly reproducible from independent sources, even if the underlying record-highs picture is accurate. The substance of the story is real; some of the numbers and labels need a closer reading than the segment offers.