It's Saturday, the 28th of February, the very last day of February. Welcome to this

President's Daily Brief Special Report. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. And the world stage

just got a bit hotter. All right, let's get briefed. The U.S. and Israel are now at war with Iran

for the second time in eight months. This is obviously a rapidly unfolding story, and the information

I'm about to share is the most accurate that we have

as of this recording. Operation Epic Fury, that is the name of this operation, began at 1 a.m. Eastern

time. That would be 9 a.m. Saturday morning in Tehran. An attack launched in broad daylight.

Now, let me pause there for a second. The timing of the opening

salvo, the morning of a workday rather than the usual strategy of attacking at night, could be

for a combination of reasons. There likely was specific intelligence that drove the timing,

meetings of leadership in Tehran or elsewhere in Iran taking place that presented a particularly attractive target,

perhaps a limited window on striking specific facilities, credible, actionable intel that

dictated when to start this operation. There's also the element of surprise, meaning it's likely

that the Iranian leadership was expecting any operation to begin under the cover of darkness.

And there's the messaging aspect of this to the Iranian population. Daylight strikes are about

dominance. They send a very deliberate message. We don't need the night. We don't need shadows.

We'll do this in full view of your people. And perhaps the Iranian people will interpret that

as an opportunity to rise up against the brutality and repression of the Mullahs in the Revolutionary

Guard Corps. According to the Israeli Defense Forces, the IDF, this operation was months in the planning

with close coordination between Washington and Jerusalem. Multiple Iranian cities have reportedly

been hit on this first day of strikes, including Tehran and Isfahan, largely in the center and the

northwest of the country, according to state-run media. Among the reported targets, Supreme Leader Ali Khamene,

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