Iran live updates: Khamenei says Iran will 'guard' nuclear, missile technologies

The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R Ford and the destroyers USS Mahan, USS Winston S. Churchill, and USS Bainbridge, which make up the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group, will be leaving the Middle East to return to the U.S. two U.S. officials told ABC News.

The Gerald R Ford is currently on the longest deployment for an aircraft carrier since the Vietnam War. After its original deployment to Europe it was sent to the Caribbean, then back to the Mediterranean for the start of the combat operations against Iran and then twice into the Red Sea.

The carrier is expected to return to its home port of Norfolk, Virginia, in the coming weeks, according to one of the officials.

The Gerald R Ford is currently in the CENTCOM area of responsibility along with two other aircraft carriers, including the USS Abraham Lincoln and the USS George HW Bush. It’s the first time there have been three aircraft carriers in the region since 2003.

-ABC News' Luis Martinez

President Donald Trump said that Iran has to "cry uncle" and say, "We give up," when asked how long he is prepared to maintain the naval blockade.

"Militarily, we've wiped them out. They have no military left there," Trump said while taking questions during an Oval Office event with the Artemis II astronauts. "The Navy's at the bottom of the sea. The Air Force is never going to fly again."

"Now they have to cry, uncle. That's all they have to do," he continued. "Just say, 'We give up. We give up.' But their economy is really in trouble. It's a dead economy."

The Pentagon's comptroller, Jay Hurst, told members of Congress that the cost of the Iran operation so far has been $25 billion.

It's the first public accounting disclosed by the Pentagon.

"At this day, we're spending about $25 billion on Operation Epic Fury. Most of that is in munitions," Hurst said during a House hearing on the Pentagon's budget request on Wednesday.

-ABC News' Steve Beynon and Chris Boccia

President Donald Trump told Axios in a phone interview on Wednesday that he rejected an Iranian peace offer that would lift the naval blockade and open the Strait of Hormuz but delay nuclear talks.

The president told Axios he was going to keep Iran under the blockade until the regime agrees to a proposal that addresses nuclear capabilities.

"They want to settle. They don't want me to keep the blockade. I don't want to [lift the blockade], because I don't want them to have a nuclear weapon," Trump told Axios.

Trump told Axios he saw the blockade as "somewhat more effective than the bombing” and his primary source of leverage.

"The blockade is somewhat more effective than the bombing. They are choking like a stuffed pig. And it is going to be worse for them. They can't have a nuclear weapon," Trump told Axios.

The president added that Iran's oil storage and pipelines "are getting close to exploding" because Iran can't export oil due to the blockade.

-ABC News' Isabella Murray