A MAGA congressman was eviscerated online over his callous disregard for the loss of American service members in President Donald Trump’s war on Iran.
Appearing on CNN’s The Lead on Monday, GOP Rep. Carlos Gimenez made clear his indifference to the loss of American life in pursuit of Trump’s disastrous conflict in the Middle East.
Two U.S. Army soldiers were killed on Friday in Jordan while defending against Iran missile and drone attacks. They were identified by the Defense Department on Monday as Tyler James Feehan, 25, of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and Isabella Gonzales, 19, of Carrollton, Texas.
While discussing the lack of transparency exhibited by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the renewed strikes on Iran over the last two weeks, the Trump ally made a point to defend the U.S. objectives in the region despite the rising death toll of American military personnel.
“My condolences go out to the families of our servicemen and women that are killed,” Gimenez, 72, said. “That is the nature of warfare. We will have some casualties.”
“We’ve had an extraordinarily low number of casualties, uh, for the amount of fighting that’s going on,” the Florida lawmaker added. “But it is war. We are waging war, and we’re waging it for a reason so that Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon.”
The congressman’s apathy didn’t go over well on social media.
“It’s sickening how Rep Gimenez talks about young people dying in a war as if their lives were not worth much. If you are going to spend our nation’s most valuable assets you should make sure that’s the only choice you have. That’s certainly not true in this case,” wrote attorney George Suggs on Bluesky.
“Just brush off needless loss of life like an a-----e, it’s Trump 101,” one user wrote on X.
Another account said: “Wow, so heartwarming. SMH. This regime is nothing but ghouls.”
“Easy for a punka-- politician with no skin in the game to say about troops to have sacrificed for something completely unnecessary,” wrote another.
The Daily Beast has reached out to Gimenez’s office for comment.
Since fighting resumed after a fragile ceasefire agreement fractured earlier this month, this weekend brought the death toll of U.S. service members to 17.
While the two American soldiers were killed after Iranian missiles struck a U.S. base in Jordan on Friday, another service member was killed during a “controlled detonation” of an Iranian drone on Saturday. A second service member was also wounded with a minor injury at the time.
Central Command said on Sunday that it is withholding additional information out of respect for the families.
When Central Command confirmed the deaths on Saturday, Trump, 80, was playing golf at his course in Bedminster, New Jersey.
According to the latest figures from the Pentagon’s online casualty database, more than 400 U.S. troops have been wounded since Trump started the war on Feb. 28.
Defense Department spokesperson Sean Parnell confirmed on X on Monday that nearly 100 service members had been wounded since July 7 alone, though he downplayed the injuries as mostly “mild concussions.”
The president said that the war would last around “four to six weeks” shortly after it began, but the conflict has now stretched nearly five months.
