Fox News host Johnny “Joey” Jones issued some advice to President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth while claiming Americans have limited tolerance for another lengthy war.
Jones—a former colleague of Hegseth—spoke on the subject of Trump’s war during Sunday evening’s edition of The Big Weekend Show.
Jones opened by acknowledging that he feels “very torn” about the news that the Trump administration is contemplating sending thousands of additional ground troops into the Middle East.
Jones is a former Marine, serving in the Marine Corps for eight years before losing both of his legs in an IED-related incident in Afghanistan in 2010.
He has appeared alongside Hegseth during the 45-year-old’s decade-long stint as a contributor to the network prior to joining Trump’s Cabinet in 2025.
“I sat beside Pete Hegseth for years on the couch on Fox & Friends,” Jones, 39, said. “I had a lot of conversations with him before he was confirmed as Secretary of War. I know what’s in his heart and in his experience.”
“I’ve also watched President Trump for more than a decade, who’s said ‘No new wars,’ ‘No forever wars,’ and backed that up. The track record is there. I don’t think he’s changed. I don’t think he’s owned by Benjamin Netanyahu. I do think there are complexities to this that you’re going to get criticized over, but I’m going to say this,” he continued, before addressing Trump, Hegseth, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine directly.
“President Trump, Pete Hegseth, General Caine, and the rest of the generals, if you send our men and women into that country to kill our bad guys, to spill their blood because they deserve it, I don’t have to agree with you on it, just please do this: Don’t nation-build. Don’t win hearts and minds. Don’t spread democracy.”
“Spill the blood of the evil that deserve to die without our hands tied and without a PR campaign and get the hell out of there. That’s all we have tolerance for. That’s all that will work,” he argued.
Jones continued by drawing a parallel between Trump’s current war and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying, “We won every battle in Iraq and Afghanistan–but we lost the war because our politicians don’t have a spine. Don’t be those people.”
Public support for Trump’s war on Iran is already lower than initial public support for the Iraq War, with 61 percent of Americans disapproving of how the president has handled the conflict just one month in.
Fifty-nine percent of Americans say that the U.S. made the wrong decision in using military force in Iran, while 45 percent feel the conflict is not going at all well.
The president’s actions have also affected his net approval rating, which reached a new low of -18 on March 21, according to the Economist.
With the president publicly vowing to continue “bombing our little hearts out” and threatening to “unleash hell” against Iran while privately telling associates he wants to end the war quickly, new reports have indicated that the Pentagon is preparing for weeks of ground operations in Iran.
Thousands of paratroopers and 5000 Marines have already been deployed to the region, with the Wall Street Journal reporting on Thursday that the administration was also considering sending 10,000 additional troops, including both infantry and armored vehicles, to the region, likely “within striking distance” of Iran.
Jones is far from the only conservative to urge the Trump administration to exercise caution in Iran and advocate a somewhat anti-interventionist stance; other MAGA media figures like Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly have also expressed concerns about American intervention in Iran.
Kelly has been quick to blame others who “talked [Trump] into” attacking Iran, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham.
“As this thing goes south, we need to know exactly who talked him into it,” Kelly said. “What representations were made to convince the president that this was a good idea. Who? Who specifically?”
She also took aim at her fellow conservative media figures, including Fox News’ Mark Levin and Mark Thiessen, saying of the pair, “I like those guys. But they appear to have been very wrong that this was a good idea.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House and the Department of Defense regarding Jones’ comments.
