Donald Trump has been called out for bizarrely comparing the number of U.S. troops killed in his war with Iran to those who died in conflicts as far back as the Korean War.
Three U.S. service members were killed in Iranian attacks on U.S. military bases in Jordan and Iraq over the weekend after Trump’s negotiations with Tehran failed, raising the death toll among U.S. troops in the four-month-old war to at least 17. Another U.S. soldier is unaccounted for.
Two of those killed in Jordan have been identified as Pvt. Isabella Gonzales of Carrollton, Texas, who was 19 years old, and First Lt. Tyler James Feehan of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, who was 25. Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, 30, of Fayetteville, N.C., was killed in Iraq.
But Trump reduced the fallen soldiers to statistics on Tuesday, stacking the death toll from his war alongside those from past conflicts in an unhinged Truth Social post.
The 80-year-old president avoided calling his military action with Iran a war, instead calling it the “Iran Military Conflict,” echoing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s use of “special military operation” to describe his years-long war with Ukraine.
Trump did, however, refer to the U.S.’s overnight extraction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January as a war.
The five-time draft dodger wrote: “Afghanistan War: 20 years, 2,000 DEAD. Iraq War: 9 years, 4,600 DEAD. Vietnam War: 19 years and 5 months, 58,220 DEAD. Korean War: 3 years and 1 month, 36,574 DEAD. Venezuela War: 1 day, 0 DEAD. Iran Military Conflict: 4 months, 18 DEAD.”
Trump drew swift condemnation for his tone-deaf post.
Exiled former MAGA congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene responded, “Trump is bragging about killing 18 US soldiers.”
She added, “The ‘peace president’ went to war and is killing and wounding our troops.”
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom also blasted Trump as a “disgusting Little Man” and demanded, “Treat our brave American soldiers with some respect.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer reacted by writing, “Bragging about ‘only’ 18 brave US service members being killed in a reckless and illegal war he started is beneath contempt and a new low even for the likes of Donald Trump.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump, who ran on a “no new wars” platform in 2024, had initially declared that his war on Iran would last “four or five weeks,” but it has now stretched into its 21st with no end date in sight.
In a phone call with NewsNation on Saturday, he called the deaths of Gonzales and Feehan “a very sad thing,” adding that their deaths were “in service to our country.”
But his blunt tone toward U.S. casualties was set early in the war, when he addressed the first three deaths of American soldiers by saying, “Sadly, there will likely be more before it ends. That’s the way it is.”
Over the weekend, The New York Times published a report demonstrating that the military had failed to disclose injuries suffered by nearly 100 troops since fighting resumed on July 7.
According to the Pentagon’s casualty reporting site, a total of 447 U.S. service members have been injured in the war.
The war has also claimed the lives of more than 1,700 Iranian civilians, the Times reported.
