CASUALTY COVER-UP

Trump Busted Lying About Dead American Heroes in His Own War

He appears to have let the deaths he witnessed slip his mind.

President Donald Trump has claimed there have been no U.S. military deaths in the Iran war in the last five months—despite saluting four fallen soldiers’ remains in July.

He made the claim in a series of interviews on Thursday, one to a conservative radio host, and the other to Stephen A. Smith.

“Nobody’s been killed in the last five months,” Trump said on radio host Hugh Hewitt’s show. “We haven’t lost a soldier in five months, and we control the Gulf.

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19-year-old Pvt. Isabella Gonzales of Texas, 25-year-old First Lt. Tyler Feehan of Hawaii, 30-year-old Sgt. Michael Swinton of North Carolina, and 28-year-old Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad of New York were all in the American flag-draped cases carried past Trump and his cronies in the dignified transfer on July 22.

Gonzales was killed in an enemy attack on July 17 at an air base in Jordan. She graduated from high school the previous spring before joining the Army.

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Rampersad has also been confirmed to have died in the same strike, and Feehan followed the next day, dying from injuries he sustained from the Jordan attack.

Lastly, Swinton was killed during the controlled detonation of a downed Iranian attack drone in Iraq on July 19. He left behind his wife, Mia Gonzalez-Swinton, a six-year-old son, and a four-year-old daughter.

“I will never recover from this,” Gonzalez-Swinton wrote on Facebook. “We had so many plans for when you got back, I’m sick to my stomach.”

Trump attended the transfer at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, accompanied by War Secretary Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, and members of Congress, including Sen. Thom Tillis.

Trump stood at attention and saluted as military carry teams moved the four cases from the aircraft to a waiting vehicle.

The public-facing ceremony took place because the families of all four fallen soldiers granted permission for media coverage of their return.

Hours later, Trump described the transfer as “the toughest thing I do,” telling an audience at a Georgia event, “This was, in particular, something very sad.”

Many Trump critics have taken to X to talk about his recent comments, with one user saying, “I wonder how the families... feel.”

“He couldn’t care less about them because, in his eyes, they shouldn’t have gotten themselves killed,” the X user named Suzie Rizzio said.

In total, the war with Iran has claimed the lives of 23 American service members—11 in enemy fire and 12 in nonhostile circumstances, according to Pentagon figures reported by The Washington Post.

Also in July, Navy aviator Captain Gabriel Edwards died during an emergency helicopter landing in the Arabian Sea, leaving behind his wife and their two children.

Despite Trump’s claim, Edwards’ death brings the July total to at least five American service members—within the five-month range.

In a separate interview with Stephen A. Smith on Thursday, Trump claimed he could end the war immediately, but he hasn’t escalated the conflict because other Middle Eastern countries asked him not to.

Describing those countries as “tremendous investors” in the United States that he’s “looking to protect,” Trump said they “would much prefer the waiting period,” adding, “I’m not sure I agree with it.”

The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.

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