Politics

Trump’s Middle East Death Toll on American Troops Increases

GRIM

The weekend death toll has risen to three.

President Donald Trump gestures on the tarmac, as he heads to board the new Qatari-gifted Air Force One en route to New York City, at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland on July 17, 2026.
Evan Vucci/Reuters

Another U.S. service member has been killed in Donald Trump and Israel’s war on Iran, bringing the total to 17.

U.S. Central Command announced Sunday that a soldier in northern Iraq was killed Saturday during a controlled detonation of unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian one-way attack drone. Another service member was wounded, according to the statement.

The death marks the third confirmed U.S. military fatality this weekend in Trump’s war, despite his claiming months ago that he had brokered a ceasefire. Two soldiers were also killed in an Iranian missile strike on a base in Jordan on Friday, while a third service member remains missing.

Unidentified remains have been found in the area where that missile strike occurred, Central Command said, and officials are working to verify whether they belong to the missing soldier. If it is confirmed that they do, that would bump the death toll up to 18.

The president, 80, took a break from golfing Saturday to speak on the record for the first time about the deaths of two soldiers in the Friday missile strike.

A NewsNation reporter asked what he thought of Iran’s announcement that it no longer plans to follow the “Memorandum of Understanding” reached last month as the first step to ending the conflict.

“I couldn’t care less,” he told her.