President Donald Trump reiterated a sweeping claim about U.S. troops in the war he's waging while revealing who's really setting its pace.
In a pair of interviews that aired Thursday, Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that "nobody's been killed in the last five months" in the war against Iran. He then told sports commentator Stephen A. Smith that he's stretching out the conflict because Middle Eastern nations he described as "tremendous investors" in the United States asked him to do so, The Washington Post reported Friday.
"We haven't lost a soldier in five months, and we control the Gulf," Trump told Hewitt.
Pentagon figures cited by the Post show 23 American service members have died in the Middle East during the war with Iran, with 11 deaths coming from enemy fire and the other 12 in nonhostile circumstances. In July, an enemy attack on an air base in Jordan killed three soldiers, while another died during a controlled drone detonation at a base in Iraq and a Navy captain was killed in an emergency landing in the Arabian Sea, the Post reported. Two airmen supporting the war died in October in incidents not involving combat, according to Pentagon figures reported by Air & Space Forces Magazine.
The remarks aired a day after Trump attended a Veterans Day ceremony alongside Vice President JD Vance.
In his conversation with Smith, Trump insisted he has the power to wrap up the war quickly but is holding back because neighboring countries prefer a slower approach. He said those nations "would rather have me do it the way I'm doing it now."
"I could end it immediately, but at the request of the nations that I'm looking to protect, we are doing it a little bit longer way," Trump said. "All of them would much prefer the waiting period...So, they've asked me to do that...I'm not sure I agree with it."