President Donald Trump outraged some political analysts on Sunday after he blurted out a false claim about military casualties in the Iran conflict.
Speaking to reporters at the airport in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump claimed no soldiers have been killed in the conflict, a claim that his own Department of Defense has refuted. In October, the Pentagon raised the official death toll in the Iran war to 23, Stars and Stripes reported.
"We won in Iran," Trump said. "It's just a matter of closing it out now. Maybe we'll wait. Some of their neighbors would prefer that we keep it the way that it is."
"Again, we haven't lost anybody. No soldiers," he added, comparing America's casualties in Iran with larger conflicts like the war of Russian aggression in Ukraine and the Vietnam War.
Trump's comments sparked a firestorm of criticism online.
Nick Field, a politics writer, described the president's comments as "f------ horrible" in a post on X, reiterating the number of casualties that have been reported.
Quentin Ocama, state outreach officer for the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, posted on X that Trump's claim was also "wildly disrespectful" to service members.
"Wildly disrespectful of the service members who have been killed or injured in this clusterf--- of a conflict," he wrote. "Our crisis with a lack of serious and competent leadership continues…."
Journalist Aaron Rupar described Trump's claims in a post on X as "lies."
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