Saturday, July 25, 2026

Trump soothes ego by falsifying Iran war casualty data

Trump soothes ego by falsifying Iran war casualty data

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/7/24/800074438/world/trump-soothes-ego-by-falsifying-iran-war-casualty-data/ 

Trump soothes ego by falsifying Iran war casualty data 

by Oliver Willis
Staff
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An Army carry team moves a flag-draped transfer case with the remains of U.S. Army Reserve soldier Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor, of White Bear Lake, Minn., who was killed in a drone strike at a command center in Kuwait after the U.S. and Israel launched its military campaign against Iran, past President Donald Trump during a casualty return, Saturday, March 7, 2026, at Dover Air Force Base, Del. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
An Army carry team moves the remains of U.S. Army Reserve soldier Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor, of White Bear Lake, Minn., who was killed in a drone strike at a command center in Kuwait after the U.S. and Israel launched its military campaign against Iran, past Trump during a casualty return on March 7, at Dover Air Force Base, Del. AP

The Trump administration is manipulating sensitive information about the number of service members killed in the war against Iran, as part of efforts to manipulate reality to justify Trump’s rhetoric.

The New York Times reported on Friday that the official Pentagon website now alleges that 14 troops have been killed in the war, removing the previous number of 18. Multiple officials anonymously told the Times that the administration is contending that troops who were killed in attacks in U.S. facilities in Iraq and Jordan are not being counted, because they occurred after Trump announced that a ceasefire agreement had been reached with Iran earlier in the year.

This is not how reporting on wartime casualties works. And the ceasefire was never a true cessation of combat between the U.S. and Iran. Both militaries regularly fired upon each other and traffic through the vital Strait of Hormuz has still been restricted, causing a global strain on oil supplies. Trump has repeatedly announced that he was close to or had secured a “deal” in the region, only to see hostilities renewed again and again.

A cartoon by Clay Bennett showing the map of Iran used for Tic Tac Toe
Cartoon by Clay BennettClay Bennett/Tribune Content Agency

Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges , who commanded military forces in Europe during Trump’s first term, told the Times, “The administration seems to have a real hard time being honest about what is going on—not just about casualties, but about the whole war in general.”

Meddling with troop death counts falls in line with the deception recently on display by the Trump administration.

The administration has been hiding details of attacks on American assets, has ceased giving public briefings after crowing about purportedly devastating attacks early in the conflict, and has in general been dishonest about the reasoning for the attack on Iran from the start.

The situation has continued to worsen as Trump and his team offer up a stream of lies. Earlier in the week, the Houthi militant group claimed responsibility for attacks on Saudi vessels in the Red Sea. The attack happened despite Trump’s proclamation a year ago that the Houthis no longer wanted to fight.

Related | Oil prices skyrocket as Trump’s lies stack up

The administration’s efforts to hide the truth about its war against Iran don’t seem to be helping the Republican Party’s standing with voters. Opinion polling has been against the war from the start and new polls show double-digit drops in support from self-identified MAGA Republicans.

In a sign of the dire political situation facing the GOP, Trump ally and Fox News host Laura Ingraham recently devoted a segment of her show to pleading with Trump to wrap up the fighting.

“Republicans cannot let this become an endless distraction especially if they want to win in November,” Ingraham pleaded.

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All comments are subject to our Community Guidelines. The views expressed in comments are those of the individual authors and don't necessarily reflect the views of Daily Kos.

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  1. Comment by Karl Hamann.

    "Should not be an endless distraction"? But that's what it was always intended to be, Nothing like front page war news to stop the pesky talk about the unreleased EPSTEIN FILES.

  2. Comment by Fergal.

    Cowardly man!

  3. Comment by Truth Will Out.

    Typical trump - he seems to think he has the godlike power to create what-ever reality is convenient.

  4. Comment by Flatworm.

    Trump falsifies EVERYTHING. Why should this be any different?

  5. Comment by David54.

    This should not be framed as him "soothing his ego", even if that is part of the motivation. What he is REALLY doing is conditioning the public to accept one more unacceptable outrage on our path to a totalitarian dictatorship.

    Minimizing, trivializing it like this doesn't help.

  6. Comment by Knroundscpa.

    If T’s lips are moving, he is lying.

  7. Comment by Jhericho.

    Trump doesn't give a shit about winning in November. He's done his damage; made his millions. Anything that goes his way now is pure gravy.

    He knows he's gone in 2029, and the only thing he wants to really accomplish now is a way to escape doing hard time in prison for his numerous crimes while in office.

  8. Comment by wmpmacm.

    What are they going to do. bury a third to a half of the dead in the sands of Qatar or Saudi Arabia (Sheik bonesaw would probable dismember them).

  9. Comment by @Loca Grienga.

    I would have to have a 'spell' on the fainting couch if he ever told the truth, admitted he is responsible for the; $Rrump War, ( it's his not Iran's) or any of his other "chickening out, ridiculous projects". Falsifying is his only skill.

  10. Comment by jyssco.

    The Felon is so deluded and pathetic he lies to himself.

  11. Comment by yunohu.

    No statistics or other information from this regime can be trusted.

    • Reply by Skidrow Wilson.

      There's no way only three people died in that Jordanian attack.

  12. Comment by Bluefan.

    The media need to start questioning Trump about the number of wounded troops. The list is between 427 and 500 depending on the reporting site. That is a lot of wounded.

    • Reply by yunohu.

      Yes, it is very suspicious in comparison to deaths. Normally number of wounded is not so out of proportion with deaths, which according to these statistics is close to 30:1. Isn't 3:1 more normal? And the disparity is more likely to be on the death side. There have probably been a lot more deaths than reported.

    • Reply by Bluefan.

      Well, the media very seldom mentions the number of wounded and I don't think a lot of Americans know the large number of the wounded. But your point is very interesting about the normal ratio.

    • Reply by A Noah Count.

      As if he'd tell the truth, if it doesn't make him look good.

    • Reply by Skidrow Wilson.

      Especially since we're talking about massive repeated aerial bombardments

  13. Comment by nepatriot47.

    Shameful what he does and he's a draft dodger like his father and grandfather.

  14. Comment by brat city blue.

    The House passed a War Powers act, but the COWARDS in the Senate didn't. A pox on their houses.

    • Reply by jyssco.

      And f - - k you Fetterman for that fact.

  15. Comment by brat city blue.

    It just shows the TOTAL disregard Trump has for our service members. And it started with the asshat he hired to run the Department of Defense.

    • Reply by A Noah Count.

      I'd say he showed that when he called the service members who gave their lives fighting for the United States "suckers and losers" back during the first go-round of his evil regime.

  16. Comment by wiljam.

    Does this mean that their families are not eligible for the benefits given to those killed in combat?

    • Reply by KaliDava.

      My understanding is they were falsifying reports to the public, but not internal records. However, I wouldn't put it past tRump to ask commanders and witnesses to lie about it so those families wouldn't get the pay. He *is* just that much of a piece of shit after all.

    • Reply by Perlinator.

      Groucho Marx: "That's a terrible thing to say! Especially since it's true!

    • Reply by chopperQC.

      There’s one simple question reporters should ask of personnel assigned to the US installations that have been attacked, and more largely, to all bases in the ME:

      Are you receiving combat pay?

      If the answer is yes, (and it should be since it’s a state of war), then ask if that pay was stopped when the “cease fire” was announced.

      If it wasn’t stopped, then the war was then still active, and not put on a true cease fire status.

      The flip, (and worse) side of this would be that they’re being stiffed by not being put on combat status even though they’re actually in a combat zone and undergoing attacks.

    • Reply by Skidrow Wilson.

      Even trump admits they died in combat. Just not in "the Iran conflict"

    • Reply by Skidrow Wilson.

      There's a possibility that the slain servicemembers on the Jordanian base might not have been considered as combat duty assignments. Not that I agree with that

      Edit: I was deployed to Afghanistan during the war and my assignment wasn't considered combat duty

  17. Comment by TMerritt.

    The deception and lies regarding the US involvement in the Iran War are far worse than those during the early stages of the major US effort in Vietnam. I classify the major period as beginning with the Gulf of Tonkin, Aug 1964 and ending with the Fall of Saigon, April 1975. I am fully aware of the early period beginning in 1955 and of the fatlities and casualties due to Agent Orange, PTSD and other factors that are ongoing.

    I know and lived it. I graduated from HS and enlisted in 1963. Deployed to Vietnam in 1965. Separated from service and started college in 1966. I was a student at a major West Coast University in 1968, when Nixon was elected and in 1970 when he ordered the invasion of Cambodia. During the Johnson years, there was deception including the Tonkin Resolution, to be sure, but not the outright lying, refusal to allow press coverage, and the falsification of casualties and fatalities that occurred during the Nixon years. Actually press coverage was somewhat accurate.

    Trump47 has returned to those practices and actually worsened them. In so far as I can determine there is negligible press coverage from in-theater. What little coverage we are getting is coming from the stage managed WH and Pentagon press releases and few press conferences. The Pentagon has increasing restricted news media access. With this Regime nothing that comes from official sources can be trusted, as this story well illustrates. The Pentagon resorting to narrowly defining the the scope of the war effort to reduce the counts, makes clear their desperation. A person killed or injured in Jordan due to a missile strike is just as dead or injured as one hit during a missile attack, in the Persian Gulf.

    These remarks do not touch on the blatant corruption, bribery and robbery that is no doubt occurring behind the scenes. Judging from what little information that is available, those are far worse in this conflict than others. All wars have corruption, but efforts are generally made to minimize it. In this war that is not the case.

  18. Comment by magnetic corvette.

    Trump also claimed 200,000 died in Vietnam, when it was a few hundred over 58,000. That hundreds of thousands died in the Korean war, when it was a little over 36,000. So now he exagerates by hundreds of thousands of American soldier's lives to attempt to make him and his botched war better than. 🙄

    • Reply by brat city blue.

      Trump doesn't care; he just pulls numbers out of his smelly ass.

    • Reply by Perlinator.

      Darnold Trump does not understand basic math.

      1: He once responded to a question by saying "There are different per capitas".

      2: He promised to lower prescription drug prices by one thousand percent.

  19. Comment by Angel Of Fear.

    rump lying, especially about soldiers, doesn't surprise me. This asshole will lie til the day he dies and somehow will probably do it after his death.

    • Reply by terranova108.

      He will for sure. . A fitting epitaph would be: "Here Donald Trump continues to lie."

    • Reply by A Noah Count.

      He'll try to lie to Satan when he gets to Hell, claiming he doesn't belong there.

  20. Comment by Perlinator.

    Remember when the Republicans mocked outrage because then-President Obama saluted troops while holding a coffee cup? They acted like it was the biggest insult to our military in the history of the nation.

    • Reply by A Noah Count.

      A minor quibble: it wasn't troops, it was the one Marine at the bottom of the steps to the Marine 1 helicopter.

      Other than that, it's one of my favorite things to cite in regard to right-wing "Obama hates America" hair-on-fire events.

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