President Donald Trump defended Vice President JD Vance on Friday by describing the ongoing military engagement with Iran as small potatoes
during an Oval Office exchange with reporters according to AP News. Trump echoed remarks made a day earlier by Vance, who asserted that months of on-and-off hostilities in the Middle East do not constitute a war.
Trump Dismisses Conflict With Iran as Small Potatoes
The conflict, which began with air strikes carried out by the United States and Israel on Feb. 28, has lasted for six months according to the Times Union. The engagement has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $37.5 billion and resulted in the deaths of 18 U.S. service members, while leaving more than 750 service members injured according to mlive.com. Neither the U.S. nor Israel has deployed ground troops into Iran, relying entirely on air strikes according to AP News.
Vance Rejects the War Label Ahead of Midterms
During a White House press briefing on Thursday, Vance rejected the use of the term war
to describe the hostilities according to AP News. I wouldn’t call it a war,
Vance stated when asked if the fighting might conclude before voters cast their ballots in the Nov. 3 midterm elections, adding that right now, there is no active shooting.
Vance declined to predict whether the conflict would end by November, as Republicans attempt to maintain their narrow majorities in Congress according to AP News.
Vance’s remarks coincided with retaliatory action from Tehran, which fired at U.S. Gulf ally Kuwait on Thursday following earlier rounds of U.S. strikes according to AP News. With fuel prices posing a political threat to Republican control of Congress according to Yahoo, the administration has sought to minimize the visibility of the conflict.
Comparing Death Tolls to Past Conflicts
Pressed by reporters in the Oval Office about labeling a conflict that killed 18 Americans as small potatoes,
Trump defended his characterization by comparing the death toll to historical U.S. wars according to AP News. Trump pointed to January’s military operation in Venezuela—where former President Nicolás Maduro was seized and brought to New York City to face federal drug trafficking charges—noting that the U.S. lost no personnel in that operation according to AP News.
In Venezuela, we lost nobody,
Trump said according to AP News. And this, we lost 18 people. And, in Vietnam we lost 100,000 people. And in other conflicts, we lost tens of thousands of people.
Official records from the U.S. National Archives show that 58,220 members of the U.S. armed forces died during the Vietnam War according to AP News.
Strait of Hormuz and Nuclear Objectives
Trump asserted that the military campaign has successfully achieved its primary strategic objective regarding Tehran’s nuclear ambitions according to Yahoo. He maintained that the campaign—which he initially predicted at the outset would last only a matter of weeks—has permanently crippled Iran’s nuclear program according to AP News.
Iran will not have a nuclear weapon because if they did you probably wouldn’t be standing here,
Trump told reporters according to AP News. Alongside air strikes, the U.S. military has been protecting oil tankers from Iranian attacks in the Strait of Hormuz according to NBC News, where shipping traffic has faced ongoing disruptions according to Yahoo.
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