An Army carry team moves a flag-draped transfer case with the remains of U.S. Army Reserve soldier Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor past President Donald Trump during a casualty return on March 7, 2026, at Dover Air Force Base, Del.
Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press
The first six days of President Donald Trump’s war in Iran cost American taxpayers $11.3 billion, spiked gasoline prices an average of 38 cents a gallon nationally, killed eight (now 13) Americans, wounded 140 (now 200) others and slaughtered thousands of Iranians, including 175 at an elementary school, most of them children.
On Monday, the man who promised during his inauguration that he was “not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars” set his sights on invading Cuba. “Whether I free it, take it, I think I can do anything I want with it,” he said. “They’re a very weakened nation right now.”
It seems there is no stopping Trump’s war-mongering ambitions, even with many in his party concerned that the attacks on Iran will cost Republicans dearly in the midterms. House Republicans, of course, could have voted for the war powers resolution that would have stopped Trump from continuing the war without first gaining congressional approval. They voted for it almost unanimously.
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The irony is that Trump has been more disparaging and dismissive of the military than any other president. As a young man, he dodged military service after receiving deferments, thanks to a diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels by a podiatrist who his wealthy father knew, the New York Times reported. He savaged his war-hero rival, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.: “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.”
He has publicly lauded “our vets” while privately mocking them as “losers” and “suckers,” allegations the president has denied but that were confirmed by his former chief of staff, John Kelly, a retired general.
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Last year, at his direction, the federal government cut 30,000 jobs from the Veterans Administration. More broadly, DOGE-led cuts to the federal government — the largest employer of veterans — meant Trump was personally responsible for 62,000 veterans losing their jobs last year.
Trump also appears oblivious to the feelings of those viscerally affected by the war. Days after the U.S. attacked Iran, Trump acknowledged the deaths of the first Americans killed and said, “sadly, there will likely be more before it ends. That’s the way it is.”
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Nor has the war stopped Trump from blithely playing golf all weekend, every weekend.
Trump’s treatment of the military comes at a time when only 18% of the members of Congress served in the military, a fraction of what it was in the early ’70s before the draft ended.
The 1990 Operation Desert Storm strike on Iraq after it invaded Kuwait — an attack that became known as the “100-hour war” for its brevity and clearly defined goals — was debated by a Senate that included McCain, who spent five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., who lost a leg while serving in Vietnam, Sen. Daniel Iouye, D-Hawaii, who lost an arm in Italy during World War II, and Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., who suffered multiple injuries in World War II.
Their lived experiences were similar to that of their commander-in-chief, President George H.W. Bush, who served in World War II, and was shot down in the Pacific theater. The combat veterans of that era engaged in a spirited debate before giving Bush the authorization to invade Kuwait with 83 House Democrats joining 163 Republicans to pass the measure in a show of unity.
These days, not even war can penetrate the partisan gap splitting the country.
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In a different era, the voices of those who served — like Rep. Ron Dellums, D-Oakland, a Marine and anti-war activist who chaired the House Armed Services Committee — at least caused the war’s drivers to pause to consider their experience-forged advice. But now veterans, one of the last groups of Americans who enjoy bipartisan support, only criticize Trump if they are Democrats.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who received a Purple Heart after losing both of her legs in combat in Iraq, railed on Trump’s insensitive comments about the effort in Iran.
“‘That’s the way it is,’ says the five-time draft dodger to our military families who fear their loved one in uniform could be next,” Duckworth wrote on social media. “What a disgrace.”
President George W. Bush said he quit playing golf after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. “I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf,” he told Politico in a 2008 interview. “I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”
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Those families don’t matter to Trump, even if he feigned support for their sons and daughters on the campaign trail. The poorly planned, chaotically managed war in Iran is just the latest insult. And pretty soon he could be sending soldiers to Cuba.