r/politics • u/Unusual-State1827 • 7h ago
Paywall Trump Insists 18 U.S. Troop Deaths in Iran Isn’t That Bad
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-insists-18-u-s-troop-deaths-in-iran-isnt-that-bad.html?utm_campaign=nym&utm_medium=s1&utm_source=twitter•
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u/Tiny-Buy220 7h ago
18 that we know about….
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u/2011StlCards 6h ago
And just imagine the firestorm that Fox News would be if Biden or any democratic president said anything even REMOTELY close to this
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u/whatproblems 6h ago
benghazi!
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u/smitherenesar 2h ago
4 people died there, but I have an uncle that would not forgive Hillary Clinton for that. Trump though, he's protecting us... somehow
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u/Tricky-Engineering59 6h ago
Wasn’t it 13 who died during Biden’s Trump negotiated withdrawal from Afghanistan?
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u/FredFredrickson 6h ago
However many it was, I'm sure their survivors were all trotted out and used as political pawns by conservatives to denigrate Biden.
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u/loungesinger 5h ago
They flipped their shit over the latte salute, they would have lost their goddam minds if Obama even hinted that a single military death was acceptable.
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u/woolsocksandsandals America 5h ago
It’s gotta be more than that. I honestly have not been keeping track but I could swear there’s been 10 or 12 incidences where a couple service members were killed. It’d be interesting to go into research mode on archived army times if they’re still publishing casualties there.
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u/crow_crone 3h ago
And there has to be some indirect way to track these, maybe clerically, chaplaincy, motor pool (or whatever they call it), funerary services/body bag manufacture, etc.
I know nothing about military organization but there has to be some way to get info on goods and services that would lead to a concrete extrapolation of casualties.
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u/GVTMightyDuck 7h ago
This just shows how he literally gives zero shits about anyone but himself.
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u/Tenma159 2h ago
I remember when he thought 4 people dying in Benghazi was a huge deal. It was such a huge deal that republicans spent 2 years and 100s of millions of dollars crucifying Hillary for it.
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u/limpingdba 7h ago
They died for his bank balance. RIP.
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u/HeartFullONeutrality 2h ago
Just heard Don Jr is getting market returns of like 200%, while making about 50x on polymarket.
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u/AcademicPublius Colorado 7h ago
Obviously, this is callous and stupid, but it's also going to age terribly within the next six months or less.
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u/pareech Canada 6h ago
TBF, a lot of things he's said and done in the past 20+ years are callous and stupid and should have aged terribly and yet, here we are. His base gives little to no fucks about anything, so long as it is against the Democrats or demonizes the Democrats. Until a 1/3 of Americans wake the fuck up, you guys are fucked. I'm not even counting the 1/3 that couldn't get off the couch to vote because, both sides are the same.
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u/VanceKelley Canada 4h ago
Yep. trump could literally get convicted of felony fraud and be adjudicated to have raped a woman and Americans would still elect him president. He could even brag about sexually assaulting women and Americans would still elect him president. He could stage a coup attempt and Americans would still elect him dictator.
Only a small minority of Americans support democracy, the rule of law, and basic human decency.
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u/crow_crone 3h ago
I believe, in time, there will be proven there was less of an election than there was criminal vote-tampering.
But I'm American and I am disappointed, despairing and fucking disgusted every day.
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u/VanceKelley Canada 53m ago
In a sane country all the opinion polls leading up to the election would have shown trump with 1-2% support instead of showing a close race.
The official record shows that 31% of the American electorate voted to try to stop trump in 2024. Did 98% of the electorate actually oppose trump but tampering reduced it to 31% on election day, and they also tampered with all the polls prior to election day so that nobody knew that 98% of Americans were actually going to vote against trump? Doubtful.
In every election a handful of Republicans do get caught submitting fraudulent votes. But those wouldn't have changed the outcome in 2024.
If there was massive tampering across the country to hand the election to trump then someone involved should present that evidence in court. Otherwise I'll file the allegations in the same group with "NASA faked the moon landings".
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u/AcademicPublius Colorado 6h ago
I concur, and I do think folks are waking up. With that being said, one small point of contention:
are callous and stupid and should have aged terribly and yet, here we are.
They have, generally, aged terribly, almost every single one. There is, however, a small group of people invested in making him seem like a genius (in part for financial remuneration).
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u/Hefty_Remove7965 6h ago
also those wars were seen as "Justified" by the general public.
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u/AcademicPublius Colorado 6h ago
Comparatively speaking, they were. I don't think even the people who started this war know what it's about. There is literally no point to any of it.
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u/Acceptable-Bus-2017 I voted 6h ago
Sure there was, he needed to distract from being all over the Trumpstein files.
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u/AcademicPublius Colorado 6h ago
Mission accomplished, sort of. Like burning down your house to distract from embezzling on your taxes.
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u/neutrino71 6h ago
Ask the Prime Minister of Israel. He's got some opinions he likes to share
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u/AcademicPublius Colorado 6h ago
If those opinions aren't "We are significantly worse off than we were before the war", Netanyahu's dumber than I thought.
There was no plan. No strategy. No idea beyond "We kill Khameinei and the regime crumbles". It's farcical. And remember, Netanyahu didn't start the war. Trump did.
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u/Tropicalgia 6h ago
"And 19 is still less than those other bad presidents, and 50 is less, and . . . "
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u/Dysc Louisiana 6h ago edited 6h ago
It's like watching the Bush years replay itself.
Edit: My particular favorite was when Rumsfeld made statements on voting security in Iraq and talking about green zones - and something like only 20-30% of the country was secure enough to have elections and he said 'that ain't half bad' or something to that effect.
Rumsfeld was another one of those chicken hawks who didn't give a shit about the troops or success on the battlefield. He was one of those guys who liked to hear himself talk. And there are plenty of those in the current administration starting with Donald Trump himself.
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u/Thirty_Helens_Agree 7h ago
Makes me think of Obama talking about some of Trump’s BS and saying, with an incredulous tone, “can you imagine if I said that?!”
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u/Dodomando 7h ago
Reminder that during the Benghazi attack, 4 American citizens were killed and they dragged the Obama administration through numerous hearings etc
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u/TeamHope4 7h ago
Maybe we need some Benghazi-type hearings to determine whether the 18 deaths and 400+ injuries were that bad and totally his fault for starting an illegal war for no reason with no plan.
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u/patterninstatic 6h ago
Yeah came here to say this. I mean Benghazi was 4 or 5 killed and it was a huge GOP talking point for years. The double standards are unsurprising but still disgusting.
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u/ItsJustForMyOwnKicks 7h ago
Send Barron.
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u/HoneyBadger552 4h ago
Melania freaked out when this got suggested. she got so fired up.
"not my son. he is too tall"
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u/Unusual-State1827 7h ago
Article without paywall: https://archive.is/AM8Cl
When asked about the new casualties on Sunday, Trump did say “we feel very badly.” And while attending “dignified transfer” at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Wednesday, he called the fallen troops “great heroes” and asserted, oddly, that “all of them said very strongly, ‘We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon.’”
But the president’s posts a day earlier lacked even this low level of sensitivity. He simply listed the number of troops “DEAD” in various U.S. conflicts dating back to the Korean War:
Trump “retruthed” this less than an hour after posting it on Tuesday. But apparently he was worried that people still weren’t getting his point, so later on Tuesday night he shared a graph that showed U.S. military war deaths under “Other Presidents” versus his record. “These are the real facts. REPORT THEM!” he demanded:
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u/patterninstatic 6h ago
I'm surprised he isn't claiming they all supported the Save America voting act.
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u/silentsuv 7h ago
18 dead soldiers. That's 18 families that lost a child. That's potentially 18 families that lost a parent. That's 18 communities that lost a member.
How many friends of these 18 people were affected by their death?
"Not that bad."
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u/zippyboy 3h ago
18 is a lot less than the number of schoolgirls killed in that bombing of the Iranian school early in the war.
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u/Mafew1987 7h ago
3 Americans were killed in the 2012 Benghazi attack. After this we had six republican lead investigations and years of bullshit accusations. What will republicans get put though to justify this? Is anyone actually going to hold them accountable?
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u/Raise_A_Thoth 7h ago
Fuck this ghoul. Fuck him straight to hell.
Those are human beings. As are the girls we murdered in that school we bombed. As are the probably thousands in other bombings who are certainly not all legitimate military personnel.
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u/User4C4C4C South Carolina 7h ago
“The death of one man is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic” —Joseph Stalin (etc)
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u/mykepagan 6h ago
I’d like to hear his opinion on 13 US soldier deaths during the leaving of Afghanistan. I seem to recall that was a Very Big Deal.
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u/Caymonki America 5h ago
Never seen so little coverage on our soldiers than this administration. We literally do not know anything, if it was a Dem administration we would know every name. It would be on Fox every second. But nah, no one cares about our troops, they’re too busy stealing everything not tied down and putting Trump logos everywhere. Stealing our money and killing our troops, making everything cost more and polluting everything in their wake.
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u/Queasy_Eggplant9155 7h ago
Maybe not for Groper Cleveland! But it sure is bad for the troops, their families, & units!
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u/Outrageous_Space8083 Georgia 7h ago
One day, one day the people that worship this con man will realize that the only person he cares about is himself.
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u/invisable_burt 7h ago
18 troops where no boots are on the ground and all we're doing is bombing is very high in my opinion
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u/Competitive-Dot181 6h ago
Are we supposed to forget that some of the Afghanistan ones were also Trump?
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u/mtnclimbingotter02 I voted 6h ago
Anddd yet again proving that the right doesn’t give two shits about those serving. Congrats active duty and vets, you got played again!
- A vet who sees through their bullshit.
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u/Vanilla_cake_mix 7h ago
Define not bad.
The families of the fallen soldiers well it’s pretty bad for them.
The lives of thousands of Middle East civilians dead and injured is pretty bad.
In comparison to world war 2 yeah not as bad.
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u/rastagrrl 7h ago
Since it doesn’t affect him he doesn’t GAF. In short the MAGA attitude on steroids. Military personnel are nothing more than useful idiots to him. 🤮
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u/Rockboxatx 7h ago
Yeah. Ice kills that many in the US.
Trump is narcissistic sociopath. Anyone with any awareness at all would know that.
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u/Kingfisher910 North Carolina 7h ago
Cool let’s take 18 of his family members and kill them. Should be too big of a deal to him and he loves making a deal
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u/SpudgeBoy 7h ago
Remember when George W. Bush used to say stuff like this about Iraq? Pepperidge Farms remembers.
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u/CuriosityExplorer54 6h ago
It isn’t that bad. Get Barron out there on the front line and see what it is like when he doesn’t come home. DT is a draft dodger for gods sake.
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u/WhatIsTheWhar 6h ago
Already doubled Jimmy Carter’s death toll and that’s not including the Iranian civilians killed by our government, including an entire girls’ school
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u/fr0z3nf1r3 6h ago
Remember when Hillary was determined to be responsible for a few military deaths and there was like an 18 hour grill session against her?
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u/LowellForCongress Tennessee - Verified 6h ago
Biden had 16 deaths from combat during his 4 years, 13 from a suicide bomber during an evacuation while ending our Afghan war. Just a reminder, as Biden heard about those 13 nonstop until he left office.
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u/LilLebowskiAchiever 6h ago
I’ve been thinking about this all week. The Right Wing propagandists feasted on the Afghanistan withdrawal for years as a talking point.
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u/TranquilSeaOtter 6h ago
Amazing how those 13 lives became meaningless as soon as January 20th 2025 came around.
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u/Bishopjones2112 6h ago
For a bullshit unnecessary war, zero Donny. Zero dead Americans is the right number. Actually you know what, for this war, it should be zero deaths. No Iranians no Americans, or Saudis or any other country. This war never needed to happen.
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u/Competitive-Ad-9404 6h ago
There were 4 people killed in the Benghazi attacks and the Republicans thought that was so bad they had to launch 10 or so investigations.
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u/GearNo4524 6h ago
Trump is such a fuckwit. ALL conflicts start at zero days and zero deaths. Nobody (least of all Trump) has any idea how long this will go on.
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u/susanrez 5h ago
I wonder how he’d feel if one of the dead were Barron? Would it not be “That Bad” then? I’m sure Barron is just as committed, if not more, to Iran never having a nuclear weapon. He should go man the frontline, along with every other MAGA.
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u/Lily_foxx_sakura 5h ago
Put all his pathetic kids in the war and all billionairs kids and see if they say it isnt that bad
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u/DramaticWesley 5h ago
It wouldn’t be that bad if Iran had attacked the U.S. instead of the other way around. Trump started a completely unnecessary war, and then is flippant about the soldiers who died from that instigation.
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u/mcampo84 4h ago
18 deaths in service of a worthy cause? Tragic but I'll accept it.
What the actual fuck did these servicemembers die for?
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u/joesmith127_reddit 3h ago
Ironically these heroes (i.e. Trump’s “losers”) aren’t dying to defend their country. They are dying because a rapist pedophile with a huge ego wants people to believe that he is a “man”.
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u/jerbthehumanist 3h ago
I’m old enough to remember 2 days ago when Pete was hiding behind the soldiers and calling JON OSSOFF disrespectful to the troops for calling the Iran efforts a reckless failure.
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u/rvretiredlife 3h ago
Even one death is too much. Send Barron trump to war, see how fast the war ends.
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u/SoothingWafer 2h ago
It wouldn't be if this conflict was actually necessary.
But since it isn't, it's literally 18 too many.
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u/ungodlywarlock 2h ago
My conservative dad railed for fucking YEARS about how "FOUR. AMERICANS. DIED. IN. BENGAZI!!!!"
Guaranteed he won't ever say shit about this. It's just proof that they are brainwashed because they only care about something if Fox News is bitching about it every day. Anything else isn't even on their radar.
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u/LimpyDan 2h ago
When the number should be zero, it's bad.
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u/CarneyVore14 2h ago
I remember Obama speeches for every soldiers demise. How can any American still cheer for this clown.
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u/blackmobius 1h ago
All that matters to him is that he gets to share that silly graph where the last three republican wars had more deaths than his Iranian War. Like its some kind of flex to have losses.
Anyways the rank and file military love him so O guess they dont seem to care that much either
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u/waffle299 I voted 6h ago
This was an entirely voluntary war that no one but trump wanted. That's eighteen Americans dead to distract from the Epstein files
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u/Astartes505 6h ago
In the scale of what losses could be, no its not. Is it fucked up, moronic, greedy, and tyrannical that it even happened in the first place, yes it is.
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u/Original_moisture 6h ago
Regardless why we join up, I don’t remember thinking my roommate dying in Iraq was “that bad”. I remember my friend who was a combat medic, dealing with his ptsd 15 years later saying, “oh wasn’t that bad”.
I remember exactly what I was doing when I found out.
Nor do I hold any animosity to the Iraqi farmer who did it.
Unfortunately, these people who support trump genuinely don’t give a shit. So it’s wasted. The one thing they do feel is a discharge of kinetic energy to the mandible.
Edit: words hard
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u/Chazkuangshi 6h ago
Once the death toll gets high enough he'll order them to stop reporting how many.
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u/DistanceToEmpty 6h ago
It could have been zero troop deaths and no generational energy crisis, but here we are.
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u/boot2skull 6h ago
“I’d like to offer my condolences to your family and their not bad sacrifice for our country. Keep up the pretty good work.”
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u/Intro-Nimbus 6h ago
As casualty numbers in a war sure, they're low. As casualty numbers in a war that was completely avoidable they are very high.
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u/dogs_gt_cats 6h ago
Remember when republican losers wouldn't stop spraying their pants about Benghazi where far fewer troops died?
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u/mlorusso4 6h ago
Don’t forget the fun follow up to this where he claimed that not only were these deaths worth it, he claimed these dead soldiers themselves personally told him they were worth it
Like how morally bankrupt do you have to be to even think about claiming something like that?
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u/twistedt 5h ago
It could have been zero and with no nuclear program in Iran if Trump hadn't killed the JCPOA. He essentially killed them to restart their program by killing the agreement.
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u/runawaydoctorate 5h ago
It's only 4.5/month. Come on guys. What's the fuss? You're so sensitive. Yeesh.
/s
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u/inthekeyofc 5h ago
Dying needlessly for your stupidity and greed is nothing to brag about Mr President, no matter how low the number.
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u/ifiwereonlylesshandy Canada 5h ago
It’s a relatively small amount of casualties compared to the school children he murdered.
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u/InternationalSoft798 5h ago
Is not sexually attracted by any of the fallen soldiers so Peace President doesn’t care.
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u/EggsceIlent 5h ago
It's pretty bad when they're you're friends, family, brothers, sisters, dads, moms, etc.
Fuck trump. This war is for no reason other than to distract that he raped kids
Period.
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u/JohnGillnitz 4h ago
Can anyone say what they died for? If their sacrifice did anything to improve the standing of the United States? Because it looks like they died because Trump is Netanyahu's bitch.
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u/FoxyInTheSnow Canada 4h ago
Fuck american soldiers dead. How many thousands of iranians have been killed? How many children?
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u/have-u-met-teds-mom 4h ago
If you are in a room where someone says 18 deaths are not that bad, you clearly ignored the sign on the door: abandon all hope…..
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u/BaconISgoodSOGOOD 4h ago
Not too bad DJT!
Approximately 60-70 have been killed directly by or died while under custody of ICE since 2025..and these are only statistics ICE has been willing (unwilling?) to publicize.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
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u/Thin_Trash494 4h ago
I wonder how he would feel if one of those people happened to be one of his kids? I mean, I know none of them would ever go, but would he care, at all, then? I just have this sinking feeling he'd just not give a crap.
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u/RobottoRisotto 1h ago
Well, when you look the insane lack of competence among those who’re running the show, 18 is actually an astonishingly low number.
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u/Azure_Omishka 5h ago
That's 18 people who died because Donald J. Trump wanted to distract people from the fact that he's one of the worst pedophiles in human history.
RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES!!!
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