by Steve Benen | Jul 31, 2026 | Iran, Iran Tensions, Maddowblog, News, World
Roughly a week into the U.S. war in Iran, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth held a press briefing and took a moment to push back against reporting he disagreed with. The beleaguered Pentagon chief specifically said he’d seen coverage that suggested the war in Iran “might be expanding” beyond Iranian borders.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said.
A week later, the former Fox News host tried to re-emphasize the same argument, telling reporters, “It’s worth underscoring, I see in the media banners that say, ‘War expanding,’ or ‘War spreading. It’s actually the opposite. It’s actually quite contained.”
Even at the time, the rhetoric was difficult to take seriously. On the first day of the military offensive, the conflict involved three countries: The United States, Israel and Iran. By the sixth day of the war, The Washington Post noted that the violence had “touched 12 countries across the Middle East.”
This week, nearly five months after Hegseth insisted that the conflict was “actually quite contained,” neither “expanding” nor “spreading,” the secretary’s arguments from March appear tragically absurd. The New York Times reported:
A resurgence of fighting in the war with Iran is expanding the scope of the conflict across the Middle East and further threatening shipments of oil and other products crucial to the global economy.
With little sign of peace talks resuming, a series of attacks, including two consecutive nights of strikes between Iran and the United States, ended a short period of relative calm — and entangled a growing list of U.S. allies in the conflict.
Jordan and Saudi Arabia, for example, have been targeted and are moving forward with plans to create a
by Steve Benen | Jul 27, 2026 | Iran, Iran Tensions, Maddowblog, News, Politics, World
After months of reporting about Russia taking deliberate steps to assist Iran during the U.S. war, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told senators during a congressional hearing last week that Russia is, in fact, “enabling some of the things Iran is doing.”
Evidently, Donald Trump isn’t sure whether to believe his own Pentagon chief or not.
Six weeks ago, as the Group of Seven summit in France was wrapping up, the American president offered some curious praise to his friend in Moscow. “I want to thank Vladimir Putin, he was very neutral,” the Republican said, referring to the Russian president’s role in the war with Iran. Even at the time, the comment was bizarre, given the overwhelming evidence that Putin hasn’t been neutral at all.
Late last week, on the heels of Hegseth’s testimony, Trump reiterated his belief that Russia, in his “opinion,” is “not participating” in the war. In a statement published to his social media platform, he added that his beliefs were based on private assurances he said he received from Putin.
Hours later, asked about the contradiction between Hegseth’s line and the Kremlin’s, the American president again said he “trusts” what he’s been told by the Russian leader.
One day later, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced new plans to share intelligence about Russia’s latest assistance to Iran — the latest in a series of such declarations. Zelenskyy previously said his country’s government had “irrefutable” evidence Russia had provided intelligence to the Iranian regime during the war, but he simply couldn’t get the White House to take an interest in it.
So when Trump fielded questions from reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday afternoon,
by Steve Benen | Jul 23, 2026 | Iran, Iran Tensions, Maddowblog, News, Politics
During a brief Q&A with reporters on Wednesday morning, Donald Trump was reminded that most Americans oppose the war in Iran. The president immediately pushed back against the assertion.
Q: Americans are firmly against this war—TRUMP: Well, Americans aren’t against the war. A poll just came out. Americans don’t want high gasoline prices, but they’re not against the war. That just came out loud and clear in a poll.— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-07-22T13:54:36.364Z
“Well, Americans aren’t against the war,” he said. “A poll just came out: Americans don’t want high gasoline prices, but they’re not against the war. That just came out, loud and clear, in a poll.”
Trump has spent much of his political career referring to survey data that exists only in his imagination — up to and including making up approval ratings for himself, citing data that he thinks ought to exist. So when the president told reporters about a poll that “just came out,” he didn’t elaborate, probably because he was making stuff up again.
To the extent that reality matters, plenty of polls show just how wrong the Republican is about public attitudes toward the ongoing military operations.
Last week, for example, the latest Washington Post-Ipsos poll found that 68% of Americans believe the war was not worth fighting. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were also unpopular, but according to previous Washington Post polls, public opposition to the current war in Iran is even worse than attitudes toward those other recent conflicts.
Similarly, the latest Fox News poll found 66% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of U.S. policy toward Iran.
It’s possible the president discards such data because the surveys
by Steve Benen | Jul 23, 2026 | Iran, Iran Tensions, Maddowblog, News, Politics
When it comes to U.S. service members who have made the ultimate sacrifice during the Iran war, Donald Trump has struggled to know what to say — and how to say it.
In early March, for example, the day after he launched combat operations, the president posted a prerecorded video to social media in which he tried to comment on the deaths of U.S. troops. “Sadly, there will likely be more,” Trump said. Appearing to break from the text on his teleprompter, he added, “Before it ends, that’s the way it is.”
A few days later, Time magazine asked the president whether Americans should be worried about possible retaliatory attacks from Iran. “I guess,” Trump replied. By the end of the first week of the war, the president had attended the dignified transfer of six fallen U.S. service members as they were returned home, but he defied American tradition and wore a baseball cap as caskets were carried from the plane.
The image that came into focus was a leader who appeared to be approaching his responsibilities with an unmistakable mix of disrespect and a blasé attitude about developments that he should have taken with a sobriety that he just couldn’t muster.
This week, as the U.S. death toll reached 18, the Republican appeared to use his social media platform to suggest that the total number of fatalities wasn’t that bad because other modern wars were even deadlier. On Wednesday morning, he again traveled to Dover Air Force Base to attend another dignified transfer (he didn’t wear a hat this time), but before departing for the event, the president spent a couple of minutes
by Steve Benen | Jul 20, 2026 | Iran, Iran Tensions, Maddowblog, News, Politics
After months in which no American troops were killed as part of the war in Iran, the news took a devastating turn in recent days: U.S. Central Command confirmed that three American service members — two in Jordan and one in Iraq — were killed in action and one remains missing after Iranian attacks over the past few days.
Soon after, the U.S. military responded by carrying out a new round of airstrikes to “swiftly punish” Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
What’s more, The New York Times reported that shortly before the latest round of U.S. fatalities, Iran carried out other strikes against U.S. forces in Jordan that injured dozens of U.S. service members — developments which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other Trump administration officials failed to disclose.
It was against this backdrop that Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo said something on the air of surprising significance.
Maria Bartiromo questioned how Iran could still be fighting, saying she does not understand how the country retains those capabilities when Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed the U.S. “obliterated” Iran’s military.— Mediaite (@mediaite.com) 2026-07-19T17:36:56.496Z
“I don’t understand how it’s possible that Iran has the capabilities to fight this way and continue to try to lash out at Gulf countries and U.S. military bases,” the conservative host said Sunday morning, “because the U.S. has obliterated Iran’s military, and [Donald Trump] continues to reiterate that.”
I won’t speculate as to Bartiromo’s motivations, but she stumbled onto an important detail. On the one hand, there’s the incumbent American president who’s spent the last several weeks, if not months, assuring the world that the U.S. military, at his direction, has destroyed Iran’s military capabilities.
Indeed, less
by Steve Benen | Jul 15, 2026 | Iran, Iran Tensions, Maddowblog, News, Politics
For the first two months of the war with Iran, the White House faced plenty of questions about just how much the conflict was costing American taxpayers. Trump administration officials insisted they didn’t want to talk about the price tag and refused to offer even vague answers.
In late April, however, the Pentagon shifted gears. Jules Hurst III, the Defense Department’s chief financial officer, told lawmakers that the military offensive had, as of April 30, cost the United States “about $25 billion.” Two weeks later, that same official offered a revised total, telling lawmakers that the price tag for the conflict was “closer to $29 billion.”
It was tempting to be pleased with any kind of budget figure from the administration, especially after months of silence and stonewalling, but a different kind of problem soon emerged: Many Democrats said the cost estimates were suspiciously and unrealistically low.
There’s fresh reason to believe that their skepticism was warranted. NBC News reported:
The cost of the war with Iran could be more than triple the most recent estimate of roughly $30 billion, according to three U.S. officials and three people familiar with the internal cost estimates.
The Defense Department’s internal overall cost estimate is $80 billion to $100 billion when the costs of repairing damaged U.S. bases, replacing destroyed aircraft and fully replenishing expended American weaponry are factored in, according to the sources.
The report, which has not been independently verified by MS NOW, was published just hours after the Pentagon’s acting comptroller, Jay Hurst, said at a Senate confirmation hearing that he didn’t have an updated cost estimate for the conflict.
The comments were not well received. Sen.
