The NPR Politics Podcast - As casualties rise, do the politics of the Iran war change?

Episode Date: July 22, 2026

President Trump attended the dignified transfer on Wednesday of four U.S. soldiers killed in the Iran war. We discuss how the latest casualties affect the politics of the war, and how Congress took Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s request for billions more in funding for the war. This episode: senior political correspondent Tamara Keith, national security correspondent Quil Lawrence, and White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez.This podcast was produced by Bria Suggs and edited by Rachel Baye.Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

President Trump stood and saluted as one after the other, the remains of four U.S. service members in flag-draped cases were carried off a C-17 military cargo plane at Dover Air Force Base today. The Iran War has intensified again. We'll talk about the costs, emotional, political, and financial. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics. I'm Quill Lawrence. I cover national security. And I'm Frank O'Donias. I cover the White House. Franco, we weren't there, but we've gotten reports. We've seen video. Tell us about the dignified transfer today. Yeah, I mean, this is one of the most solemn events for a president of the United States, you know, honoring those who were killed in action. President was there for the dignified transfer of four service members who were killed overseas by Iranian strikes. It was a very quiet event.

And as we know, you know, the president is actually now flying back with one of the families of one of the service members killed. Quill, it's been a couple of weeks since we've talked about the Iran War on the podcast. And a lot has changed in those two weeks. The conflict has really flared. How would you characterize where things stand? We're in a cycle of tit for tat escalation. which former military officers I'm talking to and others describe as sort of an escalation without a strategic goal. It doesn't seem like it's changed any of the dynamics.

But, yeah, in those two weeks since you last talked about it, we're now on 11 days straight of the U.S. pounding Iran, hitting infrastructure targets. Iran has been sending barrages of drones and missiles and has killed now four U.S. service members since Friday. which it's hard to say, but I mean, these are the first casualties in quite a while. So it's hard to say whether that means that Iran has found a weakness in U.S. base protection or if they just got lucky. But the president has been posting on social media just this morning that from this point forward, anytime the Islamic Republic of Iran shoots a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, et cetera, the United States will bomb and destroy one bridge or power plant. including in the city of Tehran.

So there's a possible question about civilian casualties and potentially war crimes there. And the president has certainly threatened to go after civilian targets before. You know, I think partially what stands out about this is that the Strait of Hormuz is not open. This is a sign that the Strait of Hormuz is closed. There's also threats from Houthi rebels that they are going to close. another key shipping lane in the Middle East. And, you know, the president has talked for months now about how the U.S. destroyed Iran's military capabilities. They, you know, they've taken out their ballistic missiles. And yet, four U.S. service members are dead. A hundred have been

injured in the last two weeks. It just seems like this is not going well. Yeah. It's hard to draw strong conclusions from this data point of these four casualties. The casualties for this war are relatively low so far, but it's certainly made an impression. It's hit the news back here. And the situation with the Strait of Hormuz is such that there's no clear lever that the United States can force Iran to give up that tool. It's something Iran never used a year ago when the U.S. and Israel hit Iran's nuclear program, there was very little retaliation. Now, five months ago, when the United States and Israel threatened the regime's existence there, they used this tool that American military planners have been tabletoping for decades. It's very clear that Iran could

close this straight, and they finally felt threat enough to do it. And there's really, it's very hard to see a pathway back to the status quo ante. Frank, what's the status of negotiations? Yeah, I mean, the status is not very good. I mean, Secretary of State Marco Rubio actually told reporters today that the U.S. remained willing to negotiate with Iran, but that the leaders of Iran were not serious about negotiations. Trump made that clear as well this week, adding that he's not interested in talking until they are serious. And I think the escalation in the rhetoric, the escalation in the strikes, and now talking about strikes on bridges and power plants, I think that just reflects the frustration that the president has about how well these talks are going. It seems when I talk to strategists and I talk to experts who follow Iran, they tell me this is kind of like an MO for Iran, that they're going to drag this out.

as they can. And the president is clearly, you know, trying to will this to an end, will this to a point where they can get back to a potential ceasefire. But it just doesn't seem like Iran is willing to do what the president wants them to do. I feel like we have literally been having this conversation for months at this point. We've absolutely been having this conversation for months. I was looking at some of the, you know, some of the dates. It was over four months ago. where President Trump was first talking about Iran was desperate for a deal, that a deal would be reached very soon, that the military was being decimated. Yet, as we're seeing now, I mean, there's still striking dozens of targets every night. The actions continue.

There's still more strikes on U.S. allies, on U.S. troops. Now you have four casualties. And, yes, while that is a low number, I was talking with actually a Republican strategist, and Trump has pointed out that it's a low number. And this Republican strategist was just saying, you know, to him at least, it kind of reminded him of the early days of COVID, where the president was kind of downplaying the impacts of deaths by COVID. And obviously, that turned into a much larger thing. And I'd want to say that this is going to be turned into a much larger thing. And certainly we all hope it will not.

But I do think there is risk because these threats that the president is making are very real. He has definitely people who are close to him that are pushing for even stronger action. And I think the American people are very concerned that this is not coming to an end like he said it would and that it is only escalating. Well, you've done some reporting on just the lack of transparency, how there is not a lot of information about, for instance, damage done to. U.S. military installations in the Middle East, among other things. Yesterday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegeseth and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Kane, were on Capitol Hill and they were getting grilled by Congress. They were there to ask for billions of dollars for the war. They got a lot of other questions. What stood out to you

about that hearing? So Defense Secretary Pete Hexseth and Chairman of the Joint Chief, General Dan Kane, are on the hill. And they have an open, they both have opening. statements. And I actually went back and word search their printed statements to make sure that I hadn't misheard. They didn't say the word Iran in those statements. And that was sort of set the tone for the hearing. They're there asking for $67 billion to keep funding this war, but they never named the war. And I have to say really notably to me is that the chairman of the Appropriations Committee and the ranking member, so the Democrat and the Republican leading. this Appropriations Committee in the Senate, both stopped to mention condolences to the families

of the fallen. That General Kane mentioned that his sympathies went to the families of the fallen. Defense Secretary Heggseth did not mention the casualties, which was just an omission that I found I'm startling. It was mostly people talking past each other, essentially, asking questions that weren't answered. Senator Patty Murray asked why. if several months ago you told us Iran's missiles were destroyed, have we just lost four service members to Iranian missiles? And she's a Democrat from Washington State. Right, right.

And the ranking member on the committee. John Kennedy, a Republican from Louisiana, actually finally kind of called out that he wasn't getting answers to his questions. Now, what happens if we come home and end the blockade, to the world. Sir, Iran has the potential to continue to be a threat, and we will need to prepare military options to do that. Will they told the straight? Sir, that's a hypothetical question, and I don't know the answer to that.

Oh, it's not hypothetical. We come home. It's not going to be hypothetical. You know that, General. And I do, too. And I appreciate your discretion, but we're down to it. We need some hard answers and some straight talk. And that was Kennedy questioning General Kane.

Yeah, and Kennedy is a Republican, a general supporter of the Trump administration. So the fact that he's asking these hard questions and, you know, pushing back, I found that very illustrative of some of the frustration that that's across Washington and, frankly, across the country. Yeah, I mean, there was another moment when he was pressing Heggseth about Iran's nuclear program. And again, he snapped. It doesn't seem like the committee got the answers they were after. Yeah. And to your question about how well Congress has been served by this grilling of administration officials, what I'm hearing from congressional staffers and former military officials,

all these people who sort of form a brain trust during wars in the past, where they'll get this information. And they'll start pushing for things like I'm remembering during the Iraq War when we were losing so. many soldiers to roadside bombs and they finally, you know, burst into the public sphere. Why aren't we up-armoring their trucks? And then they up-armored the trucks. But Congress isn't getting the information they need, and neither of these former military officials, to even ask the right questions about how can we harden our bases against drones. And I'm also told that it's a much harder question. It's not just a piece of gear they need to send out to, you know, put a concrete

dome over the hangar bay. It's a cultural change that they need to be making. And they're just getting any information to be able to discuss this intelligently. All right. Well, we need to take a quick break, but we'll have more in a moment. And we're back. And when it comes to the war with Iran, it was never fully sold to the American people and it's never been popular. But Franco, Franco, do these recent developments, these casualties, do they change that dynamic at all? I mean, they certainly can. I mean, I guess we shall see. I mean, I absolutely think they could change the dynamics a lot if we start to see more casualties. I mean, the public does not like seeing, you know, Americans killed in war, especially a war that they, you know, don't necessarily

understand, that they don't necessarily approve of, or don't necessarily think is necessary right now. And as you point out, you know, the public has never really been much on board with this war. But I would say that the criticism so far has been more in economic terms, concerns about gas, concerns about the impacts on grocery prices. But these casualties certainly make it a lot more real. President Trump put out on social media an unusual list of casualties at wars. He didn't have his numbers exactly right, but the point was that this war hasn't had many casualties. It was a strange thing to be pointing out. I think it's fair to say that, you know, this war is so far short. And in terms of American casualties, its orders of magnitude smaller than, for example, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But what it has in common and probably has even worse is that the rationale has never really landed with the American people. In this case, probably worse even than those other wars, which did come in the wake of 9-11. So what it has in common is that you have people

now seeing casualties. And it has to be said that the oldest of these four soldiers who died was 30, and the youngest private Isabella Gonzalez was just 19 years old. And it's very hard, I think, for Americans to accept that when they really haven't been told why this is happening. Well, and also when for weeks now, they've been told we've got a ceasefire. The war is almost over. Iran wants a deal. Gas prices had started coming down. There was this. feeling that, oh, you know, you can move this war to a different compartment in your brain because it's moving in the direction of a negotiated settlement. And it very clearly is not there anymore. No, I mean, what the president's words do not match what people are seeing and what is actually

happening. I mean, you know, we talked earlier about four months ago. President was saying this was done very soon. It was only a few weeks ago when he announced, you know, the seat. fire that he was boasting that it was his peace through strength, you know, doctrine was the only way that they could get this Iranian deal, that no one could negotiate or turn Iran to make such a deal. Well, that deal is all obviously really falling apart. I mean, Trump ran for office promising no more, you know, endless wars in the Middle East. Now, I'm not saying this is an endless war in the Middle East, but, you know, he criticized wars in Middle East. He criticized starting wars in the Middle East. And here you now have a war in the Middle East. So, you know, you have a lot of

Americans who are asking questions about why. And as Quill just pointed out, they don't necessarily understand the real purpose of doing this, or at least not right now. Let's get to the raw politics. President Trump is not on the ballot this year, but it is an election year. And, members of Congress are up for re-election, could voters blame them for what's happening in Iran? Could this become an issue in the 2026 midterms? I mean, I think it absolutely could be an issue in the midterms. I mean, voters are going to have to express their frustrations, you know, somehow and generally they blame the party in power.

And since Trump is not on the ballot, it's, you know, likely going to fall on Republicans. Now, I do kind of wonder what kind of criticism it will be, you know, as we've said in the past, foreign policy is not necessarily what people, you know, vote on, and especially in midterms. But this is having an impact on the economy. It is having an impact on gas prices. And President Trump actually acknowledged that today when he was questioned about polls. He pointed out that it was gas prices. that it was impacting, you know, people's feelings. That said, if casualties grow, that is a very real thing. And I do think that could have an impact. So, I mean, there is a reason why Republicans are concerned about this, very concerned about this, because American voters have expressed big concerns about it as well. I mean, when this war started at the end of February, it would have been hard to imagine that it would still be going at this point.

It was hard for White House officials to imagine it, in fact, in conversations that we had with them. And now it's almost hard to imagine that it won't still be going in some way when people are voting and making decisions. Yeah. It's very hard to not see it still going. When I talk to, you know, Iranian experts, they expect if it's not full scale, you know, fighting that it's going to continue to be this kind of sporadic back and forth of strikes going on. and that's, you know, that's a big concern that they have. And, you know, and just back to the politics, you know, I think Trump supporters are probably going to kind of continue to stand behind the president, even if that is still the case. But for many of these Republicans, it's not the base that they need to be worried about. Their, you know, history shows that they don't necessarily always show up in midterm elections for when Trump is not on the ballot. And the bigger concern is the moderate voters who are likely to determine. Herman, many of these races, and they poll show are not happy about this either. They're watching the hearing yesterday. You could see that the chairwoman Susan Collins, who was in a potentially tight race up in Maine for her re-election, tried to sound the note of politics ending at the water's edge. But to mix metaphors, I think that ship has sailed.

She was saying, you know, we have to pass this funding, regardless of how we feel about the politics and the policies, we have to support our troops. I think Democrats were coming at it from a different perspective. They were saying we weren't consulted about this war. No one was consulted, the Congress, America's allies, no one was warned that we were going to be getting into this protracted war. And now our only tool, especially in the minority, is to try and block things that normally would sail through like funding the military. They kept on calling it a war of choice. It does seem like Iran's nuclear ambitions were pretty well set back at a pretty low cost a year ago with limited strikes. And launching this full-scale war does not seem to be changing that.

And I think Democrats see that as potentially something they can keep hammering on. Yeah, I mean, I think yesterday's hearing showed kind of the frustration that many lawmakers have about, you know, how the war is going. and certainly what information they're getting from the war. And as Quill is just talking about the power of the purse that Congress have, that's certainly, you know, the strongest tool that they have to hold the administration accountable. But are they going to use that tool? Well, I think we heard from Susan Collins that there are big risks in using that tool. I mean, I think Susan Collins reflects, you know, a feeling from many lawmakers.

and that they want to be very careful and not be come across or leave an opening to be accused of of not supporting the troops, of jeopardizing national security. And I think that's likely what some of those Democrats are going to face, too, especially those who are running in those same moderate districts and trying to run for election. This is a very, very, you know, touchy territory. And I think that's also probably or possibly why, you know, Hexeth and Kane were not necessarily only talking about Iran. They wanted to make sure this is a, this is about supporting the troops. And I think there's some political reasons for that as well.

All right. We're going to leave it there for today. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics. I'm Quill Lawrence. I cover national security. And I'm Franco Ordonez. I cover the White House.

And thank you for listening. to the NPR Politics Podcast.