President Trump on Wednesday witnessed the return of four young Army soldiers recently killed overseas, telling reporters beforehand that each had died supportive of the deadly war he was waging with Iran.
“All of them said very strongly, ‘We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon,’” Mr. Trump said as he traveled to Dover Air Force Base to attend the dignified transfer. “They won’t have a nuclear weapon. So we’re going to honor them.”
Later, Mr. Trump took one soldier’s grieving family to his political rally in Georgia.
The president did not say how he knew the fallen soldiers’ views, but he decided to speak for them at a perilous political moment. Americans, including Republicans, have grown increasingly critical of the war in Iran, and the killings of U.S. service members was a grim, high-profile reminder that the president had failed to end a war that he had promised would only amount to “a little excursion.”
The excursion has left at least 18 service members dead, a number that Mr. Trump has tried to both defend and diminish in recent days as the conflict grows bloodier.
In a social media post on Tuesday, he compared the number of troop deaths in the Iran war with death counts in other conflicts, including the Vietnam War and the single-day mission that ousted Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan president, last winter.
Mr. Trump has been proud to say that the Venezuela mission resulted in zero deaths, and he has repeatedly pointed out that conflicts in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq resulted in thousands of them. But when he traveled to Delaware on Wednesday, Mr. Trump was met with a stark reminder of the cost of each casualty.
Flanked by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other senior military officials, including Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mr. Trump approached the back ramp of the C-17 transport plane that had carried the soldiers home. He and the others bowed their heads for a moment.
Then the men walked away from the plane, assembling themselves into a line nearby and looking straight ahead as soldiers began to carry each American flag-draped case from the plane. Several White House officials stood behind Mr. Trump, including Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary, who put her hand on her heart. Also standing nearby was Natalie Harp, the aide who drafts many of the president’s vitriolic social media posts and prints out flattering news articles for Mr. Trump’s review.
A woman wailed as the fourth case was loaded into a waiting transfer van. At several points, Mr. Trump tapped his right hand against his right thigh. When it was all over, the president climbed into an armored car that took him to his waiting plane.
The president is adamant that Americans support the Iran 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,” Mr. Trump said earlier on Wednesday before he traveled to the transfer. He did not specify the poll he was talking about.
In reality, pollsters for months have been tracking growing frustration over the war, including within the Republican Party. According to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll released last week, only 29 percent of Americans support the conflict. That poll also showed that most Americans do not believe their economic outlook will improve.
As he defended the war and praised the soldiers who had been killed in action, Mr. Trump also told reporters that attending dignified transfers was a difficult thing for him.
“It’s one of the hardest things to do as a president,” Mr. Trump said, adding, “It has to be done.”
The families of the service members who were killed have not talked about their support for the war.
Instead, Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, 30, who was killed while disposing of an Iranian drone in Iraq, was described as jokester, according to his mother.
Private Isabella Gonzales, who was 19 years old when she was killed by an Iranian missile at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base last week in Jordan, was simply described by her uncle as a “soldier.”
First. Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, was also killed in that attack. He was described as a mentor to others.
“He believed deeply in the power of military service, especially what it builds in a person: discipline, leadership, character,” his family said in a statement. “Everyone who knew him loved him.”
The family is trying to raise money for a scholarship in Lieutenant Feehan’s name.
Sgt. Angel Rampersad, 28, who is also believed to have been killed during that attack, was called a “gentle giant” by her family.
Mr. Trump has released several seething statements promising retribution against Iran for their killings.
“Every time Iran kills an American Soldier they will pay for that killing many times over. This directive has been passed on to Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Daniel Caine,” he wrote on social media on Monday.
On Tuesday, U.S. Central Command said on social media that the U.S. military had begun striking targets for the 11th straight day, an effort meant to hinder the Iranian military’s threats against commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
As he prepared to leave Dover on Wednesday, Mr. Trump invited several members of Lieutenant Feehan’s family to travel with him aboard Air Force One. The president was on his way to a political rally in Georgia, and a White House official told reporters that he had decided to give them a lift to their home state.
By Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Trump had traded the difficulty of witnessing a dignified transfer for an environment where he felt more comfortable. As he took the stage at his rally in Georgia, Mr. Trump basked in applause and swayed to the music of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.”
Lieutenant Feehan’s mother, father and uncle were seated in the audience as the president recounted the day, including the family’s awed reaction — “‘Wow!’” the president recalled — when he offered them a ride on his plane.
“This was a person who was going all the way,” Mr. Trump told the grieving family from the stage. “He would have been a general very quickly.”
