分析：艾伦·布莱克
2小时前发出
发布时间：2026年3月4日，美国东部时间下午4:45
从对伊朗开战伊始，总统唐纳德·特朗普就十分清楚可能会出现不利的头条新闻。他在军事行动开始后不久发布的视频中表示，这将是一场比以往军事打击更为重大的行动，这意味着美国可能会有人员伤亡。
目前已有6名士兵死亡，这一死亡阴影确实是一个严峻的变量，似乎可能考验美国人对这场他们并不特别热衷的战争的有限容忍度。
但对特朗普而言，这一问题尤为棘手。他作为一名政客有诸多才能，但在谈论阵亡和受伤的军人方面显然不在行。事实上，这是他真正的盲区。
而由于他选择参与的海外冲突，这一弱点被残酷地暴露在聚光灯下。
伊朗战争目前还不到一周，特朗普及其政府已经就美军士兵死亡发表了多次不当言论。
在首批3名士兵死亡的消息公布后，特朗普在周日接受全国广播公司新闻采访时表示：“我们有3人阵亡，但我们预料会有伤亡，不过最终这对世界将是一大好事。”
特朗普立即将这些死亡人数纳入成本效益分析中。
同一天，他在社交媒体发布的视频中再次试图让人们理解这一问题。
“不幸的是，在战争结束前可能还会有更多人员死亡，”特朗普表示，随后补充道：“战争就是这样，可能还会有更多。”
他接着说：“但我们会尽一切可能避免这种情况发生。”
许多民主党人严厉批评特朗普的“战争就是这样”言论，认为这暴露出他某种冷酷无情——仿佛这只是战争行动的必然代价。
周三，在五角大楼的简报会上，国防部长彼得·赫格塞斯批评媒体似乎过度关注阵亡士兵，试图让特朗普“形象受损”。他暗示这些死亡事件得到了不成比例的报道，而军事成功却被忽视。
“但每当有几架无人机被击落或发生悲剧事件时，这些就成了头版头条，”赫格塞斯说，“我明白，媒体只想让总统看起来很糟糕。但请尝试有一次报道真实情况。”
媒体通常会报道在战斗中牺牲的军人；一些报纸曾定期用多版篇幅纪念伊拉克和阿富汗战争中的阵亡者。
考虑到这是新战争中的首次死亡，且政府难以解释战争正当性，这些死亡尤其意义重大。
而赫格塞斯的言论更令人困惑的是，接下来发生的事情是：联合参谋部主席丹·凯恩将军发言时，首要议题——如你所料——正是详细介绍并缅怀这些阵亡士兵。
“首先，我怀着深切的悲痛和感激之情，通报4位阵亡英雄的姓名，他们全部来自美国陆军预备役第103 Sustainment Command，来自爱荷华州得梅因——科迪·霍尔克上尉、诺亚·蒂特延斯一级军士长、妮可·阿莫一级军士长和德克兰·科迪下士，”凯恩说道。
这形成了鲜明对比。虽然凯恩作为美国最高级别的军事官员发言，但赫格塞斯似乎更专注于迎合特朗普的政治信息。
白宫新闻秘书卡罗琳·利维特周三下午试图进行一些补救工作，否认赫格塞斯要求媒体不要突出报道士兵死亡事件，同时也抨击记者。当被美国有线电视新闻网的凯特琳·柯林斯追问政府是否认为媒体应该报道这些死亡事件时，她称这是一个“虚伪”的问题，并补充道：“这不是国务卿的意思。”
“本政府的立场是，本房间内的媒体和全国的媒体都应该准确报道‘史诗 Fury行动’的成功以及它对伊朗流氓政权造成的打击，”利维特表示。
她还表示特朗普将出席士兵遗体的庄重交接仪式。
但总统的这类言论对他而言是常规操作。在过去十年中，他多次发表有关阵亡和受伤军人的质疑性言论，似乎难以展现出人们期望总统具备的同理心和尊重。
例如：
- 特朗普在2016年总统大选党内初选中，就越南战争中被俘多年的约翰·麦凯恩发表评论：“他是‘战斗英雄’因为他被俘了。我喜欢那些没有被俘的人。”
- 2017年，一名民主党女议员指控特朗普对一位金星勋章（Gold Star widow，即阵亡士兵遗孀）称她已故丈夫“知道自己在签署什么”。（特朗普否认了这一说法，但遗孀证实了，而白宫似乎也默许了。）
- 多家媒体和特朗普的前幕僚长约翰·凯利称，2020年特朗普贬低阵亡和受伤士兵为“傻瓜”和“失败者”，并拒绝前往法国的埃纳-马恩公墓（Aisne-Marne Cemetery）悼念阵亡将士。凯利表示，特朗普不愿站在截肢者旁边，因为“这对我形象不好”。特朗普否认了这些评论。
- 近年来，特朗普多次淡化2020年伊朗对伊拉克美军基地发动导弹袭击造成的100多名士兵遭受的创伤性脑损伤，称其为“头痛”。这一言论遭到美国退伍军人协会（Veterans of Foreign Wars）谴责，该协会要求特朗普道歉。
- 2024年，美国退伍军人协会还批评特朗普称平民自由勋章“远好于”军事荣誉勋章，因为后者的获得者往往“状况很差”。
- 2025年3月，特朗普似乎对四名在立陶宛训练中失踪的美军士兵情况一无所知。当被问及是否了解该情况时，特朗普停顿后表示：“不，我没有（了解）。”这些士兵后来被发现死亡。
- 就在两个月前，特朗普因声称北约盟友军队在阿富汗“在前线稍作后退”引发国际风波。许多北约盟友在参与美国领导的反恐战争中遭受了大量战斗死亡和伤亡。
特朗普还多次轻佻地将自己的牺牲和成就与士兵及战争英雄相提并论。他还被指控年轻时故意伪造“骨刺”诊断以逃避越南战争征兵。
特朗普从未刻意遵守政治和社会规范或使用政治正确的言论；在某些方面，这也是他的吸引力所在。
但如果说有一个领域这种做法可能引发严重问题，那就是他谈论这一最严肃话题的方式。而这一点在与伊朗的战争中迅速成为争议焦点。
Trump’s and Hegseth’s awkward comments about US troop deaths in Iran war
Analysis by Aaron Blake
2 hr ago
PUBLISHED Mar 4, 2026, 4:45 PM ET
From the start of his war with Iran, President Donald Trump took care to acknowledge the ugly headlines that could result. It would be a much more significant operation than his previous military strikes, he said in a video posted shortly after the military action began, and that meant likely US deaths.
The specter of troop deaths — there have already been six — is indeed a somber variable that appears likely to test Americans’ limited tolerance for a war that they don’t seem particularly keen on.
But it’s especially a problem for Trump. He has many talents as a politician, but speaking about dead and wounded service members is decidedly not among them. In fact, it’s a real blind spot.
And because of his choice of foreign conflicts, that weakness faces a harsh spotlight.
The war with Iran is now less than a week old, and Trump and his administration have already made multiple awkward comments about the deaths of US soldiers.
After the first three deaths were reported, Trump told NBC News on Sunday: “We have three, but we expect casualties, but in the end it’s going to be a great deal for the world.”
Trump was immediately inserting those deaths into a cost-benefit analysis.
Then in a video posted to social media the same day, he again seemed to ask for people’s understanding about the subject.
“And sadly, there will likely be more deaths before it ends,” Trump said, before adding: “That’s the way it is. Likely be more.”
He then added: “But we’ll do everything possible where that won’t be the case.”
Many Democrats harshly criticized Trump for his “the way it is” remark, suggesting it betrayed a certain callousness — as if this was just the cost of doing the business of war.
And then during a briefing at the Pentagon Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth criticized the media for supposedly focusing too much on the dead soldiers in an effort to make Trump “look bad.” He suggested those deaths were getting disproportionate play, compared to the military’s successes.
“But when a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it’s front-page news,” Hegseth said. “I get it; the press only wants to make the president look bad. But try for once to report the reality.”
The media often covers service members who die in combat; some newspapers regularly ran multi-page features commemorating the fallen of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These are also especially significant deaths, given they’re the first in a new war whose justification the administration has struggled mightily to explain.
Hegseth’s comments were even more puzzling given what happened next. When Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine spoke, his first order of business was — you guessed it — detailing and memorializing the deaths of those troops.
“First, it’s with profound sadness and gratitude that I share the names of four of our six fallen heroes, all from the 103rd Sustainment Command, U.S. Army Reserves out of Des Moines, Iowa — Captain Cody Khork, Sergeant First Class Noah Tietjens, Sergeant First Class Nicole Amor, and Sergeant Declan Coady,” Caine said.
It was a striking contrast. While Caine seemed to be speaking as the nation’s highest-ranking military officer, Hegseth seemed more focused on a political message catered to Trump.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt tried to do a little clean up Wednesday afternoon, denying Hegseth was asking the media not to prominently cover service members’ deaths, while also attacking reporters. When pressed by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on whether the administration believes the media should cover those deaths, she called it a “disingenuous” question and added: “That’s not what the secretary meant.”
“It’s the position of this administration that the press in this room and the press across the country should accurately report on the success of Operation Epic Fury and the damage it is doing to the rogue Iranian regime,” Leavitt said.
She also said Trump will attend the dignified transfer of the troops’ remains.
But the president’s rhetoric is par for the course for him. Over and over again through the last decade, he’s said questionable things about dead and injured service members and seemed to struggle to show the kind of empathy and respect that you’d expect from a president.
To wit:
- Trump caused a huge stir during the 2016 primary campaign when he said of John McCain, who spent years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam: “He’s a ‘war hero’ because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.”
- In 2017, a Democratic congresswoman accused Trump of telling a Gold Star widow that her deceased husband “knew what he was signing up for.” (Trump denied the account, but the widow confirmed it, and the White House seemed to tacitly confirm it as well.)
- Multiple media outlets and Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly said that Trump in 2020 disparaged dead and injured soldiers as “suckers” and “losers” and declined a visit to honor the dead at Aisne-Marne Cemetery in France. Kelly said Trump didn’t want to stand next to amputees because “it doesn’t look good for me.” Trump denied those comments.
- Trump has repeatedly in recent years downplayed the traumatic brain injuries that more than 100 soldiers suffered from a 2020 Iranian missile strike on a US base in Iraq, calling them “headaches.” That earned him a rebuke from the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which called on Trump to apologize.
- The VFW also criticized Trump in 2024 for saying the civilian Medal of Freedom was “much better” than the military Medal of Honor because the latter’s recipients are often “in very bad shape.”
- In March 2025, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the cases of four US soldiers who had gone missing during a training exercise in Lithuania. Asked whether he’d been briefed on the situation, Trump paused and said: “No, I haven’t.” The soldiers were later found dead.
- Just two months ago, Trump caused a bit of an international incident by claiming that troops from NATO allies “stayed a little back” from the front lines in Afghanistan. Many NATO allies suffered high numbers of combat deaths and casualties while joining the US-led war on terror.
Trump has also repeatedly made flippant remarks comparing his own sacrifices and achievements to soldiers and war heroes. And he’s been accused of procuring a “bone spurs” diagnosis when he was younger explicitly so he could avoid the Vietnam War draft.
Trump has never taken great care to abide by political and societal norms or to use politically correct speech; in some ways, that’s part of his appeal.
But if there’s one area in which this approach can cause real problems, it’s in how he talks about this most serious of subjects. And that’s quickly at issue with the war with Iran.