Trump's lethal presidency
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No president in the modern era has ordered more military strikes against as many different countries as Donald Trump.
- He's attacked seven nations, three of which — Iran, Nigeria and Venezuela — had never been targeted by U.S. military strikes. He authorized more individual air strikes in 2025 than President Biden did in four years.
Why it matters: Trump explicitly ran as the anti-war candidate. The White House argues he still is — that he always exhausts diplomacy before acting, and that projecting overwhelming force is itself a path to lasting peace.
- The death of three U.S. service members in the first 24 hours of Trump's Iran strikes is putting that argument to its most brutal test.
- "Sadly, there will likely be more before it ends. That's the way it is," Trump said in a video statement Sunday. "But we'll do everything possible where that won't be the case," he added, vowing to "avenge their deaths."
The big picture: Trump's strikes are historically distinctive not just in number but in kind.
- President Bush's post-9/11 campaigns and President Obama's drone wars were massive in scale — but concentrated in inherited or congressionally authorized theaters.
- Alongside traditional counterterrorism efforts, Trump has opened new fronts — a Christmas Day strike in Nigeria, drug boats sunk in the Caribbean, Nicolás Maduro snatched from Caracas.
- His preferred model is consistent: no boots on the ground, no lengthy entanglements, overwhelming force applied quickly and framed as essential to defending American interests.
Zoom in: The ongoing U.S. military operation against Iran now stands in a league of its own — the most aggressive, high-risk foreign policy act of Trump's presidency.
- Trump launched Operation Epic Fury — a joint U.S.-Israeli campaign explicitly aimed at toppling Iran's government — without congressional authorization or sustained public debate.
- It was preceded by the largest U.S. military buildup in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq — a warning to Iran that failed talks in Geneva would have consequences.
Zoom out: Trump outlined multiple objectives for an operation that he said could last four weeks: Destroy the threats posed by Iran's ballistic missiles, missile industry and navy.
- Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was assassinated by Israeli strikes in the first 24 hours, along with dozens of senior regime officials.
- U.S. and Israeli strikes show no sign of letting up, as Iran's retaliatory missiles and drones batter Gulf allies.
Back home, some of Trump's most loyal supporters are struggling to square this war with the candidate they elected.
- Tucker Carlson, a leading MAGA isolationist who visited the White House just last week, called Trump's decision to attack Iran "absolutely disgusting and evil."
- Several MAGA influencers resurfaced a warning last June from the late activist Charlie Kirk, who called regime change in Iran "insane" and predicted it would result in "a bloody civil war."
The intrigue: Some of the Trump officials now executing or tacitly supporting the Iran war spent years arguing it should never happen.
- Vice President Vance wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed in 2023 making the case for Trump's 2024 candidacy. The headline: "Trump's Best Foreign Policy? Not Starting Any Wars."
- Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard sold "No War with Iran" shirts in 2020. Four years later, she declared: "A vote for Donald Trump is a vote to end wars, not start them."
Trump himself has railed against the foreign policy establishment that dragged America into endless Middle East wars — perhaps his most sincere political conviction, and the one his base believed most deeply.
- "These globalists want to squander all of America's strength, blood and treasure, chasing monsters and phantoms overseas while keeping us distracted from the havoc they're creating here at home," he argued on the campaign trail.
What they're saying: "Prior to ever holding office, President Trump has been consistent: lran can never possess a nuclear weapon. The president's first instinct is always diplomacy, and his representatives worked extensively, and in good faith, to make a deal that would ensure that Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities posed no threat to our homeland," a White House official told Axios.
- "The administration warned Iran that there would be dire consequences if they failed to make a deal. Unfortunately, the Iranian regime refused to engage realistically with the United States. As a result, President Trump is taking decisive action to eliminate major national security threats to the American people, which past presidents have talked about for 47 years, but only this president had the courage to accomplish."
The bottom line: Whether launching a regime-change war in Iran was worth American lives is a question that will dominate debate inside MAGA, Congress and the country for the rest of Trump's presidency.
