Trump threatens Iran as death toll questions grow

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Today, an extraordinary new report says that more American service members have died during the Iran War, which, by the way, is close to entering month eight. It was supposed to be two to three weeks. More service members have died than the Pentagon has publicly disclosed. And we have officials describing this discrepancy in the government's own numbers in really strange terms. Now, at the same time, Donald Trump is openly talking about whether to blow up the entire nation of Iran as he decides what to do next. Certainly doesn't sound like the war is almost over. And also today, we have more sleepiness and more dystopian suppression of the media. Now the administration has also proposed its own childhood vaccine schedule, which would involve five separate doses six months apart. They're claiming without evidence this will dramatically reduce autism. There is no reason to believe that that is true. We also have economic graphics that the administration is desperately using to try to tell one story. But when you look at the numbers, the story is completely different. And I should also mention my book is out tomorrow. It's almost over. We're almost there.

We've got quite a program today.

Something extremely disturbing is now being reported about the Trump administration's war with Iran. It's not just that Trump's incompetent. It's not just that it's been going on almost seven full months despite supposedly being only a two to three week war. That stuff is all disturbing. But we have a new report from the Washington Post which says that more American service members have died in this war much more than the number that the Pentagon has publicly disclosed. And this is not a disagreement over like an estimate or a projection. We are talking quite literally about how many American service members died. And according to officials familiar with the military's internal accounting, not all of those deaths are being reflected in the Pentagon's public database. Now what the Washington Post did is they went and they spoke to six different officials.

Five of those officials said there have been at least twenty two military deaths since Trump's war in Iran started. But then when you look at the Pentagon's public database, it says it's only eighteen. Now then a sixth official that the Washington Post spoke to said, oh, actually, it's not twenty two, the number is twenty three, dating back to February twenty eighth. And that's when this war with Iran started. It's insane that it was February twenty eighth. It was in winter. We're almost in winter again. And that official also said that three American contractors based in the region have died. Now I think that there's like one important qualification here, if we want to be honest. The Washington Post says not every one of these additional military deaths has been established directly as caused by the Iran war. So there were some American personnel who died while stationed in the Middle East during the war, but not necessarily because of the war. But we still have a discrepancy here that we can't really explain. And based on the dishonesty of this administration, it's definitely reasonable to suspect, are they just trying to get a lower number out there because it looks worse the more people die. Now, officials who are familiar with the higher numbers said we are frustrated. We are frustrated that these deaths are not in the Pentagon's casualty portal and they should be. And when the Washington Post went to the Pentagon and said, hey, can you explain this discrepancy to us? The Pentagon just said, no, we can't. We're not going to do that. Now, remember the back story on this. We if this sounds familiar, we had a dispute like this before. And the dispute was, do American deaths always get counted correctly as related to the war? Because back in July, you had this very brief period during which the United States and Iran announced a ceasefire. And you can debate how meaningful the ceasefire really was because operations never really stopped. And then before we knew it, they were exchanging fire again. But we had this situation during that really brief period when four American service members were killed.