During a “60 Minutes” interview in early November, U.S. President Donald Trump said “nobody has died” in the Iran war.
Trump truly said the words “nobody has died” regarding the Iran war. However, the brief videos that people shared omitted what Trump said immediately after that remark, including, “This war, seven months, 18 people killed. That includes Venezuela, 18,” as well as, “Eighteen is too much.” His comments during the interview, as well as during other recent speaking occasions, reflected his effort to draw comparisons between the low number of U.S. casualties during the Iran war and significantly larger figures in past U.S. conflicts.
On Nov. 6, U.S. President Donald Trump sat down for an interview with “60 Minutes” correspondent Ross Douthat. The interview covered a wide range of topics, including Republicans’ losses in the midterm elections, the wars in Iran and Ukraine and the economy.
CBS News published a transcript and the edited broadcast version of the Trump sit-down on Nov. 8, as well as a full transcript and unedited interview. The broadcast segment lasted 27 minutes, whereas the full interview spanned 52 minutes.
That same evening, the Democratic Party’s rapid response X account, FactPost (@factpostnews), posted (archived) a 14-second video with the caption, “Trump on the Iran War: Nobody has died. It’s not a war.” The video shows Trump saying: “Nobody has died. You know, when you call it a war, it’s not a war. If you look at what’s happened with Iran, in the last six months, five months, six months, we haven’t lost one soldier. You know, I wrote one thing down. I think it’s intere—.”
The Democratic National Committee later posted a shortened version of that same clip on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived) and other platforms, omitting the last several seconds. The posts were overlaid with the text, “Trump blatantly lies about Iran war: ‘Nobody has died.'”
Snopes readers asked us whether Trump made the remark as presented in the videos.
Because Trump truly said “nobody has died” while speaking about the Iran war, we’ve rated this claim a correct attribution. However, the brief videos shared on social media omitted what he said immediately after that remark, including, “This war, seven months, 18 people killed. That includes Venezuela, 18,” as well as, “Eighteen is too much.”
Those remarks about the number of deaths did not appear in posts making the claim on Bluesky (archived), Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived) and other platforms.
Trump’s comments from that portion of the interview, as well as during other recent speaking occasions, reflected his effort to draw comparisons between the low number of U.S. casualties during the Iran war and significantly larger figures in past conflicts. His remarks also advanced the talking point that the deaths that did occur happened near the beginning of the war and not during the more-recent five or six months.
Snopes contacted the DNC to ask why it omitted Trump’s subsequent remarks from its post, as well as the White House to request comment. The DNC declined to comment. We will update this article if we receive further information.
Casualties during Iran war
The Defense Department’s Defense Casualty Analysis System website, which hosts information about service members who died or were wounded in action, reported 15 deaths — seven hostile and eight non-hostile — as well as 417 injuries, all hostile, during “Operation Epic Fury,” the U.S. military’s name for the Iran war.
According to the data, 14 of those deaths occurred in March, in Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The remaining death is reported as happening in the Arabian Sea in July, making false Trump’s claim that “nobody has died” in the last five or six months.
The same website also listed eight deaths (only six displaying names), four hostile and four non-hostile, and 450 injuries, all hostile, categorized under “overseas operations” for the entire year, including in Iraq, Jordan, Qatar and United Arab Emirates.
The U.S. casualties were only a very small percentage of the many thousands of deaths reported across the Middle East during the war, including hundreds of children.
Transcript of Trump’s comments
In the full interview, Trump spoke about crime in Washington, D.C., then transitioned to the Iran war and military action in Venezuela, saying, “And, by the way, nobody has died” (bolded emphasis shows comments from the FactPost video):
TRUMP: They love me, and, by the way, speaking of that, the crime rate in Washington, D.C., is down 89%. It’s the safest, and when I was here it was a killing field, three murders a week. Now we haven’t had a murder in a long time. And, by the way, nobody has died. You know, when you call it a war, it’s not a war. If you look at what’s happened with Iran, in the last six months, five months, six months, we haven’t lost one soldier. You know, I wrote one thing down. I think it’s interesting. I just wrote it. I just looked at it this morning. So we’ve been in Iran seven months, maybe eight months. There have been 18 people, and that includes Venezuela, two wars. Venezuela where, by the way, we’ve taken out 50 times what the war has cost already. To the victor belong the spoils. But listen just one second.
DOUTHAT: Yeah, I’m listening.
TRUMP: Afghanistan, 20 years, thousands of people killed. Iraq War, nine years, 5,000 people killed. Vietnam, 21 years, 60,000 people killed. The Korean War, four years, 40,000 people killed.
DOUTHAT: This is, this is a good segue …
TRUMP: This war, wait …
DOUTHAT: Yeah?
TRUMP: This war, seven months, 18 people killed. That includes Venezuela, 18. Now, now, I, I, I want to just …
DOUTHAT: This is a good segue to my last question.
TRUMP: OK, but just sec.
DOUTHAT: Yeah, I, I hear you. I hear you …
TRUMP: Eighteen is too much, but you’re talking about 40,000, 50,000, 60,000.
DOUTHAT: I, I agree that the Iran war has had many fewer casualties than past American wars.
TRUMP: And, but what did we get? What did we get? No nuclear. We won, and there will be no nuclear. And they didn’t get anything. Those wars were lost. And they lost 60,000.
The above remarks begin at the 47:07 mark in the unedited “60 Minutes” interview YouTube video.
Trump’s past remarks about casualties
In similar remarks, Trump spoke to members of the media in Palm Beach, Florida, on Nov. 8, saying, “Again, we haven’t lost anybody. No soldiers been lost. If you look at Vietnam and if you look at all these others, there were for many years with thousands, tens of thousands of people killed, soldiers with us. So, we’ve gone two wars.”
The DNC’s FactPost account highlighted those remarks in a video post (archived), again ending the trimmed clip just before Trump continued commenting about losing 18 soldiers and that one loss “is too many.”
Speaking about Iran and Venezuela, he continued (at 5:01), “We’ve lost, and by the way, one is too many. But we’ve lost 18 soldiers in two wars. And the one war is seven months. The other one was 58, 48 minutes.”
On Nov. 9, Trump once again spoke about the low number of casualties in the Iran war during a news conference at the White House, specifically citing a number of deaths.
In September, Trump also corrected his own commerce secretary about the number of service members who died during the Iran war, posting on Truth Social, “Sec. Lutnick had Venezuela on his mind when he said nobody was killed. 18 people were killed in Iran!”
For further reading, we previously reported about a false rumor claiming Michigan Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed made a remark on “60 Minutes” about young girls seeing male genitals in locker rooms.
