U.S. President Donald Trump called the U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran “small potatoes.”
Some people sharing the quote claimed Trump was specifically referring to the deaths of 18 service members during the conflict. He was in fact referring to the conflict itself.
A rumor circulated online in September 2026 that U.S. President Donald Trump had called the Iran war, initiated by the United States and Israel in February 2026, “small potatoes.”
Users shared the claim on social media and Reddit. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., shared the purported quote and added, “Tell that to the families of the 18 troops we’ve lost, the hundreds of wounded servicemembers, and the Americans suffering every single day from record high prices.”
The quote was correctly attributed to Trump.
Trump made the statement during a news conference in the Oval Office on Sept. 4, during which he signed executive orders related to the cattle industry.
The news conference was available to view on the White House’s official YouTube channel. The comment in question begins around the 25-minute mark after a reporter referred to Vice President J.D. Vance’s statement that he did not consider the conflict in Iran a war and asked, “Can you explain to the American people if this is not a war, what exactly is it?”
Trump responded (emphasis ours):
A lot of people don’t call it a war. I call it a military conflict. Because it’s small potatoes for us. It’s not a big thing. We did Venezuela and we did this. In Venezuela we lost nobody, in this we lost 18 people. And in Vietnam we lost 100,000 people, and in other conflicts you lost tens of thousands of people.
Trump continued by elaborating on some of the military operations the United States has enacted since the start of the conflict. He said, “It’s a military conflict, but it’s very intermittent. I could see somebody not calling it a war.”
Asked directly by the same reporter whether he considered the deaths of 18 service members to also be “small potatoes,” Trump said he’d met their families and had gotten “very friendly” with some and again mentioned the number of deceased from past conflicts to compare the size of the numbers.
The White House press office told Snopes via email:
President Trump cares deeply about our men and women in uniform, which is why he approved a historic pay increase for our military servicemembers and restored a focus on our warfighters at the Pentagon. Every loss of life within our armed forces is a tragedy and one loss too many, and the President honors and remembers the sacrifice of every hero who has fallen in the line of duty. The President was recognizing the importance of ensuring that Iran, a country that for 47 years has chanted “Death to America” and killed our troops overseas, can never possess a nuclear weapon.
Media outlets widely reported Trump’s quote, including CNN, The Associated Press and USA Today.
Some social media posts called out Trump’s comment and claimed he specifically called the number of deceased service members “small potatoes.” In truth, he made the comment about the conflict itself, not specifically the number of service members killed.
