During a recent hospital visit, President Donald Trump took time to meet with U.S. service members — but he did not see any of the troops wounded in the ongoing Iran war, according to a new report.
The 79-year-old Republican president traveled to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Tuesday morning for his second check-up since October, claiming afterward that everything “checked out PERFECTLY.”
While inside the sprawling Bethesda facility, Trump met with service members, in keeping with a long-standing presidential tradition. However, 14 troops injured during Operation Epic Fury and recovering at the hospital were not among those he saw, according to a military official and the family of one soldier who spoke to CBS News.
“President Trump was honored to meet with our amazing service members and medical staff while at Walter Reed Medical Center,” a White House spokesperson told the outlet, declining to explain why Trump did not meet with the 14 recovering soldiers.
The Independent has reached out to the White House for comment.
The Iran war, launched jointly by the U.S. and Israel in late February, has left 409 American troops injured and 13 dead, according to the Pentagon. Many of those injured have been transported to and treated at Walter Reed, the military’s flagship medical center.
Six service members wounded in a March Iranian drone strike on an Army outpost in Kuwait are now recovering at the facility. Among them is Sergeant Cory Hicks, who sustained a traumatic brain injury, a severed spleen and a lacerated kidney, according to CBS News.
“I’ve come a long way — that’s for sure,” Hicks told the outlet last month. “I spent 19 years in the military so far and I love serving my country, but this [recovery from wounds] is a different battle. You’ve got to fight once you get injured.”
“I lost six of my battle buddies who were sitting pretty close to me and that’s a struggle within itself,” he added.
Trump has frequently addressed the human cost of the months-long war, which polls indicate remains unpopular with Americans.
Speaking on Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery, he described the 13 service members killed as “wonderful souls.” At a Cabinet meeting Wednesday, he called their deaths “a terrible thing.”
In a video posted online in March, the president said: “We pray for the full recovery of the wounded and send our immense love and eternal gratitude to the families of the fallen. And, sadly, there will likely be more before it ends. That’s the way it is. Likely be more.”
Trump has drawn scrutiny for past comments about wounded troops, however.
In 2024, he downplayed injuries suffered in 2020 by U.S. service members after an Iranian airstrike on a base in Iraq, where over 100 were diagnosed with potential traumatic brain injuries. “I heard they had headaches and a couple of other things,” he told reporters. “I don’t consider them very serious injuries relative to other injuries that I’ve seen.”
That same year, The Atlantic reported that Trump had described fallen U.S. soldiers as “losers” and “suckers” — an account he has repeatedly and forcefully denied.
