Double Standard | Trump Shrugs at Americans Killed in War

The Donroe Doctrine: “When you go to war, some people will die.”

Susan J. Demas is Lincoln Square’s Executive Editor and a 25-year journalism veteran. Subscribe to her Substack.

“War is hell,” as Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman once said.

Donald Trump and his sidekick, Pete Hegseth — who truly are the Beavis and Butthead of warmongering — seem to think that’s pretty cool.

At a press briefing on Wednesday, our self-designated “Secretary of War” waxed psychotic about “death and destruction from the sky all day long. We’re playing for keeps. Our warfighters have maximum authorities granted personally by the president and yours truly.”

Trump, who believes that wars are best conducted via social media, posted on Saturday that “Iran, which is being beat to HELL, has apologized and surrendered to its Middle East neighbors, and promised that it will not shoot at them anymore.”

The bombing, of course, has continued, presumably until morale improves or Trump gets bored and invades another country.

During the course of the war, which is only days old, Trump has crossed the reddest of red lines.

When the first three service members were killed last weekend, Trump posted a video on social media, saying, “And sadly, there will likely be more [deaths] before it ends. … That’s the way it is. Likely be more.”

This was not a one-off. In a phone interview with NBC News on March 1, he said: “We have three, but we expect casualties, but in the end it’s going to be a great deal for the world.”

What about the specter of terrorist attacks right here in the U.S.? Trump seemed just as dismissive of potential civilian deaths when Time asked him if Americans should be worried.

“I guess. But I think they’re worried about that all the time. We think about it all the time. We plan for it. But yeah, you know, we expect some things,” he said. “Like I said, some people will die. When you go to war, some people will die.”

When a president sends troops into harm’s way, we expect him to acknowledge the gravity of the situation and show reverence for those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. Faced with this test, Trump repeatedly turned into a human shrug emoji.

Even if you want to give Trump the benefit of the doubt (which he hasn’t earned), consider the fact that he chose to wear his own merch to the dignified transfer Saturday of the six fallen service members. It was such a bad look that Fox & Friends aired previous footage of Trump sans USA cap in a naked attempt to make him look more presidential.

All of this would have ended the career of any other president. The D.C. media wouldn’t rest until that person was driven from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Just consider the flurry of negative coverage Barack Obama endured for the sins of saluting Marines with a coffee cup in hand and wearing a tan suit in the Oval Office back in 2014.

But as I’ve written before, the rules are different for Trump. Because he’s already survived previous scandals disparaging the troops — like denigrating John McCain’s time as a Vietnam POW (“I like people that weren’t captured”) and reportedly calling dead and injured soldiers “suckers” and “losers” — it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Trump essentially gets a pass, because the beltway media fails to hold him to their typical standard.

It’s the Trump Rules, which are pretty much the exact opposite of the Clinton Rules.

So sure, there have been some stories about Trump’s and Hegseth’s “awkward” comments about U.S. troops, as CNN put it. Some outlets have done admirable coverage, like Mother Jones. But it didn’t dominate the news cycle like the firestorm over Obama’s wardrobe — not even close.

It’s hard to take the corporate media seriously when fake outrage generates far more headlines than actual atrocities.

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