Trump doesn’t rule out ground troops in Iran war, says he would use them “if they were necessary”

Washington — President Trump refused to rule out the use of ground troops in Iran in a new interview on Monday, saying he wouldn’t hesitate to deploy them “if they were necessary.”

“I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground — like every president says, ‘There will be no boots on the ground.’ I don’t say it,” the president told The New York Post. “I say ‘probably don’t need them,’ [or] ‘if they were necessary.'”

In a briefing earlier Monday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth likewise declined to rule out the use of ground troops. He said there are not currently any U.S. service members on the ground in Iran, but added, “We’re not going to go into the exercise of what we will or will not do.”

Mr Trump is set to speak at the White House at his first public event since the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran over the weekend.

The president is hosting a Medal of Honor ceremony and is expected to address the war in his remarks, a senior administration official tells CBS News. Mr. Trump has released pre-recorded videos during the continued operation, but has not addressed the bombing campaign in person.

The president was at Mar-a-Lago in Florida during the initial phase of the war, monitoring developments from his estate, and returned to the White House on Sunday evening.

Four U.S. service members have been killed in Operation Epic Fury so far, according to the U.S. military. Hegseth said that the troops were killed by a munition that hit a tactical operations center in Kuwait.

In a video message Sunday night, Mr. Trump said he expects there to be more American casualties, but combat operations “will continue until all of our objectives are achieved.”

“We pray for the full recovery of the wounded and send our immense love and eternal gratitude to the families of the fallen,” he said. “And sadly, there will likely be more before it ends. That’s the way it is.”

Israeli strikes at the beginning of the conflict killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, along with dozens of other top officials. More than 1,000 targets were hit over the first 24 hours of the ensuing bombing campaign, according to Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Iran has retaliated with barrages of missile and drone attacks on Israel, Gulf nations and U.S. facilities in the region.

On Sunday, Mr. Trump said he expects the U.S. assaults to continue for four or five weeks. Hegseth was asked about that timeline, and dismissed it as a “gotcha-type question.”

“President Trump has all the latitude in the world to talk about how long it may or may not take — four weeks, two weeks, six weeks. It could move up. It could move back,” he said. “We’re going to execute at his command the objectives we’ve set out to achieve.”