Republican insiders are increasingly nervous that President Donald Trump is living in ignorance, even as he conducts a major war that he started and tramples the global economy.
Republican members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees told the Daily Mail that Trump’s top military brass are too terrified to speak truth to the president about the damage he’s doing to the world and the hopelessness of the quagmire in which he’s embedded himself and taxpayers.
“Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, are being accused of not being willing to relay what troops are seeing to the president,” reports the Mail. “And two MAGA-connected Republican lawmakers, who were granted anonymity to speak candidly, have shared their concerns about Trump's military leaders.”
“Hegseth is afraid of Trump and won't be as honest as he should about the war for fear of losing his job,” they told Daily Mail’s White House Correspondent Jon Michael Raasch.
Additionally, according to one lawmaker, Caine is not even considered to be in Trump's “inner circle,” and the president, he said, is “surrounded by a bunch of fearful yes men who can't tell POTUS the truth.”
“I see very few ways to wrap up Iran other than to withdraw and somehow market that as a ‘win,’” said the lawmaker.
A sitting Republican Senator added that Trump is flying blind because Caine is failing to connect US Central Command leader Admiral Brad Cooper directly with the president — despite Cooper being the man in charge of operations against Iran.
“General Caine is making a mistake by not encouraging the president and Admiral Cooper to sit down and hear his view of how this operation could be successful,” fumed the Senate Armed Services Committee lawmaker privately to the Mail.
Trump’s plan for Iran is still not clear as the war he started becomes a monthslong slog sliding treacherously into the midterms. Every peace deal Trump has hinted at over the weeks has melted. Most recently, Iranian leaders put a deal Trump implied to the torch this week as it ensued bombing US allies.
The Senator speaking with the Daily Mail accused Caine of being afraid of blowback to any potentially risky continued operation, calling him "abundantly cautious."
“That's not a formula for getting out of conflict successfully,” the Senator added. “I think you should let the commander on the ground [Cooper] give his view to the Commander-in-Chief.”
