Pete Hegseth had a message Tuesday for Trump voters worried about boots on the ground in Iran: trust the man you put in office, and stop asking the Pentagon to broadcast its war plans to the enemy.
Hegseth told reporters at a Pentagon briefing that he doesn’t understand why the base wouldn’t have faith in Trump’s ability to execute, crediting the president’s track record on peace through strength and America First outcomes.
The question came from Daily Wire correspondent Mary Margaret Olohan, who asked Hegseth what he’d say to Americans who love the president wholeheartedly, yet are anxious about U.S. ground troops ending up in Iran.
His answer: nothing is coming off the table.
“We’re not going to foreclose any option,” Hegseth said. “You can’t fight and win a war if you tell your adversary what you are willing to do or what you are not willing to do, to include boots on the ground.”
He acknowledged diplomacy could work, without dwelling on the prospect. On the Iraq-and-Afghanistan anxiety running through parts of the MAGA movement, Hegseth said Trump has internalized the lessons of those wars. He didn’t get specific. He did make clear Iran shouldn’t feel safe.
“Our adversary right now thinks there are 15 different ways we could come at them with boots on the ground,” he said. “And guess what? There are.”
Polling shows Trump’s base is mostly on board with airstrikes. Ground troops are another matter. A majority of Republicans oppose deploying combat forces, and among the broader electorate the number is closer to three in four.
Discussing objectives in Iran, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. is “ahead of schedule on most of them, and we can achieve them without any ground troops – without any.”
