Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick issued a public apology a day after incorrectly saying that no American service members had died during the war with Iran.
During a CNBC interview on Sept. 2, Lutnick said that “the way the president is playing Iran, there haven’t been American deaths. It’s really just an economic choke-out, which the administration is now executing more broadly.”
Eighteen U.S. service members have died and more than 750 have been wounded since President Donald Trump started a war against Iran on Feb. 28, according to the Defense Department’s war casualty database.
Lutnick made the inaccurate comment in response to a question about rising global bond yields during an interview on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Asheville, North
Carolina.
In an apology to the families of U.S. service members, Lutnick said he made the mistake while thinking about the U.S. military operation in January to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Seven U.S. troops were injured and none were killed during that operation.
“I misspoke. 18 members of our military have died, and to those families my heart breaks and I am so very sorry for their loss,” Lutnick wrote in a Sept. 2 post on X. “I was thinking about the Venezuelan military operation where no service members died.”
“As the 25th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, I am deeply thankful for our military and the sacrifices the men and women who serve our great country make,” he added.
Trump also weighed in on the controversy.
“Sec. Lutnick had Venezuela on his mind when he said nobody was killed,” he wrote on Truth Social. “18 people were killed in Iran!”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Lutnick apologizes for saying no Americans have died in the Iran war
