International

Luna slams Graham for comments about US troops

by Ashleigh Fields - 03/22/26 9:33 PM ET

NOW PLAYING

Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R) on Sunday said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was acting as if U.S. soldiers were “expendable cattle” following his comments about the possibility of losing servicemembers in battle.

“I am deeply upset at the lack of respect for life Senator Lindsey Graham is displaying when talking about our troops. He is acting as if they are expendable cattle. This is unacceptable and dark. There were over 26,000 American casualties at Iwo Jima,” Luna wrote in a post on the social platform X, with a clip of Graham’s remarks on Fox News’s “Fox News Sunday.”

During the interview, the South Carolina senator reiterated his support for the U.S. taking Kharg Island, which is about 16 miles from Iran’s coast and serves as a major hub for oil exports.

“This has been an amazing military operation. God bless the fallen. But it’s a difference when we talk about troops on the ground. I trust the Marines … ,” Graham told host Shannon Bream.

“I trust DOD [Department of Defense]. We got two Marine expeditionary units sailing to this island. We did Iwo Jima. We can do this,” he added.

The Battle of Iwo Jima is considered one of the bloodiest battles in Marine Corps history. The fighting lasted for five weeks and it’s the only battle in World War II in which American casualties outnumbered Japanese casualties, according to the National Museum of the Pacific War.

Weeks into the war with Iran, 13 U.S. servicemembers have died and at least 200 are wounded. Some lawmakers in Washington remain concerned with additional deaths while others say capturing Kharg Island, which is responsible for approximately 90 percent of the country’s crude exports, would bottleneck the Islamic Republic.

“I don’t know if you take the island or you blockade the island, but I know this, the day we control that island, this regime, this terrorist regime, has been weakened. It will down a vine,” Graham said Sunday.

Add as preferred source on Google