Lutnick ‘misspoke’ when he said no US soldiers have died in Iran war

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick apologized Thursday for saying on television that no Americans had died in the war with Iran, saying he was thinking about Venezuela.

“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. I was thinking ​about the Venezuelan military operation where no service members died,” Lutnick said in a post on the social platform X.

Lutnick made the comments on CNBC on Wednesday while attending the Group of 20 finance summit in North Carolina.

“The way the president is playing Iran — there haven’t been American deaths, it’s really just an economic choke-out,” he said when talking about bond markets.

President Trump defended his Commerce secretary on Truth Social before Lutnick’s post.

“Sec. Lutnick had Venezuela on his mind when he said nobody was killed,” Trump wrote. “18 people were killed in Iran!”

The Commerce Department did not respond to request for comment from The Hill on Wednesday.

Eighteen service members have died since March while serving at U.S. bases in the Middle East. More than 750 others have been wounded.

Lutnick also pointed to the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York City in his post. He was the head of Cantor Fitzgerald at the time.

“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, so such an attack, where I lost my brother Gary (36), my best friend Doug (39) and 656 other close friends and colleagues in the attacks on the World Trade Center, never happens again,” he wrote. “Never!”