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Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) said Monday the Trump administration should have finished the job in Iran “a long time ago” instead of negotiating a short-lived memorandum of understanding (MOU).
“In my personal opinion, we should have finished this a long time ago,” McCormick told host Blake Burman on NewsNation’s “The Hill.”
“You don’t let up. You don’t do a peace process while you’re not bombing because, quite frankly, these guys have been defiant,” he added, referring to Iranian officials.
McCormick, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, also said the Iranian regime “needs to be replaced,” echoing President Trump’s sentiment in the early days of the war — rhetoric he has since abandoned.
The U.S. and Iran have traded strikes in recent weeks, laying waste to the MOU the two sides agreed upon in mid-June.
Over the past week, Iranian attacks in Jordan and Iraq resulted in the deaths of three U.S. service members, with another soldier missing in action.
The Pentagon on Monday identified the two troops killed in Jordan as 1st Lt. Tyler Feehan, 25, and Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, 19. On Tuesday, the administration identified the service member killed in Iraq as Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton.
The deaths of the three service members brought the American death toll in the war to 17 since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes against Iran in late February. Nearly 100 troops have also sustained injuries, with 96 percent of them returning to duty, since the latest tit-for-tat attacks began on July 7, according to the Defense Department.
Trump has vowed revenge on Iran for the latest U.S. deaths, as American forces carried out strikes against the Islamic Republic on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
“Every time Iran kills an American Soldier they will pay for that killing many times over!” Trump wrote Monday on Truth Social, adding he passed that directive on to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth; Gen. Dan Caine, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and “every Leader in the Military.”
Hegseth and Caine, along with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, will appear before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday at 10 a.m. EDT to defend the administration’s $87.6 billion supplemental funding request — which includes $67 billion for defense funding amid the war.
McCormick on Monday expressed support for a continuation of the war, telling Burman the U.S. should seek “unconditional surrender” from Iran.
However, the Georgia Republican noted the political realities back home, as the resumption of strikes and Iran’s continued restrictions on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz have resulted in gas prices ticking back up to more than $4 per gallon, according to AAA.
“We have a real constitutional obligation to win wars … and to protect the United States, but at the same time to win elections,” the Peach State lawmaker told Burman. “Because if you can’t win the elections, you can’t control the same policies that will protect the nation in the future.”
“So, there’s a bit of a dilemma right now, and it’s a timing issue,” the lawmaker added.
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