Donald Trump has tapped Markwayne Mullin to be the next Secretary of Homeland Security. Mullin would replace Kristi Noem in the role. The Oklahoma senator recently had to backtrack on certain comments he made about the conflict in Iran. The Trump Administration has been careful not to frame the conflict as a war.
However, Mullin referred to the operation as a war, which he later retracted. He said that he had misspoken.
Speaking with journalists, Trump clarified that they were ‘doing great’ on the ‘war front’, as reported by The New York Times. However, the rest of the Republican Party has used a wide range of alternative words to describe the conflict in the Middle East. The number of synonyms deployed has probably shot up the stocks of Thesaurus printing companies.
Host: Trump ran on not starting a war with Iran.
GOP Sen. Mullin: This isn’t a war
Host: Pete Hegseth said today that this is a war. pic.twitter.com/iUfifdz0el
— FactPost (@factpostnews) March 2, 2026
Speaker Mike Johnson made the stance of the administration clear.
He said, “They declared war on us.” This echoed the justification that both the Israeli forces and Trump have given for military action against Iran. Both the United States and Israel, which initiated the conflict, have described their actions as preemptive and have claimed that there was credible intelligence that Iran was preparing for some kind of attack.
Johnson also clarified that what the United States is conducting in the Middle East is not a war. “We’re four days into a very specific, clear mission — an operation.”
Other Republicans echoed this, too. Congress was voting on whether Donald Trump had exceeded his executive powers by allowing military action in Iran. Many Republicans subscribed to the notion that there was no War in Iran, just an operation approved by Donald Trump. Admitting that the war in Iran is, in fact, a war has a major consequence. Republicans would have to concede on the Senate floor that Donald Trump dragged their country into a conflict without Congress’s approval.
Markwayne Mullin described the conflict as a war. Many Republicans have done so. He later retracted the statement. Many Republicans have done that, too. His exact words were “This is war, and we’re taking out the threat.” He was asked by reporters about his comment at the Capitol, where he then said, “We haven’t declared war. They called it war. I was saying they declared war on us, but war is ugly.”
RAJU: You’ll concede this is war?
MARKWAYNE MULLIN: We haven’t declared war. They declared war on us
RAJU: The president called it war and Secretary Hegseth called it war
REPORTER: When you walked up just now, you called it war
MULLIN: Okay. That was a misspoke. pic.twitter.com/x2YRUMmzUG
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 3, 2026
The Trump-Vance ticket, backed by the Republican Party, was highly critical of “forever wars” in foreign lands like the one happening now in Iran. These word games might be necessary to mask the unpopular decision Trump made. An Ipsos poll revealed that 46% of Americans opposed the war. Just 29% said they were in favor of it.
