MAGA-aligned U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), who is running for Governor of Alabama with President Trump’s endorsement, appeared on The Katie Pavlich Show on NewsNation to discuss the U.S. military strikes on Iran.
When Pavlich asked Tuberville, “President Trump isn’t ruling out sending ground troops into Iran, what is your reaction to that?” the Senator replied, “Yeah, you can’t blame him. You know, this is not your, ah, Democrat war. It’s President Trump’s war.”
The left-leaning Tennessee Holler, with nearly 300K X followers, commented: “@SenTuberville out here making free campaign ads for the Dems.”
Trump critics are piling it on with comments including: “Wow never thought I’d say this but @SenTuberville is right!”
“If you didn’t know it was coming, you haven’t been paying attention.”@SenTuberville gives his reaction to the U.S. and Israel’s joint operation in Iran. pic.twitter.com/9ApYDyRWaF
— Katie Pavlich Tonight (@KatiePavlichNN) March 3, 2026
The escalation that Tuberville contemplates — boots on the ground in Iran — would signal a U.S. commitment that would be harder to describe as something other than “war.” (The language is significant due to the Constitutional requirement that Congress authorize a war.) Critics have dismissed the idea that the massive bombing campaign and the killing of a head of state can be framed as something other than war.
At the moment, however, many Republicans have been reluctant to use the term “war” in their descriptions of the Iran attacks, which the White House calls a “military action.”
[NOTE: After calling the Iran attacks “President Trump’s war,” Tuberville on Wednesday walked back that language to align with some of his fellow GOP lawmakers, saying “I wouldn’t call this a war as much as I’d call it a conflict which should be very short and sweet.”]
Tuberville on Iran: “I wouldn’t call this a war as much as I’d call it conflict that should be very short and sweet, if you can put it that way.” pic.twitter.com/ItFwenm45A
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) March 4, 2026
MAGA-aligned U.S. Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), seen below with members of the press earlier in the week, was asked, “You’ll concede this is war?” Mullin replied, “We haven’t declared war. They declared war on us.”
When reminded that “The president called it war and Secretary Hegseth called it war” and that, in fact, when Mullin first addressed the press he also called it war, Mullin replied, “Okay well that was a misspoke [sic].” He added, “What I was saying is they declared war on us, but war is ugly, it always has been 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
[Note: Mullin is running for re-election this year and, like Tuberville, he has President Trump’s endorsement. He will face IT professional Nick Hankins in the GOP primary.]
Even less concrete than whether this is a “war” are the reasons for the attack and its goals — goals which would necessarily reflect the resolution of the reasons. Writing in The New Yorker this week, Susan Glasser compiled loosely what she characterized as an “astonishing array of different, even contradictory, rationales for the American military attack on Iran.”
Conceding that her tally may not be comprehensive, Glasser published the following list of goals voiced by the administration since the attack:
“outright regime change, assistance to the oppressed peoples of the Islamic Republic, stripping Iran of ‘the ability to project power outside its borders,’ stopping future Iranian-sponsored terrorist attacks while exacting revenge for past ones, preëmptive action against an imminent Iranian threat to attack U.S. forces, preëmptive action to block Iran from building ballistic missiles that could hit the U.S. mainland, and preëmptive action to stop the Iranian nuclear program that Trump had, as recently as last week, claimed was ‘obliterated.’”