U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said Sunday that President Donald Trump’s war with Iran is not making the United States safer and accused Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of showing a “complete disregard” for American servicemembers, calling for an immediate end to the conflict. The statement, posted to X on August 16, 2026, is the latest in a string of public rebukes Van Hollen has leveled at the administration over its conduct of the war and comes amid escalating controversy over conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.
Van Hollen’s Full Statement
Van Hollen posted the statement to his official X account at 1:08 p.m. on August 16, 2026. The post read in full:
“This war isn’t making our country safer. Donald Trump & Secretary Hegseth’s complete disregard for American servicemembers is disgraceful.
Our military men and women & their families deserve better. The best way to protect them is to end this war.”
In the post, Van Hollen directly linked his criticism of the war’s strategic value to what he described as mistreatment of service members and their families, arguing that ending the conflict is the surest way to protect the troops currently deployed in support of it.
The USS Abraham Lincoln Backdrop
Van Hollen’s statement comes days after President Trump dismissed concerns raised by family members of sailors and Marines serving aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier that has been deployed for roughly nine months in support of the Iran war effort, known as Operation Epic Fury. Speaking to reporters Friday, August 14, before boarding Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Trump said the deployment had not gone on “nearly long enough” when asked whether it had lasted too long, and separately said “no they’re not” when a reporter told him families of those aboard the ship had expressed concern about conditions on board.
The Lincoln left its home port of San Diego on November 21, 2025, originally bound for a deployment in the South China Sea, before being rerouted to the Middle East ahead of the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran that began February 28. It has since gone more than 200 consecutive days at sea without a port call, a length of deployment the Navy has described as a record for an aircraft carrier. Family members and lawmakers have cited widespread reports of food and supply shortages, contaminated water, broken plumbing, deteriorating mental health among the roughly 5,000 sailors and Marines aboard, and multiple incidents in which crew members reportedly attempted to jump overboard.
Hegseth’s Denial
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth addressed the reports Thursday, August 13, while traveling aboard the USS Gridley in Panama, telling reporters the accounts of conditions on the Lincoln had been “completely misrepresented.” Hegseth said, “We make sure that every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment,” adding, “Some deployments are longer than others, and I have more respect and gratitude for those sailors than anybody. What they do in those high seas and those austere conditions with less port calls, it’s incredible.”
Hegseth’s remarks did not directly address specific allegations raised by families and lawmakers, including reports of inadequate food, contaminated water and multiple attempted overboard incidents. A Navy official told CBS News that, based on information available to the command, the service had “not identified an increase in reported suicidal ideation or suicide attempts aboard the ship,” and said the Lincoln was providing a “comprehensive support network” including onboard counselors, chaplains and medical professionals.
Congressional Democrats Demand Answers
The controversy over the Lincoln’s deployment has drawn a broader response from Senate Democrats in the days before Van Hollen’s Sunday post. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, sent a letter to Hegseth and acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao on Wednesday, August 12, calling for the Navy to account for conditions aboard the carrier. Blumenthal wrote that the ship had been deployed more than 250 days and had gone more than 200 days without a port call, “setting a record for consecutive days at sea,” and cited “widespread reports of shortages of basic supplies, water contamination, plumbing issues, deteriorating mental health, deck safety concerns” and disruptions to the mail system that left care packages stranded for months.
Senator Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), a former Marine who served on active duty, separately called for an official, bipartisan congressional oversight visit to the ship. In a post on X, Gallego wrote that “the stories of crew members threatening to jump off the ship are a frightening alarm bell as to how bad the situation has become: moldy showers, sporadic hot water, rationed meals and soap, broken toilets, and grueling 12- to 16-hour shifts with no days off.” Gallego also said that, in his view, Trump was treating service members with disregard for their safety, saying the administration’s conduct of the war was “not just disgusting” but “dangerous.”
The Navy has said the USS George Washington, homeported in Japan, has begun moving toward the Middle East as part of a “previously scheduled rotation plan” to eventually relieve the Lincoln, though officials have not provided a specific timeline for when the carrier’s deployment will end.
Van Hollen’s Pattern of Criticism
Sunday’s post extends a pattern of public criticism Van Hollen has directed at the administration’s handling of the Iran war and its aftermath dating back to before the conflict began. When Trump first ordered strikes on Iran, Van Hollen said in an official statement that the president was “lying to the American people as he launches an illegal, regime-change war against Iran,” adding that the strikes were “endangering American lives” and had “already resulted in mass civilian casualties,” and calling on the Senate to “immediately vote on the War Powers Resolution to stop it.”
Van Hollen has also criticized Hegseth’s public characterizations of the war’s progress. In April, after Hegseth described Operation Epic Fury as a “capital V military victory,” Van Hollen told CNN that the defense secretary was “once again, blowing smoke, trying to deceive the American people,” and said, “there’s no doubt that we are worse off today than when Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu started this war.”
In July, after Trump compared U.S. casualty figures from the Iran war favorably to other conflicts, Van Hollen told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that the comparison “was a great disservice and showed great disrespect to the men and women who have been killed in this Iran war.” He and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) also led a group of senators earlier this year in opening an investigation into Hegseth’s role in scaling back the Pentagon’s civilian harm prevention programs, writing in a letter that “the high human toll of this war reflects the administration’s broader disregard for the strategic, legal, and moral imperative to minimize civilian harm.”
Background on Operation Epic Fury
Operation Epic Fury began February 28, 2026, when the United States joined Israel in launching strikes against Iran, a campaign Trump and administration officials have described as necessary to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Van Hollen opposed the decision from the outset, stating at the time that “Trump said he would end wars; now he has dragged America into one,” and arguing that the move violated the constitutional requirement that only Congress has the authority to declare war. He noted that “the U.S. intelligence community has repeatedly assessed that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon,” and said “there was more time for diplomacy to work.”
The war has since become a defining and increasingly contentious issue in Washington, prompting War Powers Resolution votes in both chambers of Congress, congressional investigations into casualty reporting and munitions stockpiles, and a U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding aimed at winding down hostilities. The USS Abraham Lincoln’s extended deployment has emerged as one of the most visible flashpoints in the debate over the war’s toll on American service members, drawing bipartisan concern even as the administration has defended its handling of the carrier’s deployment.
What Comes Next
With the USS George Washington still making its way toward the Middle East and no confirmed date for the Lincoln’s return announced, scrutiny over the carrier’s deployment is likely to continue in the coming weeks. Van Hollen’s Sunday statement signals that Democratic lawmakers intend to keep pressing the administration on both the strategic justification for the war and its impact on the troops carrying it out, framing the two issues as inseparable heading into further congressional oversight efforts.