Republican Congressman and Iraq War Vet Claims He Also Fought ‘Over in Iran’

Rep. John James (R-MI) either drastically misspoke or broke some major news on Thursday night when he claimed that, in addition to Iraq, he also fought “in Iran.”

James, who attained the rank of captain in the U.S. Army and served multiple tours of duty in the Iraq war, won Tuesday’s Republican gubernatorial primary in Michigan after receiving the endorsement of President Donald Trump. He joined Thursday’s edition of Hannity on Fox News, where the host asked him to respond to Dr. Abdul El-Sayed clinching the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in the state on Tuesday.

“No way, I see El-Sayed winning,” Sean Hannity told James, before alluding to a spate of wins by progressive candidates in Democratic primaries this year. “And I think you’ve got the best shot you’ve ever had to be the governor, and I think Michigan needs a change. What is your take on what has happened to the Democratic Party?”

James responded by painting El-Sayed, who was born in suburban Detroit, as being on par with the “extremists” he “fought over in Iran and in Iraq”:

They created a monster and now they can’t control it. And right now it’s going to be up to Republicans to answer the call again. Our party was founded to stand up against slavery and hold our nation together. And now in this day, we are being called upon to stand up against socialism and hold our state and our nation together. We are going to fight to make sure that the extremists that I fought over in Iran and over in Iraq are not going to be able to come and change our republic and strip our Constitution away from our families and futures.

The U.S., as far as the public has been informed, has not deployed troops to Iran in James’s lifetime, and nothing in James’s congressional bio indicates he fought anywhere but Iraq. (During World War II, the U.S. had more than 30,000 soldiers stationed in Iran as part of the Persian Gulf Command.)

Since February, the U.S. has been bombing Iran in a conflict that does not involve ground troops.

Watch above via Fox News.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!