Newsmax host: “You lose support for me if you put boots on the ground in combat roles” in Iran
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From the March 25, 2026, edition of Newsmax's Carl Higbie: Frontline
CARL HIGBIE (HOST): Congresswoman Nancy Mace, though, Tony, posting on X today that she walked out of an Armed Services Committee hearing on all this stuff and saying, look, look, I'm not going to support troops on the ground in Iran, even more so after the briefing, later posting that, you know, President Trump has been enormously successful so far, but we cannot allow the Washington war machine to turn Iran into another Iraq. Look, I am — this is the red line for me. I — you lose support for me if you put boots on the ground in combat roles.
TONY SHAFFER (GUEST): There's no indication, Carl, that anybody I'm talking to is talking about a major land army showing up. There's some shaping operations going on. Do we have boots on the ground in Iran? Oh, yeah. But they're not a land army. We're doing reconnaissance. We're doing special operations. Right now we're talking about using the MUSE — the Marine expeditionary units you're very familiar with in shaping operations regarding Kharg Island and maybe some other locations, like the Strait of Hormuz, plus the 82nd airborne. But, Carl, this is — Iran's the size of Alaska. There's no planning that I'm aware of that would postulate we will be putting anything like the, you know, the 18th Airborne Corps on the ground there. So, I think there's things we should do on the ground. Invading is not one of them.
HIGBIE: Yeah. No, I happen to think you're right. I don't think Trump's going to do it. But you know, you got to posture to make it look for it. But you know, look, if Nancy Mace is saying that it's like there's some — that means that somebody, some neocon somewhere has raised their hand like, hey, you know what we should do? We should get Lockheed Martin to outfit all these ground troops. And that's how they make their money.