Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said he was being sarcastic when he called reports that Iranian ships had slipped by a U.S. blockade “Awesome” in a post to X on Monday, responding to the news that as many as 26 vessels had avoided U.S. detection.
Murphy brushed off criticisms that he had celebrated shortcomings in President Donald Trump’s military strategy.
“It’s so unbelievably disingenuous. Obviously, all these Republicans know that I was being sarcastic. They just don’t really want to actually have to answer for the fact that this war has gone off the rails,” Murphy said. “Republicans don’t want to talk about that, so they try to create fake outrage over sarcasm.“
Murphy’s defense of his phrasing highlights the tension Democrats have navigated since the U.S. first began hostilities with Tehran: pushing back on parts of the Trump administration’s Iran strategy without inadvertently sounding sympathetic of a geopolitical adversary.
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Like many Democrats, Murphy panned Trump’s decision to bomb Iran and, more recently, voiced criticisms of plans to impose a naval blockade on Iran in an attempt to shake Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for global oil shipping.
“Let’s talk about Trump’s insane plan to fix Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz: helping them close the Strait,” Murphy said of the administration’s strategy earlier this month.
“He is compounding one mistake after another.”
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GOP skeptics responding to his post believe Murphy is celebrating the defeat of a strategy he thought was ill-advised to begin with.
“A sitting U.S. Senator is actively rooting for Iran. Crazy as hell. TRAITOR,” the Libs of TikTok, a popular conservative account, wrote in a post of its own.
Murphy told Fox News Digital those criticisms were overblown, calling them a deflection of the war’s political toll.
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“You’re talking about a war that’s cost American taxpayers billions of dollars that’s allowed for Iran to control the Strait,” Murphy said. “Over a dozen Americans have been killed. There doesn’t seem to be any endgame.”
Asked to comment on Murphy’s post, at least one other Senator declined to weigh in.
“I’m not familiar with that,” Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., told Fox News Digital.