Republican insiders are growing increasingly alarmed that President Donald Trump is being kept in the dark about the realities of the ongoing war with Iran, a conflict he initiated and one that continues to roil the global economy.

Republican members of both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees told the Daily Mail that Trump's senior military leadership is too fearful to deliver candid assessments to the president regarding the broader damage being done and the increasingly intractable nature of the conflict in which the administration and American taxpayers are now deeply invested. The concern touches on a well-documented tension in American civil-military relations: under the Pentagon's formal chain of command, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs serves in an advisory rather than operational role, making him a critical conduit — and potential bottleneck — for battlefield intelligence reaching the Oval Office.

"Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, are being accused of not being willing to relay what troops are seeing to the president," the Daily Mail reports. "And two MAGA-connected Republican lawmakers, who were granted anonymity to speak candidly, have shared their concerns about Trump's military leaders."

"Hegseth is afraid of Trump and won't be as honest as he should about the war for fear of losing his job," the lawmakers told Daily Mail White House Correspondent Jon Michael Raasch.

According to one of the lawmakers, Caine is not regarded as part of Trump's "inner circle," and the president is "surrounded by a bunch of fearful yes men who can't tell POTUS the truth."

"I see very few ways to wrap up Iran other than to withdraw and somehow market that as a 'win,'" the lawmaker added.

A sitting Republican Senator further told the Daily Mail that Trump is operating without a clear picture of the situation because Caine has failed to facilitate a direct connection between Admiral Brad Cooper, the leader of US Central Command, and the president — despite the fact that Cooper is the officer responsible for overseeing operations against Iran. Under the Pentagon's unified command plan, combatant commanders like Cooper report directly to the secretary of defense and, through that chain, to the president on operational matters, which makes a sustained disconnect between a theater commander and the commander-in-chief notable.

"General Caine is making a mistake by not encouraging the president and Admiral Cooper to sit down and hear his view of how this operation could be successful," the Senate Armed Services Committee lawmaker said privately.

Trump's strategy for Iran remains opaque as the conflict he launched stretches into a monthslong campaign that is now bleeding into the midterm election cycle. Every peace deal Trump has signaled over recent weeks has collapsed. Most recently, Iranian leaders effectively torched a deal Trump had hinted at, as they proceeded with bombing US allies.

The Senator who spoke with the Daily Mail accused Caine of fearing blowback from any potentially risky continued operation, describing him as "abundantly cautious."

"That's not a formula for getting out of conflict successfully," the Senator added. "I think you should let the commander on the ground [Cooper] give his view to the Commander-in-Chief."