Megyn Kelly said she believes troops who died in Donald Trump's recent attacks on Iran lost their lives 'for Iran or Israel.'

The SiriusXM host was speaking about American soldiers who were killed in the strikes when she said the mission did not appear to have a clear objective.

She said of the troops: 'The guys in the and the gals who have to actually carry out this mission … why again? And put their lives on the line … for whom, again?' 

Kelly acknowledged that early polling on Operation Epic Fury has been divisive and she's leaning towards being against the attacks.  

'My own feeling is no one should have to die for a foreign country. I don't think those four service members died for the United States. I think they died for Iran or for Israel,' she said.

Her comments came before Secretary of State Marco Rubio admitted the preemptive strikes against Iran were after learning Israel was about to attack — and American troops in the region faced an imminent threat of retaliation  

Kelly said that the war belongs to conservative influencers and donors, ranging from Fox host Mark Levin to Ben Shapiro to Senator Lindsey Graham. 

'Our government's job is not to look out for Iran or for Israel. It's to look out for us. And this feels very much to me like it is clearly Israel's war.'

Kelly tried to put herself into Trump's frame of mind for taking this action against the Iranian regime. 

'I do believe Trump doesn't want to get us into another Forever War, and I believe he wouldn't willingly submit to [a] quagmire… In his mind, he thinks he can do this.'

She did describe the president as being 'all over the board' in terms of how long the battle will last, with Trump suggesting four weeks but having said he's willing to go longer. 

'Regime change wars and taking out another country's leader is full of danger too. I pray for the Trump family. I don't want anything to happen to them, and we increase the risk of that with this behavior,' she said.

Rubio made the revelation on Capitol Hill, where he briefed a small group of congressional leaders on the joint US-Israel offensive.

'There absolutely was an imminent threat,' Rubio stated. 'And the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us, and we were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded.'

Rubio said the Department of War determined that a defensive posture following an Israeli attack would only open the US to more casualties. Five American soldiers have died so far in combat. 

'We went proactively in a defensive way to prevent them from inflicting higher damage,' he said. 

The revelation outraged both Democrats and Republicans.

'Secretary Rubio's remarks indicate that Israel put U.S. forces in harm's way by insisting on attacking Iran,' Congressman Joaquin Castro reacted on X. 'And the administration was complicit—joining their war instead of talking them down.'

Conservative pundit Matt Walsh wrote: 'So he's flat out telling us that we're in a war with Iran because Israel forced our hand. This is basically the worst possible thing he could have said.'

'Had we not done so, there would have been hearings on Capitol Hill about how we knew that this was going to happen, and we didn't act preemptively to prevent more casualties and more loss of life,' Rubio explained. 

Iran had already prepositioned its missiles and had them on ready alert, the secretary of state claimed.

He did not specify where the missiles were aiming or which US targets would have been within range.

'Within an hour of the initial attack on the leadership compound, the missile forces in the south and in the north, for that matter, had already been activated to launch. In fact, those had already been pre-positioned.'

War powers resolutions - legislation aimed at reeling in the President's authority to unilaterally order strikes - have already been drafted in both the House and Senate. 

However, the GOP-controlled Congress has not passed these resolutions, despite large Democratic support and the backing of some Republicans. 

Rubio said that though Congress has the right to take a war powers vote, it's already happened 'a bunch of times' without success.

Even if it did pass, it would likely face legal trouble as no presidential administration - neither Republican or Democratic -  has ever said that a war powers resolution is constitutional, Rubio said. 

'We've complied with the law 100 percent, and we're going to continue to comply with it.'

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