Donald Trump was recently asked whether he’d factored in the financial pain the Iran war has inflicted on ordinary Americans, and he had a pretty straightforward answer: No, not even a little bit. “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation, I don’t think about anybody,” he said. “I think about one thing: You cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon.”
Now, this Friday, Trump was asked again by Fox News’ Bret Baier if that was his definitive answer. “That’s a perfect statement, I’d make it again,” he said.
That’s a fine political answer in the abstract, but when you consider that it’s hitting the average American and even Trump’s own base, it starts to sound less like leadership and more like an indifferent shrug.
The Iran war — launched February 28 as Operation Epic Fury — has not exactly unfolded on the timeline the White House presumably had in mind. Multiple top Iranian officials have been killed since the U.S. and Israel first launched strikes, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
But there have been no major defections in Tehran’s governing structure, with the IRGC spearheading the war effort. Khamenei’s son Mojtaba took over and has barely been seen in public since.
Negotiations have sputtered along through Pakistan as mediator, with Trump rejecting Iran’s counterproposal last week as “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE” on Truth Social, while Iran framed the U.S. offer as a demand for surrender.
And while all of this has been happening, the global economy is taking a beating every day, with effects that could echo through the market for years after the guns go quiet.
Another round of air strikes against Iran?
According to The New York Times, the Pentagon is giving the president a range of military options again, in the hope of convincing Tehran to accept U.S. demands. Considering the fact that the Middle Eastern country came out of 40 days of relentless airstrikes largely intact, it’s not clear what a second round is supposed to accomplish, other than deplete the U.S. army’s already strained stockpile of advanced munitions.
Trump also told Fox News‘ Baier on Friday that he’s not thinking about November’s midterms when it comes to Iran policy. His party probably wishes he were. Trump’s approval rating has sunk below 40%, with voters now saying they trust Democrats more on the economy than Republicans for the first time since 2010.
The president’s answer to all of it — the gas price, the stalled negotiations, the midterm math, the inflation — is essentially a single talking point he keeps returning to like a broken record: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.
And we have an increasingly nagging suspicion that the talking point originates not from Washington but from offices of a certain foreign government.
