This is not the run-up to the midterm elections that the US Republicans wanted.
A year and a half after winning the White House by promising to lower costs and end wars, Donald Trump is a wartime president overseeing surging energy costs and an escalating overseas conflict.
The war in Iran was largely unpopular even before an American fighter jet was shot down in Iran, a development that dominated headlines on Friday and contradicted Trump’s claim that Tehran's military capabilities have been all but destroyed.
One crew member has been rescued.
Earlier in the week, the Republican president offered little clarity to a nation eager for answers during a prime-time address from the White House, his first since the US and Israel attacked Iran more than a month ago, simultaneously suggesting that the war was ending and expanding.
World leaders are searching for ways to restore oil flows amid rare public criticism of the US president’s handling of the war with Iran. (Source: 1News)
“Thanks to the progress we’ve made, I can say tonight that we are on track to complete all of America’s military objectives shortly, very shortly,” Trump said.
“We’re going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks.”
Trump's comments come roughly six months before voters across the nation begin to cast ballots in elections that will decide control of Congress and key governorships for Trump’s final two years in office.
For now, Republicans, who control all branches of government in Washington, are bracing for a painful political backlash.
“You’re looking at an ugly November,” warned veteran Republican pollster Neil Newhouse.
“At a point in time when we need every break possible to hold the House and Senate, our edge is being chipped away.”
Several New Zealand church leaders and scholars are condemning the Trump administration’s use of scripture to frame military action, calling it a betrayal of Christianity’s message of peace and humility. (Source: 1News)
Republicans confront evolving political landscape
It’s hard to overstate how dramatically the political landscape has shifted.
At this time last year, many Republican leaders believed there was a path to preserve their narrow House majority and easily hold the Senate.
Now they privately concede that the House is all but lost and Democrats have a realistic shot at taking the Senate.
Republicans are also struggling to coalesce around a clear midterm message on Iran.
The Republican National Committee has largely avoided the war in talking points issued to surrogates over the last month.
The leaders of the party's campaign committees responsible for the House and Senate declined interview requests.
The war on Iran with Israel has done exactly the opposite and criticism is growing. (Source: 1News)
Many vulnerable Republican candidates sidestep the issue, unwilling to defend or challenge Trump publicly.
The president remains deeply popular with Republican voters, and he has vocal supporters like Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
“That was the best speech I could’ve hoped for,” he wrote on social media after Trump's address on Wednesday evening.
Graham said Trump “gave the American people a clear and coherent pathway forward.”
Trump made little effort to sell the conflict to Americans before the initial attack.
Five weeks later, at least 13 US service members have been killed and hundreds more injured. Thousands more troops have converged on the region, and the Pentagon requested US$200 billion in new funding.
American public tune in for information from the President, only to be disappointed. (Source: 1News)
The Strait of Hormuz, a key passage for a fifth of the world’s oil, remains closed.
The average price for a gallon of gasoline in the US was US$4.08 on Thursday, according to AAA, almost a full dollar higher than on former president Joe Biden's last day in office.
On Wednesday, Trump insisted that gas prices would fall quickly once the war concluded but offered no solution for reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
Instead, he invited skeptical US allies to do it themselves.
He insisted that the war would be worth it.
“This is a true investment in your grandchildren and your grandchildren’s future,” Trump said.
“When it’s all over, the United States will be safer, stronger, more prosperous and greater than it has ever been before.”
Former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican who was once among Trump's most vocal allies in Congress, lashed out against his Iran policy.
“I wanted so much for President Trump to put America First. That’s what I believed he would do. All I heard from his speech tonight was WAR WAR WAR,” she wrote on social media.
“Nothing to lower the cost of living for Americans.”
Time is not on Trump's side
About six in ten US adults say the US military action in Iran has “gone too far,” according to AP-NORC polling from March. Roughly a third approve of how he’s handling Iran overall. The possibility of sending US forces into Iran also appears politically unpalatable.
About six in ten adults are “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed to deploying US troops on the ground to fight Iran. That includes about half of Republicans.
Only about one in 10 favour deploying troops.
At the same time, Trump’s approval ratings have remained consistently weak.
About four in 10 Americans approve of how he’s handling the presidency, roughly in line with how it’s been throughout his second term.
Republican strategist Ari Fleischer, a senior aide in former President George W Bush’s administration, acknowledged that Trump has not received the polling bump in this war that Bush got after invading Iraq.
Bush, of course, worked to build public backing for the Iraq War before going in. Immediately after the 2003 invasion, Bush's popularity soared, as did the stock market.
Public sentiment and the economy soured only after the conflict stretched on.
It ultimately spanned more than eight years, spawning a generation of anti-war Republicans — and sowing the seeds of Trump's “America First” foreign policy.
“My hope is that the Trump experience is the exact opposite of the Bush experience,” Fleischer said.
He said Trump must win the war decisively and quickly to avoid a further backlash, saying there could be a “very significant political upside if things end well, oil comes down and markets rally.”
Fleischer added that Trump's actions will matter much more than his words.
“Ultimately, he is not going to get judged on his persuasion or his explanations or his assertions, he’s going to get judged on results,” he said.
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