Can Trump manage Iran and sagging economic approval at the same time?

0:00 Good evening and welcome to Washington Week.

0:02 The New York Times polling average shows that 58%

0:05 of Americans disapprove of President Trump's job performance.

0:08 A new high that can be largely attributed to voters' economic concerns.

0:12 Can the president manage the Strait of Hormuz

0:15 and his sagging approval ratings at the same time.

0:18 Joining us tonight to discuss this and more,

0:20 Annie Linsky is a White House reporter at The Wall Street Journal.

0:24 Sung Min Kim is a White House reporter for The Associated Press,

0:28 Tyler Pager is a White House correspondent at The New York Times,

0:32 and Yvonne Winget Sanchez is a staff writer at The Atlantic.

0:35 I bet you're jealous that you're not a White House correspondent.

0:38 I, we can make your White House correspondent.

0:40 You make me anything you want, Yvonne actually is visiting us from Phoenix.

0:44 She lives in America and is going to talk

0:46 to us about what she sees actually in America, so that's very exciting.

0:49 Um, let meyler, let me start with, with you,

0:52 the approval ratings, um, especially on the economy.

0:55 They're they're slipping fairly quickly into fairly red

0:59 zone ter ri t ory So you're, you're, well,

1:01 all of you are in the White House every day,

1:04 talking to them, uh, what's the level of worry?

1:07 I mean, there's obviously concern publicly they are trying

1:10 to downplay that concern and say there's months till the midterms,

1:14 voters are not locking in until the summer and their hope is

1:18 that the president gets this conflict under control and prices start to go down,

1:22 but we've seen time and time again,

1:25 voters 123 concern is the economy that Donald Trump came

1:29 back to the White House on a message about lowering prices,

1:32 and we're seeing the exact opposite happening.

1:35 So there is clearly concern,

1:36 and we're seeing that in the body language of Donald Trump,

1:40 the way that he's talking about this and for as much

1:43 as they are trying to tamp it down publicly,

1:46 it's obviously dictating the way in which he's behaving,

1:49 because Republicans don't want to lose control of Congress,

1:51 and I think there was a lot

1:53 of optimism that Democrats could take back the House,

1:55 but these numbers are putting the Senate in play as well,

1:59 something that they really have months.

2:00 I mean, this idea that people don't lock in until the summer.

2:04 What's getting locked in now is the perception that gas costs too much,

2:08 food costs too much, that the Iran war is not being won.

2:12 Yes, particularly when you have his top cabinet officials talking about

2:15 how gas prices may not go down for a long time,

2:18 even if President Trump disagrees with that assessment

2:20 from the Energy Secretary Chris Wright,

2:22 but there is certainly a lot of concern, you know,

2:24 throughout Washington, Republicans about their prospects in the midterms,

2:27 and I would point to just what we

2:30 saw on Tuesday with the Virginia redistricting referendum.

2:32 You know, we still have to wait to see what the local courts say about that map,

2:37 whether it's constitutional under Virginia law, but if that map stands, I mean,

2:42 that could be the game on its own in terms

2:45 of uh in terms of Democrats gaining the House majority,

2:48 you know, we're talking about sentiments from the White House.

2:51 James Blair, the former deputy chief of staff,

2:53 now leading the midterm effort set on CNN

2:56 this week that it's too soon to declare defeat,

2:59 but I do think that is an acknowledgment.

3:02 It's really not a challenge there.

3:04 I think Republicans know they have a really big uphill uphill hurdle.

3:08 I want to come back to the gerry man der ing issue.

3:12 We're going to do a 40 minute slide

3:14 deck presentation for our viewers on on gerrymandering,

3:16 but I want to stay on the gas prices in Iran for the moment.

3:21 Annie, you wrote this week pretty remarkable story with Josh Dassey about

3:25 the president's unease with the way things are going in and around.

3:29 I want to read this one passage, uh,

3:32 Trump has since marveled at the ease with which the strait was closed.

3:35 A guy with a drone can shut it down, Trump has said to people,

3:39 expressing belated irritation at the Key Waterway was so vulnerable.

3:42 He has publicly oscillated between demanding support from allies to help open

3:46 it and insisting that the US doesn't need or want military assistance.

3:51 He was told obviously in the lead up to this war, that that is the choke point.

3:57 I mean, so, so is he really surprised?

4:00 Was he not paying attention to the, the briefings?

4:03 Yes, first of all, he was told this was a briefing that he

4:09 received his top generals and war planners came to him and said,

4:12 Sir, one of the first things that will happen

4:15 is the Strait of Hormuz will be closed now.

4:18 The president believed that the US bombing campaign would uh would

4:24 topple the regime before they had the chance to do that.

4:29 He was aware when he ordered this is what Netanyahu said, what Hegg said,

4:33 other other more enthusiastic participants and we

4:37 have reported that this was the sentiment within

4:40 the White House that the president was told

4:42 this this will shut down this strait will shut.

4:45 And look, I mean, did the president order

4:48 the president was aware that his belief could be inaccurate.

4:50 I mean, he didn't order the bombing

4:54 purely thinking that that the street wouldn't close.

4:56 There was an awareness that the street would close,

4:58 but I think the other part that was interesting is they there

5:01 there wasn't as much of an awareness that the strait would close

5:05 so fast that boats would be so easily coerced into not passing

5:08 through because there wasn't some big battle for the Strait of Hormuz.

5:12 You know, the Iranians said we're gonna, we're going to shoot,

5:15 we're going to sink any boat that goes through and companies said,

5:18 OK, we, we will stop sending our boats through.

5:21 And so there was a disconnect there also with people advising the president,

5:26 people who are around around the president,

5:28 but look, Trump believed that the regime would fall

5:32 first and and that that turned out to be wrong.

5:35 Now, look, you know, this, and this remains the choke point and remains

5:39 the issue that he's going to have to wrestle with as we contend in the next few

5:43 days with whether this bombing campaign starts again, right?

5:47 You, Yvonne, there's something so interesting here politically,

5:51 you, you've watched presidencies.

5:52 as we all have.

5:56 since Jimmy Carter Iran has uh destroyed a couple of presidencies,

6:04 certainly undermined other presidencies.

6:07 Maybe when we look back on this period,

6:09 we'll we'll say that the height of the height of confidence.

6:14 uh, that, that the, the Trump administration

6:17 was experiencing came right after the Maduro operation,

6:21 and that led them to kind of lose their balance and think,

6:25 oh, we are going to deal with Iran in a different way than any president since.

6:30 I mean, looking at the arc of history, this is all predictable.

6:35 I mean, when you go out and you talk to how this is, you talk to people,

6:39 you like really try to suss out how this is playing with everyday Americans.

6:43 Whether political op er ative s like it or not,

6:46 like voters are locked in right now.

6:48 They are locked in not because uh they think that Trump

6:56 is any sort of badass for like going and doing,

6:59 you know, the Venezuela uh pulling it off in Venezuela.

7:02 They, they are feeling maximum pain.

7:04 That's why they are locked in.

7:05 They're not paying attention really to what is happening in foreign countries,

7:10 what our foreign policy is.

7:11 They are looking at their checkbooks every day,

7:13 and they're looking at how much money is going.

7:16 Tyle, that's an interesting point.

7:17 Is there, is there a chance that if he had done this in Iran,

7:22 everything was the same except gas prices remain the same.

7:24 Do you think that this would not be a crisis for the White House.

7:28 I mean, if, if he had been successful in taking out the regime and then,

7:32 you know, I, I mean, I think when you look at the big picture, to your point,

7:36 you're, I absolutely agree with you that Maduro was the high point.

7:39 When you listen to Trump talk about his foreign policy.

7:43 He lists off his accomplishments as if it's a laundry list of success.

7:47 He talks about Soleimani from the first term.

7:49 He talks about the Operation Midnight Hammer

7:51 from the summer where they dropped bombs on Iran,

7:54 and he said they obliterated their nuclear program.

7:56 That's not fully true.

7:57 You, you know, he talks about the Maduro operation and so I,

8:02 I think he wants to think of himself on this pedestal

8:07 of a president who has brought peace to the world,

8:10 and he sees these various operations as doing so so I think

8:14 if this operation in Iran had been successful in the sense that he

8:18 was able to replace the regime with people who were more willing

8:22 to cut a deal with him like he had done in Venezuela.

8:25 Absolutely.

8:25 I don't think there would have been some political pain because the economy,

8:30 there are other factors contributing to rising costs,

8:33 not just the war with Iran, but I do think that he overestimated

8:39 and compared the Venezuela situation to Iran.

8:41 And if you talk to any experts or any foreign policy analysts,

8:44 they could not be more different.

8:46 Zhang Wen, this is a really kind of interesting moment to study his ambitions,

8:54 because we we've gotten the sense that from Cuba to Venezuela to Iran.

9:00 He wants to change their governments,

9:03 and he wants the credit for bringing democracy to these places,

9:08 the same reason he looks at maps and says, I want to own Greenland.

9:12 He wants to change the way things look.

9:14 We know that in Washington because he wants to build an enormous arch,

9:18 you know, right across from the Lincoln Memorial.

9:20 He redecorates the White House, and I want to talk about the redecorating

9:24 and King Charles's upcoming visit to the Oval Office,

9:27 King Charles, in architec ture expert, by the way, um,

9:30 but, but is he being thrown off his game now?

9:34 He, he had these ambitions of changing the world,

9:37 and now the world is saying it's not so easy.

9:41 Well, clearly, I mean, when you are at war with another country,

9:44 the other country gets a say, and I think that's the, I mean,

9:47 it's a basic fact and that, but that is

9:49 the complicating factor for the president right now,

9:52 and his ambitions are not something that's easily explainable

9:55 to the voter who was looking at the gas tank,

9:58 who was looking at the price tag when they fill up their cars,

10:00 you know, when the president gets pressed about the gas issue,

10:04 he says, well, you know, it's it's a small price to pay,

10:07 particularly if it means Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon for the future,

10:11 and he may be right on that point, but that I'm not sure how much that matters

10:16 to the voter who's now paying 50 $60.80 dollars for a tank,

10:19 and I mean we all covered the Biden administration.

10:22 Remember how obsessive Ron Klain was,

10:24 the former White House chief of staff with gas prices because it

10:27 is kind of the one consumer product where you see the price tag,

10:30 the sticker price, all over town, wherever you go.

10:32 So that is ingrained in voters' mind so much more in a way

10:36 than like perhaps egg prices or milk or clothing or whatnot,

10:39 and that's why it is so politically

10:42 potent and the White House knows that, right?

10:44 And just I mean just to add on to that, um,

10:47 when the president asks for short term pain for some sort

10:52 of elusive goal that voters didn't even know they were working toward.

10:55 That's a big ask.

10:56 It's like to take the Biden administration back to it.

10:58 They use the word transitory, that rising prices were just a transitory

11:02 phenomenon that doesn't really hit when,

11:04 as Sung Min said, you're going to the gas price and it's just more expensive.

11:08 I don't think a lot of voters are making the calculation.

11:10 that it's OK because we're winning a war in Iran when

11:13 by all accounts it doesn't feel like we're winning a war, right?

11:17 Well, let me go to this that direct point.

11:20 I want you to listen to something that Trump just said.

11:24 He believes that he has,

11:25 or he says he believes that he has all the time in the world to confront Iran,

11:29 but here he is comparing a possible

11:31 timeline to a notably unsuccessful American war.

11:36 Listen to this.

11:37 So we're in Vietnam like for 18 years We're in Iraq for many, many years.

11:42 We're in for all the, I don't like to say World War 2 because that was a biggie,

11:47 but we were 4.5, almost 5 years in World War II.

11:50 Uh, we were in the Korean War for 7 years.

11:53 I've been doing this for 6 weeks.

11:58 I will agree that World War II was a biggie.

12:01 It was, it was one of the biggies, uh,

12:03 wars that we ever had, but it just seems like, I mean,

12:06 here's a man with very good political instincts, Yvonne,

12:10 and he and he's invoking Vietnam,

12:14 the most notably unsuccessful, devastating war in the country.

12:19 You said earlier that voters are fixed on gas

12:23 prices and not these foreign adventurers from Venezuela to Iran,

12:28 but they hear him invoking Vietnam as a promise.

12:33 It's got to affect the the mindset of people.

12:36 If it is terrifying to a lot of people.

12:39 They, for a lot of people this just came out of nowhere.

12:42 They have no idea why, what we're doing, why we're there, um,

12:46 this is a president who promised that he would not do this.

12:49 He would only bring peace.

12:51 They're paying more at the pump.

12:53 They're canceling their summer vacations.

12:54 They can't afford to take their wives and families out for dinner.

12:57 I mean, these, there's a huge disconnect between

13:01 what is happening out in the real world

13:03 and how people are absorbing this moment in his decisions

13:05 and how they may view this plane out.

13:08 Um, by the time the midterms actually roll around to put a point on it.

13:11 I mean there are two promises that President Trump ran on.

13:15 One was to tackle inflation,

13:18 and another was to stay out of foreign wars and foreign entanglements,

13:21 and those are two areas which, you know,

13:24 you know, that is not what people are seeing transpire.

13:27 So we are also hearing that same concern

13:30 from voters and the White House is sharing it too.

13:32 I mean, Trump is seeing this polling numbers

13:35 he's seeing internal polling numbers from his political team.

13:38 They are showing it to him, but in his mind,

13:41 his calculation is that this has been a problem that I believe 7

13:46 other presidents have wrestled with, and I

13:49 mean Iran has been a nettlesome issue, you know, for 47 years,

13:53 and he has been hearing from other people around him that look,

13:57 you can do something that no other president was able to do,

14:01 and I think that that was quite enticing to him,

14:04 and you know we still will see what will happen.

14:06 I mean, there is a scenario where this can wrap that.

14:10 there's there's a scenario where he gets out

14:13 of this and not his 4 to 6 week time frame,

14:16 but more of a sort of two months to 2.5 month.

14:19 Surprising though that he has Vietnam on his mind.

14:23 I mean, just to build on that, I mean,

14:26 he has said all these former presidents have called him and said,

14:30 you did something that I could never do.

14:32 There's no evidence that that that is true,

14:34 but, but it's to Annie's point that he

14:36 wanted to do something he thought his predecessors couldn't.

14:38 And and also just on on that front,

14:41 he is petrified of comparisons to the JCPOA, the deal that Iran deal, Iran deal.

14:49 He does not want any comparison to that deal.

14:52 He's always said he could do better,

14:54 and that's why he ripped it up in his first term.

14:56 So he's caught between wanting to get out of this war.

14:59 That's why we keep seeing extending the ceasefire with no time limit.

15:02 He's not eager to continue to drop bombs on Iran and also trying

15:07 to get a deal that is better than Obama's deal, in his words.

15:10 but Iran now has leverage in a different way than they have.

15:14 It strikes me that he would rather perhaps have

15:17 an Iranian toll booth on the Strait of Hormuz,

15:21 then go into back to an active shooting war with Iran,

15:25 given where we are in the 2026 cycle, right?

15:29 And it just all shows the complications again of war.

15:32 I mean, for example, he was pressed on the the 4 to 64 to 6

15:36 week timeline that he had said several times when he was,

15:38 uh, when he, when he was holding an Oval Office event earlier this week.

15:41 And when a reporter asked him about that, he said, well, you know,

15:44 I destroyed the military in 4 weeks, so that we're,

15:46 that's kind of the time frame how we're working out.

15:48 So he's changing the goalpost there a little bit,

15:50 but the fact remains that we're on, I believe, week 8 now,

15:54 um, so that is far, that is beyond the initial

15:56 time frame that he gave to the American people.

15:59 And also another important thing to remember is the War Powers Act.

16:02 There's a 60 day time limit by which you know,

16:06 Congress is going to have to get their say under this law.

16:10 That 60 days is coming up fairly soon next week.

16:13 On the other hand, Congress is not

16:15 the most active of the three branches of government,

16:18 but in theory that's what the law would allow,

16:21 and I would just say also though, the Iranians are feeling pain too,

16:24 and there are there are oil reserves on Carri Island.

16:28 are about to fill up.

16:30 They're at the almost at capacity because they haven't been

16:34 able to run the US blockade and get oil out.

16:37 And so they're gonna,

16:38 they're in a position where they're going to have to stop pumping oil,

16:42 which is, is leverage for them.

16:44 They won't, we can forget in these conversations

16:46 that the United States is the superpower.

16:49 Iran is a third tier power.

16:50 They have chokepoint, obviously they're also a brutal,

16:54 terrible regime wildly unpopular with their own population,

16:58 and we also sometimes forget that Donald

17:00 Trump has had luck throughout his career.

17:03 I want to, but I want to talk

17:05 to something that's a little bit unlucky for Donald Trump