6 MONTHS OF WAR： Trump’s Iran promises COLLAPSE as costs hit Americans

We begin this hour with the war in Iran. Major news sources marking the sixth month of the war by noting Trump's failures. The New York Times reporting that Iran's regime stands, U.S. goals remain unmet. Reuters calling the current situation a, quote, costly stalemate. The Washington Post and Associated Press noting that Trump broke his promises of a short war. Trump vowed in March that the conflict would last only four to five weeks, then in April claimed it would end in, quote, days, not weeks. In June, he said he was having he was very close to having a deal. But six months in, there's little signs of progress and Americans aren't happy. Nearly two thirds disapprove of Trump's handling of his war of choice and Iran. Here's what voters in the key swing state of North Carolina, where Trump won in twenty twenty four, are saying. How is this war impacting your life? Well, inflation's up, things are costing a little more, definitely has an effect and just makes it more real with people's lives being adjusted. Cost of everything is going up and stuff like that. And, you know, family members and stuff, you know, it takes a toll on your family. That's for sure. If we're talking about American first, then we need to do American first. And I feel like right now, as Americans, we're suffering. The numbers back them up. Economists estimate that this war has cost the average American family over seven hundred dollars in fuel prices and more than twelve hundred dollars in household costs. But throughout the six months of this war, Trump has repeatedly downplayed that economic reality. I don't think about American financial situation. I don't think about anybody. I think about one thing. We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. This is peanuts. And I appreciate everybody putting up with it for a little while. It won't be much longer. We don't want to have them have a nuclear weapon. So remember that when you have to pay a little bit more, you're at four dollars. It's OK. I mean, it's I'm not I'm not I'll never apologize. I did the right thing. Republicans fear that that attitude will drag them down in the midterms as early voting will begin in some states in just a few short weeks. Joining me now is Eugene Robinson, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and MSNL political analyst and Jeff Mason, Bloomberg White House correspondent, who is fresh off of the new Air Force One just in Houston today. So we appreciate your hustle. Thank you so much for joining us. And Jeff, I believe because I was at the White House while you were shuttling back and forth across the country and I did not hear the president make any mention of the war in Iran and this six month anniversary that we are all watching closely today. Am I wrong about that? Did he bring it up at all? I didn't hear him talk about it either. And in fact, he didn't take questions from the pool today so that we didn't have a chance to ask him about that. But I will. And he didn't take any questions on Air Force One. I know he didn't take any questions on the plane. No. Well, OK. So when you're taking a step back over the past six months, taking stock of everything that President Trump has said from February through now is do you feel like this is a story about a war or is this a cost of living story? And does it matter what voters think when they're walking into the booth in November? Well, I think I think it's both. And so to that extent, it doesn't really matter politically anyway. I mean, voters have made clear over decades that they care about their pocketbooks when they're going to the polls. And those two things are intertwined. As your introduction made clear, the president has long liked to blame inflation on his predecessor. But this is now his economy. And it's the Iran war, as well as the tariffs that have led to increased prices. So that is his political albatross. That is the Republican Party's political albatross. That doesn't mean that he doesn't have other things that some voters are going to like. And one administration official who was on the trip today did talk to a few reporters afterwards and made clear that oil, more oil is coming through the Strait of Hormuz. That's something that the administration is proud of. But that doesn't mean it's where it was before the war. That is despite the threat of more economic devastation from the administration, although the specifics of that have yet to be announced. I want to get back to the albatross of it all, but first get to these pretty startling approval rating numbers, Gene. I mean, these numbers are lower than when Trump left the White House post January 6 in 2021. I believe it is one percentage point lower. What does it say about this erosion that it is worse than an insurrection? Well, look, this this second Trump administration has been an onslaught of stuff. And a lot of it, as Jeff said, has has raised the cost of living for people and especially has really defaulted on his main promise. What's it supposed to be? Make America great again. America first. That's not what people are seeing. And I think there's disillusionment about that in addition to anger and and voting enthusiasm on the part of the opposition, just because he has it's been so outrageous, some of the things that he's done. But the war clearly is politically an own goal. It really is because it was a war of choice in this. He did. Nobody really saw it coming. And and he stuck with it. You can't just end a war by snapping your fingers. Yeah. Well, what do you feel like the strategy is from the White House here? And do you get the sense, Jeff, that anyone in the White House understands what a real world and political quandary the president has gotten himself into? I mean, are they just trying to simply lower the temperature on the conflict and make voters forget about it temporarily, despite the prices that they're seeing reflected when they go to the gas station, when they go to the grocery store, by just making sure that there's not more military action? Or is this new economic pivot to applying more pressure on the Iranians and trying to, you know, cast them into an economic subjugation? Is that a real strategy that you feel like advisers within the administration actually might work and not just be a prelude to more fighting? Well, there's again, one of the hallmarks of this war from the White House has been mixed messages. And I think that applies to this week's strategy as well. Well, and I think that's manifested in what Secretary Bestin said at the beginning of the week with regard to an economic D-Day, because he said President Trump would be making calls to other countries who are doing business with Iran and telling them, cut it out. And I referenced that administration official earlier. We asked him that earlier, or I asked him earlier today as well. So what calls has the president made? And he said he hasn't made any. So was that either Treasury and the White House aren't on the same page, or this was another step in the effort to isolate Iran, but it doesn't have a whole lot of teeth. Either way, it's it's a political weakness, again, as regards to the war and this administration. Well, he's definitely not going to make the one call that would matter, which would be to Xi Jinping to China. China is Iran's biggest trading partner. Well, he tried to pull the China lever a few months ago when he continued with that visit, and it didn't really get anywhere. He actually came out of it saying Xi was being a great partner. Well, exactly. And is he going to do something, take dramatic action against, say, a big Chinese bank on the eve of the summit that's planned with Xi Jinping, which, you know, Trump wants to be able to announce a trade deal or whatever. I just don't see that happening. And without China, which seems to be just kind of sitting back and chuckling and enjoying this whole show. But without China on board with this, this sort of, you know, divorce Iran from the world economy strategy, it doesn't work. And Jeff, I do want to mine your experience covering presidents George H.W. Bush on the six month anniversary of the Iraq war. Not exactly on the day, but a few weeks before that made a primetime address to the nation where he made the case for why this was a war on terror, along with pushing to secure at the time, which was a massive supplemental funding request for the operations that were taking place in Iraq, in Afghanistan. George W. Bush. Sorry, George W. Bush. Is is this something that you would have expected to come from President Trump or something that you understand or have heard is in the works at all? Well, I haven't heard of anything in the works, and I'm smiling a little bit because we have to remember that President Trump is just he's a nontraditional president. I remember at the very beginning of this conflict that we wondered if he would do an Oval Office address to talk about why the U.S. and Israel were going into war against Iran. He ended up just doing a video that was shared on his true social account. Much, much different. So are they wanting to bring attention to this anniversary? No. Is he planning a speech of some kind? I don't think so. I mean, do you think that a speech would help his case at all? Or I'm not sure it would. Look, George W. Bush had a completely different situation. For one thing, there was a Congress that even when it was in Republican hands, was like curious and skeptical and practiced some degree of oversight. This Congress doesn't do any of that. So he doesn't have to worry about that. And as Jeff said, I mean, Donald Trump prides himself on that being like other presidents. Yeah. And last question before we are out of time. But, you know, some of the criticisms that have come as a result of this new economic strangulation strategy that the White House says that they're going to implement is that it's effectively toothless without a defined endgame. Jeff, do you get the sense that the administration has defined the endgame? Is this are they gunning for now the collapse of the Iranian regime? The capitulation or some sort of compromise? Oh, I think they'd be happy with both of those end games. But it's just that the strategy so far hasn't led to that. And whether the president was was given false or poor information at the beginning or not, he expected this to go differently. I mean, he said in the beginning he thought the Iranian people would rise up and take over their government. That didn't happen. The time frame hasn't happened. A lot hasn't happened the way he envisioned.