On Tuesday, during a discussion of President Donald Trump’s next moves regarding his war on Iran, a Fox News panelist explained why he believes the administration has shifted its rationale for continuing the conflict. According to the guest, Americans either “don’t believe” Trump’s previous claims that his goal is to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, or they “don’t care.”
This assertion follows comments Trump made regarding the war earlier in the morning, when he called into Fox & Friends to ramble about a number of topics, including the “shocking” announcement that he planned on cutting funding to Israel at the end of the year. During the call, Trump asserted, “Iran had the threat of a nuclear weapon. Iran is the number-one state sponsor of terror in the world. They are the meanest. They're very tough. I see why the Middle East was afraid of them. They're very tough, but they've been decapitated.” This implied that he has moved on from his persistent claims that Iran was still a nuclear threat, and other comments made it clear that his focus is now on reopening the oil supply lines.
In response to this, one Fox panelist wondered why Trump would suddenly downplay the nuclear rationale for renewing full-scale war, which reports suggest could happen after the midterms. But the shifting emphasis, noted another panelist, could be easy to explain – particularly with gas prices playing such a pivotal role in GOP midterm fortunes. “If you quietly polled Americans about the nuclear threat of Iran,” wondered the panelist, “how many people would say, after going through this whole year, that they don't believe it and they don't care?” When the first panelist tried to press on the nuclear threat, the second persisted, asking, “How many people would say, ‘You know what, I hear all of those things – all I know is I can't pay my bills’?”
Trump’s changing rationale for the war has characterized the administration’s discussion of the conflict since its earliest days. Initially, he argued that the war was a response to Iranian aggression, suggesting that regime change could be the goal. Trump and his allies also argued that Iran was on the verge of building nuclear weapons, despite the president’s claims that he had destroyed the country’s nuclear capabilities in strikes the previous summer. Once Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, disrupting oil supplies and causing fuel prices to skyrocket, the White House’s stated intention became the reopening of the vital waterway. Eventually their conversation returned to the nuclear issue, but based on Trump’s comments Tuesday morning, he’s once again dropped that to focus on bringing back down oil prices that only went up because of his war in the first place.
Whether Americans no longer believe Trump’s ever-changing justifications or not, they are certainly tired of the high costs of fuel and resulting inflation. Polls have consistently shown that the affordability crisis is among midterm voters’ top concerns, as is Trump’s mishandling of the war. As a result, it has been widely forecast -- including by Fox -- that his party will be punished in the midterms, losing its majority in the House and possibly the Senate.