President Donald Trump's committed MAGA base has continued to support him through numerous missteps, but according to a new Washington Sun report, Republicans are learning directly that there is one issue that even they are turning on.
According to the Wednesday report, GOP lawmakers returning to Washington, D.C., after the recent congressional recess have bad news about the MAGA die-hards back home: they are sick of Trump's war with Iran and "want answers" about when it will end. Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican whose reelection bid was derailed by Trump interference, spoke to the Sun about what he has heard from voters back home.
“They don’t like it,” Cassidy explained. “Even the people that love the president don’t like it.”
Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican and another target of Trump's revenge endorsement campaign, expressed similar sentiments, telling the Sun that voters remain frustrated about the president's poorly explained motivations for the costly war.
“If the president was clear on what the objectives were that we were trying to achieve, I think they would be more patient,” Cornyn said. “But in the absence of that, I think there’s just confusion.”
Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who opted to retire next year rather than face Trump's wrath, described the war as "a top-three campaign issue in North Carolina, where the large military and veteran population has kept the war’s human cost at the forefront."
"Voters remain most focused on the economy, he said, but the war’s duration has made the lack of measurable progress harder to ignore," the report detailed.
Sen. Mike Rounds, a South Dakota Republican, said that his constituents are losing patience with the conflict, especially after administration officials said that it would be wrapped up in a matter of weeks.
“Most of them thought it would be quick in and out, similar to Venezuela, and that wasn’t the case,” Rounds explained.
“It’s time to be clear on the strategic objectives and start measuring results,” Tillis added. “And that’s not something that we’ve had since they started the conflict. You just can’t have some throwaway statement saying it’s going to end just after the election. The American people are smarter than that.”
Trump and Vice President JD Vance have recently claimed that the conflict with Iran should be wrapped up just after Election Day, a claim that comes as gas prices have once again started to creep up to historic levels. The Sun noted that, privately, Vance and other Trump officials have warned that Iran is likely to resist ending the war for the rest of his second term.
