Donald Trump told the country at the outset that his military campaign against Iran would be over in six weeks.
Instead, after the latest ceasefire unraveled and a new round of strikes stretched across consecutive days, the conflict has now entered its fifth month with no clear exit strategy in sight.
With the midterm elections now less than four months away, the worsening standoff has alarmed Republicans and tested the patience of a party increasingly worried about the political fallout. If the war continues to consume the President — and, by extension, the GOP — Trump’s broader agenda could stall at a critical moment.
‘It’s r*****ed what he’s doing,’ one MAGA Republican Representative told the Daily Mail. ‘This was the worst decision of Trump’s life.’
Trump announced last week that the newest ceasefire deal with Tehran was ‘over’ after Iran struck oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz and targeted US bases in the Gulf. It marked the second collapse of a truce since the conflict began.
On Capitol Hill, Republican frustration is mounting as the party braces for a punishing verdict from voters in November, especially with rising oil prices feeding renewed inflationary pressure on American households.
The old campaign-room warning — ‘It’s the economy, stupid’ — is once again circulating among political operatives, though some are now putting it in far sharper language.
‘They’re fighting an existential battle for the existence of their civilization, their pain tolerance is high,’ said the MAGA-aligned lawmaker, a loyal Trump supporter who serves on the Armed Services Committee.
Donald Trump initially estimated that the war would conclude within six weeks, but it has now reached its fifth month
Two Iran-made ballistic missiles are displayed during a rally commemorating the 47th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution’s victory in Azadi Square
An F/A-18E Super Hornet makes a landing in March
‘After decades of forever wars and lies from our government about them, our pain tolerance is very low.’
With the recent and sudden death of Senator Lindsey Graham, a hawkish cheerleader of US intervention abroad, Trump has lost one of his most devout Iran war supporters.
Graham represented a nearly bygone era of Republicans keen on flexing US might overseas.
The MAGA party that Trump himself has built is decidedly against wars, let alone ‘forever wars,’ which the Republican promised to never start.
While bombs drop on Tehran, US voters are forced to deal with the repercussions at home.
Inflation – a central issue in securing Trump the White House – hit a three-year high at 4.2 percent in May. In June it ticked down to 3.5 percent, though worries still remain.
A majority of voters (65 percent) said the economy is worsening or that it was already bad and is not getting better, according to the latest Daily Mail/JL Partners poll taken in June.
It’s not just the strain on markets. The Pentagon said in mid-May the cost of the war had risen to $29 billion, while the White House last month asked Congress for an additional $87.6 billion to cover further expenditures related to the conflict.
First responders stand amid rubble at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut’s Corniche al-Mazraa neighbourhood on April 8
Fire erupts in a building damaged in an Israeli air strike in the southern Beirut. Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon have destabilized peace deals struck between the US and Iran
US gas prices have also ticked up a bit since hostilities were restarted last week.
The national average for a price of regular gas, which was declining since it spiked earlier in the war, ticked up from $3.79 to $3.86, a small increase that may signal further bumps as the hostilities get underway.
A GOP political operative was even harsher than the lawmaker, expressing disdain over how Trump’s war has hurt Republican messaging ahead of the midterms.
‘Millions of Americans are going to vote this November and remember that we are going to be sending billions of dollars to Iran regardless of the outcomes of the negotiations after already spending billions towards the war itself, all while working-class families are struggling to survive,’ the operative said.
‘Trump’s America First agenda went out the door as soon as he walked in the doors of the White House.’
A White House official told the Daily Mail that Iran continues to ask for discussions with US officials, but added, ‘The United States has been consistent that if Iran shoots, we will shoot back.’
Should the Iran war remain top of mind for economically-worried voters, Democrats could take control of the House of Representatives and even possibly the Senate – meaning any legislation Trump wants would need votes from across the aisle.
This would significantly impair the President’s ability to enact his agenda during his remaining years in office, as Democrats would likely oppose all of his priorities.
The President notified Congress over the weekend that the US is back at war with Iran, starting another 60-day window for the US military to operate in the region without approval from lawmakers.
Shifting from peace is at hand to a full-fledged restart on hostilities, the administration risks a prolonged conflict that could drag well into election season – a cause of concern among some Republicans.
Trump also may have hampered his plans for a quick war by allowing Iran to come to the table, a former Trump administration official told the Daily Mail.
‘The President should have never taken his foot off the gas,’ the official said. ‘He wasted time so that now this war does potentially impact the midterms.’
The official added that Trump has shown little reluctance to ‘strike back’ and ‘use force,’ if Iran crosses him, leading to an air of instability around any tenuous agreement.
Another lawmaker on the House Foreign Affairs Committee lauded Trump for finally ‘taking the fight to our enemy,’ adding that the only ‘final solution’ to this cycle is ‘regime change.’
‘I think we will keep eliminating leaders until we get one we can work with,’ they said, adding that they don’t see any other way to end the war than by fighting.
A former Trump Pentagon official agreed and pushed back on the notion that any peace deals have been reached.
‘Reality is, there was never a ceasefire,’ they said. ‘There never will be unless we start holding their islands hostage. We need to either bomb or take Kharg Island.’
The question of who would even be toppled in a successful ‘regime change’ scenario has no easy answer.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was assassinated in a joint US-Israeli airstrike on February 28, the opening day of the war. His son Mojtaba was installed as Supreme Leader on March 9 after the Revolutionary Guard reportedly pressured clerics to rush the vote.
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, the second son of Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has not been seen publicly in months
But the new ayatollah is a ghost. Mojtaba has not appeared in public since his father’s killing, skipping even the vast state funeral that drew millions of mourners across Iran this month.
Since the war began, Trump has repeatedly claimed that Iranian leadership wants to strike a deal with the US to end hostilities.
The first of two truces struck and then later broken took hold around April 7. The agreement frayed almost immediately after Israel authorized strikes on Lebanon within hours.
Vice President JD Vance and the President’s chief negotiators with Iran, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and friend Steve Witkoff, had spent time in Pakistan hashing out peace deal specifics with mediators and Iranian officials.
Days after that, the Trump administration authorized a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz to pressure the regime back to the table.
In June, the President’s men tried again, and touted how they were able to land a memorandum of understanding with Iran that was performance-based, and that the regime would not receive special treatment if they did not hit the administration’s benchmarks.
Two weeks after Trump participated in a flashy signing ceremony in Versailles with French President Emmanuel Macron, the Republican says the deal is dead.
‘The Islamic Republic of Iran has asked us to continue “talks.” We have agreed to do so, but the United States has stated to them, in no uncertain terms, that the Cease Fire is OVER!’ Trump posted Friday morning on social media.
The US and Iran have repeatedly exchanged rocket and missile fire after Trump’s announcement.
The President doubled down on Monday, saying the US will reimplement its military blockade on Iran, and that the US will take a 20 percent cut ‘on all cargo shipped’ through the strait under American protection.
Under pressure from US allies in the region, Trump backed off the plan the following day.
A former Trump administration official stressed to the Daily Mail that the US is holding the cards despite the repeated flare-ups.
‘Iran wouldn’t comply with the deal and now they’re paying the price,’ they said.
‘The idiots who called this a sweetheart deal for Iran have been proven completely wrong. The US always had all the leverage and now we’re using it.’
‘This was never going to be easy,’ another former Trump official told the Daily Mail. ‘But President Trump is right to ensure Iran never has a nuclear weapon or poses a threat to America.’
