Trump’s Iran War Strategy Faces Backlash as Gas Prices Soar and Political Fallout Grows

The following is a lightly edited transcript of the May 8 episode of The Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.

Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.

The Washington Post is reporting that internal intelligence findings indicate Iran can survive Donald Trump’s naval blockade for at least three more months before economic hardship really bites. That means the war could go on longer than expected. If so, that’s a political catastrophe for Trump and the GOP.

Trump’s advisors are reportedly worried that the political blowback over the war is worsening, and there are signs his allies are turning on him at this moment. Fox News hit Trump with a crushing graphic showing soaring gas prices, with one anchor declaring that those prices are giving Americans heartburn.

We think the political fallout from all this could last much longer than people expect. So we’re digging through all of it with New Republic staff writer Timothy Noah, who’s been writing about how Trump’s policies are affecting working people.

Tim Noah: Thanks for having me, Greg.

Sargent: Let’s start with this Fox News segment, flagged by journalist Aaron Rupar. In huge numbers on the screen, it showed the latest national average gas price at $4.55 per gallon, up from $3.15 a year ago. Now listen to this exchange between a Fox anchor and Energy Secretary Chris Wright:

Reporter (voiceover): And what about people’s concern about gas prices? They’re seeing numbers that give them some heartburn and some heartache, and it’s hard for a lot of people to figure out how they’re going to stomach this for much longer.

Chris Wright (voiceover): It is. And of course, it’s been tough for our administration as well. This is an administration—the first Trump term and the second Trump term—all about lowering energy prices and an incredibly successful record in doing that. So when President Trump looked at the tradeoffs of going into Iran right now, he knew—his sort of beautiful record of just constantly pushing down energy prices, gasoline headline prices as well. But Iran has roughly a thousand pounds of uranium enriched to 60 percent.

Sargent: Tim, that stuff about Trump’s great energy record is just made up. But that aside, that’s terrible spin. Wright admits this is hard for people and says, well, Trump knew this would undo his great achievement. Your thoughts?

Noah: Yeah. I mean, this is, I think, the first time Donald Trump has called for sacrifice, and Republicans in general don’t do well with calls for sacrifice, particularly in the context of a war that’s already quite unpopular—was unpopular on the day it began. Yes, terrible politics, but they are caught between a rock and a hard place. They can’t win this war overnight on the one hand and they can’t endure an elevation of gas prices.