Can Trump persuade Americans to ignore oil prices and back his war on Iran?

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0:54Is President Trump losing control of the narrative on Iran? The question remains, will the president pull American forces out as soon as possible? Or has he started something that's now too big to extricate himself from? The messaging from the president continues to be inconsistent. Mr. President, you've said the war is, quote, very complete, but your defense Secretary says this is just the beginning. So which is it? And how long should Americans be prepared for this borderline? Well, I think you could say both. The beginning, it's the beginning of building a new country. We could call it a tremendous success right now as we leave here, I could call it, or we could go further.

1:31And we're going to go further. So what is the big priority now for Donald Trump? Is it the military objectives he set at the beginning? Or will the rising price of oil and gas dictate what he feels he has to do next on Iran? Welcome to AmeriCast.

2:16Hello, it's Sarah here, and I'm in Louisville, Kentucky this morning. Louisville, Kentucky. How exciting. It is, Anthony. I am back in Washington, D.C. It's super exciting, Anthony. First of all, it's a new state for me. I've never been to Kentucky before, so it's a new fridge magnet on the wall in my office. But I am loving being in the South. I've just come from breakfast in the hotel where the lady there wished me a blessed morning, sugar. I just thought this is fantastic. This is why you want to come out and about in America. But the reason I have come to Louisville is because President Trump's going to be here later today.

2:52And he's on a tour going to Ohio and Kentucky, parading his affordability agenda, basically getting out and about trying to tell voters he really does care about the cost of living about inflation and all of the economic reasons why he was elected in the first place. and he has to do it now because of the worries about the rising oil prices, what that's going to mean for gas prices, petrol prices at the pump, actually and inflation all the way through the economy. And in order, I think, to persuade the public that there might be some short-term economic pain, but it's all going to be OK, he probably has to convince voters that he's in control of the situation with this war in Iran, that it's not spiralling beyond his control.

3:37And that's the big question, Anthony. Do you think he can convince people of this at this point? I mean, I don't know what you're going to hear from people in Kentucky when I was in Texas last week. They weren't convinced. They were nervous. Even Trump supporters were uneasy that this could become a quagmire. The shadow of the Iraq war is still looming over any kind of U.S. military operation in the Middle East. And at least so far, while the Trump administration likes to boast about all of the military tactical victories they have, the strategic concerns, I think that's that's going to be a tougher job for Trump to convince people of, especially when, like you said, if the economy is struggling, if gas prices are going up and Trump is now after the fact telling them they have to make sacrifices when he didn't really talk about it before the war.

4:25I mean, that's a big challenge. And I'm not sure, you know, I'll be curious to see when you're there, how he goes about trying to do that. I don't know if you agree with me, Anthony, but I think it is pretty clear that the president is starting to get really, really worried about oil prices and the impact that that could have domestically in America. as we were seeing them climb on Monday and spiking to new highs, he started talking about the war being nearly over, trying to signal that it's not going to be a long drawn out conflict. And he was trying to talk oil prices down quite successfully.

4:59Actually, he managed to do that because he was talking before the markets had finished. But the result was he was sending out quite an inconsistent message because on Sunday, we had the Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, saying, this is just the beginning as he was threatening around with more bigger bombs, a wider campaign. And then suddenly we've got Donald Trump on Monday speaking at a press conference in Florida and saying this. Mr. President, you've said the war is, quote, very complete, but your defense secretary says this is just the beginning. So which is it and how long should Americans be?

5:33Well, I think you could say both the beginning. It's the beginning of building a new country. But they certainly they have no Navy. They have no Air Force. They have no anti-aircraft equipment. It's all been blown up. They have no radar. They have no telecommunications. And they have no leadership. It's all gone. So, you know, you could look at that statement. We could call it a tremendous success right now as we leave here, I could call it. Or we could go further. And we're going to go further. but the big risk on that war has been over for three days we wiped them out the first in the first two days when you think about it it's incredible we wiped out a big navy very powerful navy you know these were ships these were serious ships these were ships that you buy when you want to win battles they're all they're all on the bottom floor the sailors are all running off the ships.

6:32They refuse to get on the ships. The Air Force is gone. Everything's gone. The missiles are down to a trickle. This went very quickly. We talked about that with President Putin. He was very impressed with what he saw because nobody's ever seen anything quite like it. You know, Iran was a very powerful military country with all of the missiles. Now, you had the double attack. You had the original attack with us and Israel, and that knocked them for a loop. Then you had the B-2 bombers, which took out their nuclear capability, and they would have had a nuclear weapon within two weeks to four weeks, and they would have used it long before this press conference, and we might have had a much different press conference if we had a press conference at all.

7:18But it's been amazing. There you have it, Sarah. It is a beginning and the ending. You can't get much clearer than that, can you? Well, I think he gave the game away in the middle there where he said, I could call it a success right now, but we're going to carry on because a lot of people have been complaining that Donald Trump hasn't really laid out what exactly the objectives of this war are, what victory would look like, precisely what it is they're trying to achieve with these military strikes. But often with Donald Trump, that's deliberate, isn't it, Anthony? As long as you don't actually prescribe what the end looks like, you can just say it's over at any point, which suits you because of domestic politics, because of rising oil prices, because of whatever.

8:02He can just declare success. As he said right there, I could call it a success right now. And if in a couple of days' time or a couple of weeks' time he thinks this war isn't doing him any good anymore, He'll say, well, what we've achieved is what we set out to achieve. It's a it's a frowning success. Mission accomplished. Game over. Right. On Friday, he said that he would only accept Iran's unconditional surrender, which I mean, that's pretty clearly defined once Iran to to give up and agree to all of the Americans terms. And some of the terms they've laid out was no longer threatening the region, no longer threatening American allies, totally abandoning any kind of nuclear program.

8:43But then, yeah, that clip, it didn't sound like unconditional surrender was on the table anymore. And in fact, I think when they asked Pete Hegseth in another press conference recently about it, he just said unconditional surrender means that Iran is no longer able to fight back, which is a totally different sort of thing. Now, when you say what the objectives are and if the United States could just declare victory and go home, I think there was an interesting quote from Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, who has long been an Iran hawk, who has been really celebrating this military action as necessary.

9:21And he said that any kind of end to this conflict that leaves an ayatollah, the ayatollah, the mullahs in charge of Iran is is a failure. It's not a success. So I think if Trump does pull out now and say, OK, we're done and the regime is still there, then then I think the concern is that it's only a matter of time before a regime that now is maybe even more openly hostile to the United States, more wary of negotiating with the United States is going to be there and slowly start to build back. And nothing effectively has changed. Yeah, because he was talking about regime change at the very beginning as well.

9:59And it doesn't look as though that's going to happen by the people of Iran rising up and seizing their moment as he was encouraging them to in the first couple of days of the war. So I've already grabbed a couple of conversations with army veterans down here in Kentucky, both of whom served in Iraq and they were really interesting I thought they would be very very worried about the fears of getting embroiled in a long war that this was going to turn into nation building that we would see the Iraq adventure played out again in Iran and they seemed very very clear that that wasn't what Donald Trump was interested in they were both Trump voters, Trump supporters they said Iran had been needing to be dealt with for decades they were very clear that Iran was a sponsor of terror around the world and in the region, that it was essential to stop them getting a nuclear weapon.

10:47And they seemed very convinced that Donald Trump wouldn't get them into a lengthy war because he'd promised not to. And I said, but if the price of that is that you have to leave this regime in charge, possibly more dedicated now to achieving a nuclear weapon and attacking the West, is that still mission accomplished? And they seemed pretty happy, actually, that Donald Trump could sell that as a success. Yeah, that's kind of what I heard in Texas last week with people saying Trump supporters say that they trusted Trump, that he promised that they would not be involved in a quagmire and they believed him.

11:20But the reality is that it's not going to be Donald Trump's choice alone to end this war. There is another party involved besides the United States and Iran, and that's Israel. And I think Israel's goals we're seeing might be different than America's goals. And just because the United States decides to wrap up and go home doesn't mean that Israel will stop its military campaign. And I think actually that was one other thing I heard was some concern, particularly after Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, said that the United States got involved because Israel was going to attack anyway. You know, the concern is that the United States isn't calling the shots in this war.

11:57And because it didn't start by the United States's choice, it may not end that way either. Well, the other thing is that Iran, no matter how much it may have had its ballistic missile capability decimated and not be able to fight back against this war in the air, they do have one strategic advantage in that they can mess up shipping through the Straits of Hormuz. That's this really narrow channel in the Gulf through which huge amounts of commercial shipping passes, including about 20 % of the world's oil. That's really, really stalled at the moment. That's what's putting the oil price up. It's the fact that oil tankers can't get through there just now because they're worried about being hit.

12:39And we've heard Donald Trump warning Iran not to mine the Straits of Hormuz, not to put mines in the sea and that there will be all sorts of severe consequences if they do. But even just talking about that is going to put shipping companies on alert that there could be mines in the sea or some kind of attack from Iran. And as long as they can choke off the Straits of Hormuz and those commercial shipping channels. That gives Iran quite a lot of leverage, doesn't it? And yeah, I think the Iranians realized this. One of their current leaders said, get ready for$200 a barrel for oil. They understand that this is the pressure point.

13:20If they can cause economic pain for the Americans, Donald Trump may be more inclined to back off, or at the very least, not start up bombing again once this war concludes. And you don't have to blow up every single tanker. All you have to do is threaten them. As you mentioned, the mines there, the idea that there might be mines there, and there have been reports that Iran has started to put mines in the straits, that's enough to deter shipping. I think it's Wednesday morning here now, and I woke up and looked at my phone and saw reports of another oil tanker being struck outside the strait of Hormuz by some sort of unknown projectile.

13:57So just because the United States says they need to do this, we need to send the tankers through, and that the United States is going to protect it is not going to convince, one, shipping companies to do this, and two, insurance companies that will provide protection, financial protection for these oil companies, from them from continuing to underwrite contracts for ships that are in harm's way. And, you know, I'm looking here at some posts on Blue Sky from Senator Chris Murphy. He's a Democratic senator from Connecticut. it. So take that from the partisan perspective it is. But he says he was in a briefing yesterday where administration officials came in to talk to senators behind closed doors about the state of the war.

14:41And he writes that on the Strait of Hormuz, they had no plan, all caps. I can't go into more detail about how Iran gums up the Strait, but suffice it to say right now, they don't know how to get it safely back open, which is unforgivable because this part of the disaster was 100 % foreseeable. And I think people did foresee that. I mean, that, as you mentioned, was a choke point. This is an area that Iran is part of. It's in Iranian territorial waters, and it doesn't take a lot for them to make traffic through that strait, as you mentioned, 20 % of oil exports, really, really difficult to do safely.

15:16Yeah, and they were even conducting exercises there before this war began, making it very, very clear that this was some leverage that they had. And at that same press conference, we played a clip from Donald Trump earlier. He was asked again about oil prices and how he wants to address worries about the rising price. Can I ask you, you mentioned you were going to waive certain additional oil waivers or sanctions. Can you talk a little bit more about that and address in particular? Well, we're looking to keep the oil prices down. We went artificially up because of this excursion into a very positive thing.

15:49I mean, this was an excursion that a lot of people wouldn't have done. I knew oil prices would go up if I did this, and they've gone up probably less than I thought they'd go up. And the Press Secretary Caroline Levitt was also trying to reassure people about the spike in oil prices at her White House briefing on Tuesday. The president and his energy team are closely watching the markets, speaking with industry leaders, and the U.S. military is jarring up additional options following the president's directive to continue keeping the Strait of Hormuz open. I will not broadcast what those options look like, but just know the President is not afraid to use them.

16:26Rest assured to the American people, the recent increase in oil and gas prices is temporary, and this operation will result in lower gas prices in the long term. Once the national security objectives of Operation Epic Fury are fully achieved, Americans will see oil and gas prices drop rapidly, potentially even lower than they were prior to the start of the operation. All right. So they are clearly conscious of the fact that rising oil prices could cause economic pain, not just for American consumers at the gas pump, but really the global economy. And we've seen the ramifications of that in Asia and places like South Korea and Japan that rely heavily on oil that is shipped through the Strait of Hormuz.

17:12and their stock markets are dropping more, certainly more than the United States has. Now, she's vague about what we could do. However, Donald Trump has talked about escorting tankers through the strait. That may not be enough. Actually, Chris Wright, the energy secretary yesterday, posted that the United States had already started escorting tankers and had gotten the first one through. And then the Defense Department and the White House had come back and say, no, no, we actually, that's not accurate. And he deleted that post on X, which, again, kind of shows you how chaotic the messaging in this White House has been about what they're doing, how they're doing it, and where this war is going.

17:53Yeah, the journalist asking the question in that press conference mentioned that the Trump administration is talking about waiving certain sanctions in order to keep oil prices low. It's really remarkable, I think, that Russia ends up being the beneficiary of some of this, because they're waiving some of the oil sanctions on Russia. At the same time that Russia has been accused of supplying intelligence about American targets in the Middle East to Iran, to its ally Iran, so they think Russia is actively helping Iran and then America is actively helping Russia by allowing it to sell more oil that had been sanctioned because of the Ukraine invasion.

18:27It's like with Donald Trump, Putin just wins every single time. It's absolutely remarkable. Yeah, I think Russia is, at least at this point, the big winner in all of this. But Steve Whitcoff, who's Donald Trump's negotiator of all various conflicts, he came on a TV interview yesterday, I think it was, and said when asked about whether Russia was helping Iran, he said, they say they aren't and we believe them, which is kind of astounding for the American negotiator to take what Russia says at face value, particularly given the long history that Vladimir Putin and Russia have. So it's definitely become a very sticky situation, the oil prices and the threat to the economy.

19:17And honestly, the way the American public is viewing this war is all through that lens, at least at the moment. And if you look at polls, the American public is not in favor of this war. A majority of the American public that's polled does not think this was a good idea. It's not clear on why we did it. It wanted to give diplomacy more chance to come up with some sort of a breakthrough. And historically, even in wars that became unpopular, like the war in Iraq, like the Vietnam War, the public started on the president's side in the beginning. And here, you know, we have a conflict that started with the public not being interested in supporting it.

19:57Yeah. Yeah, and it's not just that price of oil, gas, petrol is going to hit people in their wallets. I really noticed over the last few weeks, couple of months, that every time Donald Trump is addressing the question of the cost of living and affordability, there's not that many items he can say have come down in price since he took over because there is still inflation in the economy higher than he would like. But he's always talking about the price of gas at the pumps. Every time he goes out on one of these stops, he says he's driven past somewhere and he's seen a particularly low price at a gas station and that he's the one who's delivering this for the economy.

20:34So if his single best metric for his economic performance is getting away from him and moving in the wrong direction, how on earth does he sell his economic agenda to Americans in advance of the midterms in November? Yeah, Sarah, I mean, on Tuesday, the State of the Union address, he boasted again about gas prices. And then four days later, he launched this war that drove up gas prices in a way that he said he foresaw. And I think that is going to be a very real challenge for him. I mean, affordability and the economy is the big issue in the election so far this year and in the midterm elections in November.

21:13And this decision by Trump to launch this war is going to, one, distract him from talking about it and to make all of the metrics that that that contribute to affordability and cost of living go up. So it's a huge risk for Donald Trump. And I think maybe that Venezuela operation, how neatly that wound up and how easy it was to to replace one leader with another one who is more amenable to working with the United States and how that didn't have any effect on on energy prices, even though Venezuela is a as an energy producing country. I think that may have convinced Trump that this would be easy also and that this was worth the risk and that we'd go in and replace the Ayatollah with someone who would work with the U.S.

22:01But man, I mean, if you study the history of the Middle East and what sort of messes and cross currents and different millennia old conflicts are in that area, it's an entirely different ballgame than Venezuela. a lot. And of course, we know that Donald Trump didn't go to Congress to get authorization for this war before he launched it. And that was quite controversial in itself. The War Powers Act that he used to allow himself essentially to start this means that he does have to go to Congress after 60 days, I think. Is that right, Anthony? I wonder if he probably thinks that this will be over before 60 days have elapsed.

22:43But it would be a really hard sell, I think, at this point to Congress, wouldn't it? Yeah, well, we had War Powers votes, votes to invoke the War Powers Act and stop Trump from acting without approval from Congress last week. And both of those failed. But I think if this is 60 days in and we're still in the same place as we are now, I think some of that support may evaporate and make it harder for Trump to win that vote to continue the authorization for this war. Now, there is a possibility that Donald Trump will just ignore it. He has said, as past presidents, both Republicans and Democrats have said, that this War Powers Act, which puts restrictions on a president's ability to deploy the military, is unconstitutional, that it infringes on the commander-in-chief's war-making powers.

23:32But that's a legal fight that we have farther down the road. We won't hit that quite yet. I think a bigger concern may be the fact that, by some estimates, this war is costing a billion dollars a day. We're just into our second week now. The costs of this are going to add up. And the Defense Department of this administration may have to come back to Congress and say, OK, we need more money just to be able to fund this war. And if they do that, that could be where Congress has a very legitimate way of reigning in this administration. And it's interesting, isn't it, that maybe if Donald Trump had tried to get pre-authorization, The debate would have been around what the objectives of the war are, the wisdom of getting involved in the Middle East once again, the dangers of ending up in a protracted conflict where you end up trying to affect regime change and nation building and all the things that we've seen tried and failed in the Middle East before.

24:28But if you were to go back to them in a few weeks' time, it's going to be much more, I would imagine, about Republicans who are really worried about their re-election prospects if this war is costing people money through the defence budget, as you're saying, but also costing the money through rising prices, and that they would be against the war for those domestic reasons rather than for sort of international diplomatic reasons. Yeah, I think that's what American voters care about more. How does it affect their lives? And you can, I've already seen comparisons. This is how much the United States has spent on this war so far.

25:03This is what it could fund. This is how long it could keep food support funded. This is how long it could keep health care subsidies for Americans. And I think Democrats could very well frame it in that sort of way, where the American people see it not just as, oh, you know, the United States is taking care of an overseas adversary finally, but this is the price that Americans are paying. Yeah, so this is exactly what I've come to Kentucky to try and investigate. And I've got some interviews lined up with another army veteran with an anti-war activist and we're going to head out. There's a lot of war memorials around Louisville.

25:41Head to one of the big Second World War ones as well and talk to people there. Where I suspect, but I will report back as soon as I can, yeah, that we'll probably hear support for the initial action because I've always found, no matter how controversial something America does, people don't like to speak against the president when he's acting as commander-in-chief or sound as though they might be doing down troops in combat. So there's always a patriotic rallying around the flag effect when you go out and try and talk to people. But yeah, I'm going to try and investigate how long they would be prepared to maintain that support and what kind of personal sacrifices in their wallet, as well as in terms of troop deaths, because we have seen coffins coming back already.

26:25Yeah, how long that support might last, how deep their support, even if they say it's there at the moment is. Right, Sarah. Those are the two big factors, the economy, prices, but also Americans dying. That's how foreign affairs, foreign conflicts cuts through and really affects American politics, at least historically. So I will be curious to see what you hear. Yes, and it's no accident that I am in Thomas Massey's constituency, do you call them, in the House of Representatives? District, maybe. Yeah, his district, his congressional district. because he is a Republican who is, of course, as we know now, outspoken against Donald Trump and has spoken out against this war.