Has Trump given up on the midterms?

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

0:30business needs in one place, saving you time, headaches, and serious money. Stop paying for missing pieces. Go to odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com to learn more. With the new Schwab Teen Investor Account, teens can gain hands-on investing experience and build positive money habits. It's an account co-owned by you and your teen, so you can monitor and engage with the account while your teen learns how to invest and manage money. Learn more at schwab.com. Donald Trump says the Iran war is very close to over. He mentions talks expected in the coming days. But with the naval blockade in full swing, Iran is now itself threatening to stop shipping in the Gulf if the US doesn't back down.

1:14Is Donald Trump in the mood to back down? The Republican Party is nervous. Gas prices are high. Can he afford for the war to go on? Welcome to AmeriCast. AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News. You hear that sound? Oh, I think when I hear that sound, it reminds me of money. We didn't start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it. This is a big cover-up, and this administration is engaged in it. This guy has Trump arrangement syndrome. I have four words for you. Turn the volume up.

1:54It's Justin in the worldwide headquarters of AmeriCast in London, England. And it's Sarah in the BBC's Washington Bureau. And I suppose, Sarah, before we start, we should say roughly where we are, well, exactly where we are time-wise. So here in London, it's just coming up to ten past two in the afternoon on Wednesday. Bring us up to date, not just with the time, Sarah, but with what's happening where you are. Well, we're getting optimistic noises from Donald Trump about the talks with Iran, about whether or not they're about to restart, because we're still in the middle of that ceasefire, which expires on the 21st of April, I think.

2:32And although there's still a spat going on between Israel and Lebanon, no fire has been exchanged between the US and Iran. But the talks collapsed at the weekend when J.D. Vance went to Islamabad in Pakistan. Are they going to restart? is there any chance of them reaching a peace deal is the big question. Well, Donald Trump said, maybe they'll start in a couple of days on Tuesday. On Monday, he had said that somebody had been in touch from Iran and that they very badly wanted to make a deal. J.D. Vance has said there's a grand bargain that Donald Trump wants to make. I have to say, Justin, I am not completely convinced about the veracity of what we're hearing from Donald Trump.

3:13Now, I mean, that might not sound like a shocking headline, But I just get the feeling he wants to keep this positive for voters, for the markets, for the oil price. So he's just throwing things out there that are vague but sound kind of positive. I am not at all convinced that he really is telling us that there is a diplomatic process going on that could be resolved with some kind of deal within the next couple of weeks. I just don't see any evidence of that beyond what he's saying. Although it would suit both sides, wouldn't it, to have a deal? Because Iran presumably would like a deal that allowed it then and allowed the regime to remain in place and remain relatively intact.

3:57They have lost quite a few people, but to remain very much in charge of the country, which it seems they very much still are. and the United States, certainly in the shape of J.D. fans, would just like to get their heck out of the whole thing. So there are incentives on both sides, aren't there, for something to happen? There are, but look at the big sticking points. So first off, Donald Trump needs the Strait of Hormuz open for international shipping so that oil can flow, the prices can come down and the economic impact of the war that's being felt in America would lessen. Now, that wasn't a problem before he attacked Iran, of course, seven weeks ago, but it's a problem now and it's one that he really urgently needs to resolve.

4:36But then there is the issue at the very, very heart of it, which is Iran's nuclear program and the fact that it is refusing to give up enriching uranium. It says so it can use it for peaceful civilian purposes. The US says it's enriching it to high levels that it wouldn't need for civilian power generation and suspects it of wanting to achieve a nuclear weapon. Well, America was really clear in those talks in Pakistan at the weekend. Iran must completely halt all nuclear activity and hand over its stocks of enriched uranium. This is where we started with all of this. That's what the talks were about before the war began.

5:14That's still going to be the sticking point. And yeah, Iran is feeling pain from this as well. And the US is now also blockading ships. And we'll talk about that in a moment in the Strait of Hormuz to try and increase the pain on Iran. But the regime seems to believe it can absorb more pain than America can for longer if that's what it takes to not have to give up their nuclear program, which they absolutely say they will not. Yeah. I wonder whether they just quietly shelve the nuclear stuff on the American side or say, without necessarily providing any evidence, because they wouldn't need to for their own people.

5:49Well, they'll just say, or Donald Trump will just say, look, the stuff is buried. They won't be able to get at it for years. The threat that we talked about is now over for the foreseeable future. And then that allows them to get away. Because there is no doubt, is there, Sarah? We ought to listen to what the president has been telling Fox Business Network's Mornings with Maria program, that the whole thing is very close to over. Let's have a listen to that. I think it's close to over. I mean, I view it as very close to over. You know what? If I pulled up stakes right now, it would take them 20 years to rebuild that country.

6:26And we're not finished. We'll see what happens. I think they want to make a deal very badly. Someone wants to make a deal very badly. That's certainly true. I would say that Donald Trump needs it at least as much as the Iranian regime does. And I think you're probably right, Justin. There's every possibility that the Trump administration will start saying, look, when we bombed those nuclear facilities last year, we obliterated, that was the word they used at the time, nuclear program. and there's no way they can get to the enriched uranium or start again without us noticing. And if they do that, we'll take action and bomb them again.

7:00It's just the irony of that would be so huge because that would take us back to exactly where we were before Donald Trump launched this war and before he and the people around him started suddenly saying that Iran was only two weeks away from being able to build a nuclear bomb. They went from having obliterated the program to it being a danger coming up within a fortnight's time. And now they could suddenly pivot and say, oh, it's not a danger anymore. I mean, Donald Trump has an affront to try and do that. You know, he does these kind of U-turns all the time. But whether people would believe him on this occasion or not, that's a much, much harder sell.

7:34Yeah. It's interesting that the markets, both the oil market, I mean, it just strikes me, Sarah, I don't know what you hear in Washington about oil and the price of oil. The price of oil is high. It's been raised by the war, obviously. there is a huge constraint on supply to the world. It's not that high. It's almost not as if the oil traders themselves don't really believe that this will last for the kind of long duration that some people are warning about. I mean, they might be deluding themselves, but it interests me that. And the more general, the financial markets, you know, the investment markets around the world, I mean, they took a hit when the war started, but they're pretty much back to where they were, aren't they?

8:19It's almost as if those who are actually gambling, I use that word in inverted commas, with real money and betting on what is going to happen, don't really believe that Donald Trump will see through any of his sort of wilder claims about what he might do. No, I don't think anybody thinks that Donald Trump is likely to go back to attacking Iran in the sort of full scale way that they were doing for six weeks of war. He clearly doesn't want to do that. The American public don't want him to do that. It's unpopular and, you know, hopefully unnecessary as well. But one of the reasons he is giving these rather more optimistic ideas out there about whether or not a deal is possible, whether or not a deal is close, is to try and calm the markets, of course, to try and keep the price of oil down and to keep the stock market booming.

9:08And no, oil hasn't gone as high as it could. But, Justin, what you are seeing here is$4 a gallon gas petrol prices. And that is a psychologically important point. $5 is even worse, obviously, but$4 is when people start complaining and people start feeling it. And it's particularly bad because the price of petrol is what Donald Trump used as his kind of preferred measure to show that he was running the economy well. You'll remember when Joe Biden was president, we used to talk about the price of eggs all the time. Well, they've come down. It's the price of petrol that Donald Trump points to all the time saying, look how well I'm doing.

9:49The price of gas is low. Well, when it's not, that's really, really going to hurt him. And that's the thing that matters absolutely the most to Donald Trump about this. It was a kind of a dollar seventy five, I think, when I lived in D.C. and people used to complain then i mean so just to underline what you've just said you cannot overestimate can you the interest that ordinary americans have in the simple fact of the price of filling your truck or your car uh and and it it's for an obvious reason isn't it the americans depend on cars they they still do there's a little bit of ev stuff going on isn't there although not as successful as some people hoped it would be at the beginning.

10:34And there is a little bit of public transport. But fundamentally, people need to get about in their cars. And it's that that will really determine, in a way, politically what happens. Yeah, they spend far more time in their cars. They take much, much longer journeys than we do. And so every day that they're at the petrol pump filling out, this is hundreds of dollars a week that this is costing them. And they feel it in their wallet right there when they're making that payment. And, you know, there's no amount of political spin you can give somebody and make them feel better about the fact that it just costs, you know, a third more to fill up their tank.

11:11What the White House is saying is that it's all going to be OK because people are going to get much bigger tax rebates this year. And that will cheer them up. And then they won't mind how much they're paying to fill up their car because they'll know that thousands is coming back in tax rebates. And today is Tax Day in the United States, you know, celebrated across the country as the day by which you have to have your tax return in. Now, Justin, I'm sure you remember doing this. It's the most arcane and annoying system you can come up against. And you fill in everything that you think you owe and any deductions that you think you can have.

11:49And instead of then just paying the government what you think you ought to, you somehow, for reasons I've never understood, pay them some large lump sum. They calculate what they owe you and eventually send you a rebate check of several thousand dollars in many cases. And also the other thing I can tell you this from experience. It's all very well getting a calculation that says that they owe you several thousand dollars. It's a whole other story trying to get a check of the government for that. You feel your pain, sir. It appears. Around the world, people will be cutting their own checks for you.

12:19Well, all the people that Elon Musk sacked in the government, you know, I fear are the people who were handing out the rebates to a certain extent, because you can imagine, can't you? They kept hold of the people who are going to take the revenue in, but they let go a whole bunch of people who were supposed to be handing it back. So that's not going to help voters feel any better. And the idea, anyhow, that simply by removing the tax on tips, for instance, as Donald Trump did through legislation and therefore increase the amount of tax rebate people get, that that's going to make up for four dollar a gallon petrol and mean that people don't mind about a conflict with Iran pushing their prices up.

12:57Because that will feed through to the cost of food and all sorts of other goods as well. I think that's that's for the birds. So if we're saying, Sarah, and I'm sure you're right, that all these other things are not going to make up for the price of gas because it's the price of gas that actually features in people's minds and costs them real money at the pump. What then is going to happen to the price of gas, for instance, by the time in the midterm elections? And Maria Bartiromo, this woman who was asking the questions on Fox Business News, and she's a good interviewer. She asks sharp questions.

13:27She expects them to be answered. she asked President Trump during the course of that interview does he expect that the price of gas will have been reduced by the time in the midterms? I hope so. I mean I think so. It could be. It could be the same or maybe a little bit higher but it should be around the same. I think this won't be that much longer. They're wiped out. That doesn't sound like a man with a plan, Justin. either to win the midterms or to sort out the crisis he started with Iran. But we should talk about what the US is doing now, because in order to put more pressure on Iran, to come back to the table and agree to a deal that the US would also find acceptable, Donald Trump has raised the Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and met it with an American blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

14:19And what he's doing is he's got American warships there And he's saying any ships that have been collecting oil from Iranian ports and that are about to be delivered and sold to other countries around the world, they're going to be stopped by the American military. In fact, they say a number of them already have been and they're not going to be allowed through. So as well as choking off oil the way Iran has done to many of America's allies, this is a whole different set of countries that buy oil from Iran, principally China. I mean, it just seems to me that there is one of the things China wants is to be seen as a force for stability around the world.

14:58And one of the things that they definitely want to suggest to the outside world is that they're always up for stability and never, in a sense, up for war, even though, of course, their actions with regard to Taiwan rather suggest the opposite. So in those circumstances, how confident is Donald Trump that actually the Chinese are on board? And again, going back to the things he's been saying recently, both on Truth Social, but also in interviews as well, he seems to think there's no problem at all with the Chinese. I mean, he's somebody that needs oil. We don't. He's somebody I get along with very well.

15:36He just wrote me a beautiful letter. He wrote you a letter? Yeah, he did. He responded to a letter that I wrote because I had heard that China is giving weapons to, I mean, you're seeing it all over the place, to Iran, that China is giving weapons. Did he say he's giving them? And I wrote him a letter asking him not to do that. And he wrote me a letter saying that essentially he's not doing that. Yeah, well, he might say that. The Financial Times have got an exclusive today about satellite technology that the Chinese shared with Iran, allowing them to target US bases in the region. And there are other reports of ways in which China has been helping Iran, a country which is reasonably close relations with, because as I said, that's where China gets a huge amount of the oil that it imports.

16:21But Donald Trump's trying not to start a fight with President Xi here because he's got a meeting coming up. In fact, he should already have been to China. If it wasn't for the Iran war, he would have gone at the beginning of April. He's rescheduled that trip, but he's really looking forward to it. It's a big deal, actually, for Donald Trump to try to maintain friendly relations with China. That's what he wants to do. So, you know, he's somehow dragged President Xi into this war, which Xi has been very critical of, saying it's dangerous and irresponsible to have done this and talking about how the U.S.

16:54can't just ignore international law and talking about the world order crumbling into disarray because of Donald Trump's actions. You know, China's obviously pretty worried about this erratic behaviour from Donald Trump. But at a time when Trump wants to keep them on side, he is now basically dragging them into this by choking off a supply of oil. I think it's a pretty dangerous game he's playing here. I wonder whether the inability of the White House to tell a concerted story on all of this is or is not of concern politically to Donald Trump. In other words, is he thinking about the midterms? We were talking about the midterms with regard to the price of petrol.

17:38But is he now discounting it? Is he just thinking, what the heck, I don't care anymore? Because the time is running out, isn't it? People make up their minds about how to vote probably during the course of the summer rather than just waiting until the early days of November. You just wonder whether there is something going on here that is involving us all talking about the political implications of all of this. Donald Trump no longer really thinking about it. He just seems to be sublimely confident that everything will work out. I mean, it appears that's how he went into this conflict. Just fairly sure that Iran would do a deal, that US military pressure would be such that they would crumble.

18:21Remember, at the beginning, he was urging the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow the government as though that was going to be a simple and easy thing to do. He discounted fears that Iran would be able to close the Strait of Hormuz because he just blithely thinks he will succeed at everything he turns his hand to. And so I can only assume that's how he feels about the midterms as well, because if you look at his actions rather than his self-belief, you would think he was a Democratic Party agent that had been put into the White House to try and get the Republicans to lose the midterms. I mean, he couldn't be working harder to lose seats in the midterms.

18:54And it's coming up with voters already. There are Republican representatives having constituency meetings in town halls with people shouting at them about how angry they are about the war. And when is Congress going to do something about this? And why aren't they holding the president back? You know, there's real anger out there as well as concern about the costs of all of this. I don't know if people precisely make up their minds over the summer, Justin. But what it will do the next few months is just set a mood for them about how they feel about the president and his Republican Party and representatives.

19:28You know, and once it solidifies in people's minds the idea that, say, for instance, Donald Trump isn't doing for the economy what he promised to, that's a very difficult thing to overturn. The reason I was bringing up this summer as I was listening the other day to Doug Sosnick, who's a veteran Democrat operative, been behind the scenes all the way through, way back to the Clinton era. He was bringing up the example of George H.W. Bush, who lost that election in 1992, in spite of having been massively popular. You think of the first Gulf War and his popularity then, and it was a successful war, etc., etc.

20:05And then there was a recession and he was blamed for that. But what Sosnick's point was, which I thought was really interesting, is actually the recession was well over by the time the election came in November. But people, it kind of gets hardwired into people. This person has let us down. You remember with Bush, it was no new taxes and then there were etc, etc, etc. So as soon as the electorate's sour on you, there's actually not that much you can do about it, was Doug Sosnick's point. And I just wonder whether Donald Trump has reached or is reaching in the next sort of month or two that point where anything that happens after that doesn't really make any difference.

20:43What was it George H.W. Bush did during that campaign, that presidential campaign, in a supermarket somewhere? I don't think it was that he didn't know the price of a pint of milk. Was it that he didn't know how to use a supermarket checkout or something? He didn't know how to check out. The poor guy had never checked out of a supermarket, never been to a supermarket, because he'd been... What had he been? He'd been an ambassador somewhere, hadn't he? I think maybe in China. And head of the CIA. Head of the CIA. And then vice president. And then vice president. In none of those three roles do you have to check out of a supermarket.

21:16And he never had. And anyway, he probably never had in his personal life anyway or never would have been expected to. And it absolutely ditched him, didn't it? Yeah. And in a sense, you're dead right, because with Trump, that's not a problem. Trump probably himself hasn't checked out of many supermarkets in his life, but he gives the impression of having done so and he's not going to fall into that George H.W. Bush trap. And there is something about him. I think you're right. There is something about him that is just different to any other president, any other politician, that means in a sense that all the rules about, you know, you've got to do this by this date and you're going to lose the midterms because of X, Y or Z, doesn't make any difference.

21:57Except that there is one rule that still pertains, isn't it? That he isn't on the ballot this time round. If he's unpopular, it just means people don't go out and vote. Republicans aren't keen to go and vote. And his party will suffer as a result. And he might be thinking, I don't care about that anymore. I'm worried about my legacy. I'm worried about what happens in 28 and what I hand on. and if he's worried about that, you know, this is a referendum on his presidency, but 28 is about the future. Ah, but don't forget what can be done to disrupt him and therefore his legacy if Democrats take the House of Representatives, they'll start impeachment proceedings against him, very possibly also against J.D.

22:42Vance and Pete Hegseth, I would have thought for sure they will try and impeach all of them, in part for this war in Iran and some of the things that they have said and done whilst prosecuting it. So that will really jam things up. And, you know, he does a lot by executive order, but he will need to try and get some things through Congress. So if he can't do that either, that's really difficult for him. And we're at a point... No, he can just rail against them, though, Sarah. He doesn't want to do stuff. I had this discussion with Anthony the other day. Yeah, they will go for impeachment, won't they?

23:13They sort of have to because their constituents, their base will want them to do it. Anthony was saying, I don't know what you think of this, Sarah, Anthony was saying maybe they might even convict him in the Senate. If the Democrats win a majority in the Senate and a few wavery Republicans in the Senate, if wavery is a word, think, oh, what the heck, I've had it with this guy. They might actually convict him, in which case he leaves office. And then I agree, you're talking about a big deal. Yeah. And President J.D. Vance and maybe the one way he would get into the Oval Office to do that. Two thirds is a high bar for conviction in the Senate.

23:48But you never know. And I mean, I think what is looking more possible that we weren't talking about a few months ago is a Democratic majority in the Senate. If you look at some of the polling and some of the predictions, you'll see the Cook Political Report, quite a kind of specialised service and website, really analyses in a lot of detail all the electoral races. It's shifted four Senate races to leaning Democrat, which they didn't think were going to go that way before, Georgia and North Carolina included, which are states that Trump won in 2024. So you're starting to see that effect of his unpopularity showing him what could happen in the midterm elections and the impact that that really could have for Donald Trump.

24:35Yeah, it's a really big deal, isn't it? And there's no doubt at all that there are seats now, Now there are Senate seats that it looks as if the Democrats have a real chance of winning. And it would. I mean, you're absolutely right. Obviously, it would sort of throw politics, throw American politics into a complete turmoil because they'd be in very much in charge in Congress. And all those questions we get asked about where Congress is, well, suddenly they'd be back. And even if they didn't impeach, Sarah, it's really noticeable, isn't it, that you've got Democrats now. I think they've formed a committee.

25:05I mean, this is a there's a bit of performance. There's a lot of performance in all of this, but they formed a committee, haven't they, to to deal with J.D. Vance in the event of the 25th Amendment being invoked. In other words, the cabinet and J.D. Vance say to Donald Trump, look, mate, you're not fit for office anymore. We're going to get rid of you, which in theory under the 25th Amendment they could. And the Democrats are now saying, yes, we will be willing to will be willing to do business with you in the event that this happens. We're setting up a committee that will be part of this process.