Will Trump's record unpopularity make him end the war in Iran?

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0:36Because life is hard, feeling good shouldn't be. PinkCherry.com, because everyone deserves pleasure. This is a Global Player original podcast. What is happening in the Iran war? We're hitting them very hard last night. We knocked out tremendous amounts of missile-making facilities, as you probably read. And when things aren't going quite as well as he would like, what does he do? What is his go-to? Bad press, fake press, all fake. What is Donald Trump talking about there? It sounds like he's learning to read. I would say that within two weeks, maybe two weeks, maybe three, we're hitting them very hard.

1:17Last night, we knocked out tremendous amounts of missile making facilities. We as you probably read or wrote, we knocked out. Excuse me. Pardon me if I'm interrupting. We'll be the U.S. will be gone or done with the war. I think we're two or three weeks. We'll leave. It's interesting that Donald Trump says two or three weeks. It's always two or three weeks, two or three weeks to get a trade deal, two or three weeks to get peace in Ukraine, two or three weeks to replace affordable health care, two or three weeks to do any number of things. When Donald Trump doesn't know an answer, it's always two or three weeks.

1:54So to read between the lines, I guess the question we're trying to ask is, has he got bored of Iran and is he now about to give up? Welcome to the News Agents USA. The News Agents USA with Emily Maitlis and John Sopel. It's John. It's Maitlis. And Donald Trump has been talking, it seems, nonstop about anything, everything. And when things aren't going quite as well as he would like, what does he do? What is his go-to? It's to attack the media. It's to say, you're all against me, but the people love me. And last night in the Oval Office, absolutely true to form. That is what he clutched for when your popularity is sinking.

2:42The papers that are being dishonest, papers generally, people don't believe the media. And to finish, I got 93 percent bad publicity. Some people say 97, but between 93 and 97. A person that gets 97 % of bad stories, maybe Caroline's doing a poor job, I don't know. She's my representative, you're doing a terrible job. Should we keep her? I think we'll keep her. But I get 93 to 97 % bad press, fake press, all fake. Donald Trump has explained fake news before, which is fake news is anything I don't like. It's not because it's untrue, it's because he doesn't want to accept that he is wrong on anything.

3:27But there are problems for him. And it's not just about, you know, the papers that have been traditionally hostile to Donald Trump. It's sections of the media that normally cheerlead for him that are raising questions as well over the Iran war, what the objectives are, what the end game looks like, what the strategy is. And I think those questions are kind of magnified now as fuel prices continue to rise in America. And now on average, according to the American Automobile Association, over four dollars a gallon. And so that is starting to hit his popularity ratings. Yeah, it's really interesting.

4:06Nate Silver's done some work on this. And Nate Silver tends to be a fairly sort of central barometer on on sort of the Trump pros and cons. He's got too much of a reputation to be sort of swayed by his own opinion, whatever that is. And what he's talked about is the start of the war not producing what they call the traditional sort of rally around the flag effect. But what is taking the hit now is not actually the invasion of Iran, which, you know, Americans can choose to condemn or celebrate. But it is about the effect on the gas prices right now. And this has shown him now slipping into a recent decline of five points of net approval over the past several weeks.

4:53So a combination of polls have him dipping below the 40 percent mark. Some of them have even got him mid 30s. And I guess the question is, I mean, this sounds ridiculous, but I think it is absolutely right that the poll numbers will actually start to define what happens next in Iran. and that is kind of a crazy place to have to get your head round that if Trump realises that Americans are unhappy with what's going on in the petrol prices, in the price of food and problems with fertiliser and all the rest of it if he starts to recognise that people are telling him through the polls that they don't like this then you watch the whole Iran question will be made to go away in two weeks time so if you want an explanation for why he's bored If you want an explanation why we've got the two week holding pattern now, that seems to me to be a pretty central one.

5:50Well, American lawmakers have been trying to make sense of this themselves over why the Americans have gone to war with Iran, what the objectives are, what the end game is, what the strategy is. And we can talk now to Congressman Jim Hines. So, Congressman, thank you very much for joining us. You've obviously been getting a lot of briefings on what is happening in the Iran war. can you make any more sense of it than we can on this side of the Atlantic where we're struggling to work out what the war aims are and when they'll be achieved? Yeah, yeah. You know, unfortunately, I wish I could tell you that we are getting a lot of briefings.

6:29That is not true. You know, I'm a member of the Gang of Eight, which is a very small group of eight people, the leaders of the two chambers and of the Intelligence Committee. And we were given a heads up, not told that a decision had been made, but several days prior to the attack, we were given a heads up. There was a subsequent briefing or two, but that has been it. But actually, that doesn't matter because this has all been public. And what I mean by that is that, you know, Marco Rubio in the first week of the war expressed the reasons for the war, profoundly unsatisfying, though they were.

7:02And then he has articulated, as has everybody else in the administration, the tactical goals. And I stress the word tactical, and we know what they are sinking the Iranian Navy, which has largely been achieved, breaking lots of their missile launchers, which has largely been achieved. And of course, whatever this may mean, further setting back the nuclear program that we were, of course, assured nine months ago was already obliterated. So, okay, for what it's worth, those are at least clear tactical objectives, largely accomplished. The problem is there was never and still is no articulated strategic objective for a long-term outcome.

7:37In other words, we're going to try to affect regime change now. That would have been a controversial strategic objective. But because there is no strategic objective now, the president is talking about simply declaring victory and sailing away, having achieved two things, a much younger, more vicious and extreme group of people running Tehran and the closure of the Straits of Hormuz with a staggering increase in fertilizer prices, gasoline prices. And so this is the wages of not having a clear strategic objective. So when Donald Trump says, as he has been saying in recent days, there is a new, more moderate, acceptable leadership now in Iran, what do you make of that?

8:25Well, it's just nonsense. I mean, it's empirically the opposite, right? In other words, you know, six weeks ago, as hideous as the Iranian regime is and always has been. You had a, what was he, mid-80s supreme leader who had issued a fatwa, a mandate against developing a nuclear weapon. Now you have his son, who is known to be much more, if you will, in the pocket of the Republican Guard, the most extreme security service in Iran, who has toyed openly with the creation of a nuclear weapon. Oh, and by the way, for good measure, we killed his daughter and wife and father or whatever it was. And so what from us from the standpoint of the regime, what you have done or what we have done, the United States has done is actually create a more it may be smaller because the Israelis in particular have decapitated and taken out a lot of the leadership.

9:17But you now have a smaller, more radicalized, more ideological extreme, ideologically extreme group of people running the show there. Can I just go back and ask you as a member of Congress, whether congressional sign-off was important to you and your fellow congresspeople on this one. I mean, we've read a lot about illegality versus legality. And I guess, you know, one of the theories is that if you start to play that game, virtually every incursion would end up being an illegal act of war. But do you think that that was where things went wrong by not having this passed through Congress, not even having it explained to Congress?

9:56Or do you think that is the commander-in-chief's prerogative? Well, it's certainly not the commander in chief's prerogative. And look, there may be all sorts of tactical concerns with, you know, debating a war before it begins in the Congress. You certainly lose the element of surprise, for example. But hey, the Constitution is not optional. Just because it's hard doesn't mean that we don't abide by it, right? And the Constitution is enormously clear that it is Congress that declares war. And so, you know, we get into these games of semantics where, you know, even though we have whatever it is, 20, a quarter of United States military might in the region with, you know, 13 terribly and tragically dead Americans and, you know, our allies under fire every day.

10:37Well, this is not a war. I mean, so you get into these semantic games. And to be fair to the Trump administration, you know, this is not a malady distinct to the Trump administration, right? Barack Obama undertook military action in Libya without congressional approval. Bill Clinton did so in the Balkans. So this is a long term American debate. But and here's my here's the important point. Everything we were just talking about, the clear absence of a strategic rationale, or as General Petraeus so famously said it, answering the question, how does this end, is precisely what Congress would have done.

11:14And, you know, the fact that Congress didn't debate, consider as the Constitution dictates this, means that we don't have an answer to that question today. Well, I guess we have it in some shape or form in the last 12 hours from Donald Trump, who says we're going to be out of there in two or three weeks. And by the way, I'd quite like to leave NATO as well. In your mind, what happens then in two or three weeks? Do you, I mean, does he just quit the scene and leave the chaos? Are the straits still in Iran's control? Is there a deal? Where do you think this takes us? Well, that will certainly be his temptation.

11:52And it is what he is signaling, you know, most notably in the Truth Social, in which he told Asia and Europe to go get your own oil. It has not penetrated Donald Trump's skull yet that the oil market is a global thing. And Americans pay the same price for oil, generally speaking, that everybody else does. So look, I think that he's going to be enormously tempted, realizing the political toxicity of his actions to simply, as I said, declare victory and sail away. But he sails away from a much more vicious regime. And he sails away, of course, from a closed Strait of Hormuz. And that's the problem, right?

12:28That's the domestic political problem. You know, if the Straits of Hormuz aren't reopened, and if you were the regime and you were no longer being bombed, why in God's name would you reopen those Straits to anything but your own shipping? Boy, does he leave a terrible mess. And of course, I almost want to use the word fractured with respect to our allies. But I think we're beyond that at this point. I think our NATO allies are being openly hostile at this point because of the treatment that they have received at the hands of Donald Trump. Do you think he will walk away from NATO? I mean, that's what he's saying.

12:59It's past reconsideration now. And would anyone stop him? I mean, would Congress stop him? Congress would certainly try to stop him. And an awful lot of our participation in NATO is congressionally driven. I mean, for example, we passed a bill that mandated a certain amount of spending for the Baltic initiative. We mandate troop levels in Europe. So Donald Trump is certainly in the position to rhetorically continue to batter our NATO allies. And by the way, for what? I understand that he's angry that Spain, the UK and Germany didn't join this mad adventure that he cooked up. I understand that, his anger.

13:36But talk about, we have this expression, and, you know, hurting your nose to spite your face. You know, our enduring advantage over the Chinese, over the Russians, is the fact that we have these alliances, right? So, I mean, again, the answer to your question is that he could do an awful lot of additional damage to our NATO alliance, but Congress would do its best to stand in the breach. Congressman, I hear your criticism of Donald Trump, but on that question, and look, you know, on this side of the pond, we are scratching our heads a bit. But do you think there is justification for the anger being felt towards NATO that we haven't come to the help of the Americans?

14:19You know, if you agree with me that this was an enormously poorly thought out war, which echoes a long line of poorly thought out wars in which the United States has not had a good outcome. Iraq, Afghanistan. I'm not sure anybody looks at the intervention in Libya and says, yeah, let's do that all again. You know, as sovereign countries, NATO nations have a right to say, wait a minute, this is unwise and we're not going to risk our blood and treasure on a poorly thought out adventure. That does create diplomatic friction, of course. But no, I don't. And by the way, let me say too, you know, there's a saying about Donald Trump that sometimes he asks the right question.

15:04He just comes up with the wrong answer. You know, Americans are legitimately frustrated at the fact that for many generations, the United States taxpayer has almost unilaterally, and I don't want to say unilaterally because of course, NATO came to our defense after 9-11, but has really footed the bill for European defense for generations. Now, I happen to believe that that was an investment well worth making, but Donald Trump is not wrong when he says it's time for Europe to stand up for itself, to be a more equal partner in the defence. But the way to achieve those goals, of course, is diplomatically, not to threaten and to engage Greenland or to become outraged because your friends don't join you when you decide to take on, you know, a truly unwise bar fight.

15:47So let me ask you this then about kind of what happens next. Do Do you think Donald Trump in his own head thinks this is going well and that, as Emily says, that he's ready to declare victory in two weeks time? Or do you think he knows that this is not going to plan? Yeah, that's a very interesting question. And it's not one I'm really in a position to answer. It worries somebody like me that given the nature of Donald Trump, that he may be being told by his advisers, you know, only the good news in as much as there is good news. And that good news, by the way, from a military standpoint, you know, sir, we destroyed six missile launchers today and the Strait of Hormuz is still closed.

16:30You know, you can sort of imagine the president getting a fairly slanted view of what's happening, which is a terribly, terribly dangerous thing. But I candidly, I am not in those discussions. So so I don't know. Look, we're a big, boisterous democracy. So, you know, five dollars, six dollars a gallon gasoline and the devastation that that wreaks in the political polling will not be a surprise to him come some point in the immediate future. So, you know, his people may be too scared to give him the blunt truth, but it's it will penetrate eventually. You mentioned that the House Intelligence Committee, the Gang of Eight, got an early heads up that military intervention was coming.

17:09The FT broker's story yesterday that Pete Hegseth had a broker who was trying to make a deal on his behalf, knowing that these strikes on Iran were coming. And we also understand that there was extraordinarily peculiar activity in the 15 minutes before Donald Trump made his claim that an Iran peace deal had been fixed. It doesn't seem from where we're sitting that anyone has actually taken this speculation or these questions any further and launched an investigation into, frankly, insider trading, insider dealing right within the heart of government. Is that because it's just small beer compared to everything else?

17:58Or is that something that you would you would call for? You'd want to see happen now. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, with respect to this story on the Secretary of Defense potentially trying to profit off of his own actions, I don't have the facts. You know, I would make a larger observation, which is the United States has never had an administration as corrupt as this one. Liberty Financial, crypto, Jared Kushner running around running funds in the Middle East while he's sort of working in the Middle East. I mean, I'm not sure we've ever had an administration quite as corrupt. But to answer your question, this is why the Department of Justice must be and always has been, at least in memory, independent, because the people, the police officers and the investigators who might take a look at this question about Pete Hegseth all report to Pam Bondi, who is merely one of a dozen zombie acolytes of this president, who will not only not investigate any even obvious wrongdoing in the administration, because she knows it will mean her job, but which will instead spend her time, you know, trying to investigate and indict and jail the president's political opponents, as they have done with Comey, who used to run the FBI.

19:13They're trying to do with Eric Swalwell. I mean, it's just the list goes on and on and on. So this is the problem of having an acolyte destroy the independence of the Department of Justice. No one is going to get prosecuted for that, are they? I mean, no one. Well, I mean, just look at the facts. It's hard to predict the future. But, you know, I was in the chamber on January 6th, 2021, when, you know, thousands of people broke windows and beat police officers, you know, and vandalized the place. And, you know, all 2000 or whatever the number was on day one of the Trump presidency are pardoned for that grossest of acts against our democracy.

19:51And have re-offended. Many have re-offended. Who have then now gone out and re-offended as a testament to their characters. So we've got the midterm elections in November. We've got a war on in Iran. You've described various kind of problems that the country faces where Pan Bondi is not allowing any prosecutions to take place and the like. Are you confident, one, that the elections will happen or that if they do happen, you know, who knows whether there'll be ICE officers positioned at some key polling stations to deter people from voting? I mean, what's your level of confidence that the midterms will just go ahead as normal?

20:30Yeah, yeah, no, that's that is in some ways the question of the day, because, you know, if you're here on the side of the pond, you see the political devastation that this year has visited on the president and the fact that in the most unlikely of areas, the Democrats are winning stunning victories, most notably, of course, at Mar-a-Lago. I mean, this is a ruby red district that is now represented by Democrats. So the writing is on the wall with respect to the outcome. The House will flip to a Democratic majority and the Senate may very well. So that raises the question, what is the president going to do about that?

21:06And again, I made reference to January 6, 2021. No one in this country believes that he's going to sit idly by and welcome the results of a peaceful transfer of power, right? So, but, you know, a couple of thoughts, and I won't tell you that I'm apocalyptically pessimistic for a few reasons. Number one, here in the United States, despite the president's attempts to, you know, to federalize the elections, our elections are enormously dispersed and fragmented. They're run by little old ladies, our registrars of voters, you know, in Wilton, Connecticut, who are not going to be subject to pressure from the White House.

21:38And, you know, needless to say, the judiciary will be watching this very closely. And of course, we will, as we have always done in places like Guatemala and Bolivia, we will stack those voting places with observers and lawyers to make sure that there are no shenanigans. That said, it would not be difficult for the president to arrange for a scuffle outside a polling place in Georgia to choose one state where you have a senator very much up for re-election and possibly swing the Senate. Oh, well, there's a scuffle. So now federal police needed to move in. And in the melee, a voting machine was actually put in the back of a truck.

22:14I mean, you can very easily construct a scenario which is designed to create the ambiguity that the president hoped would stop the transfer of power to Biden because, you know, then, well, maybe we can get this judge to say that the election needs to be rerun or whatever it may be. So anyway, the answer is it's enormously difficult to compromise our elections, but you can bet the president is going to try pretty hard. If we just leave the question of dirty tricks to one side, though, the Democrats ought to be really doing well at this point. I mean, Congressman, you've said that the House should flip and you say maybe the Senate as well.

22:52So can I just press you on that? I mean, you've got Texas, you've got James Tallarico there, you've got a Senate seat in Maine, you've got one in South Carolina. I mean, I guess if you flip this round, you could say, if the Democrats can't take it amidst all this chaos, then who are you? What are you doing? Yes. And of course, this is the question that I've urged my party not to bury in the morass in which we find ourselves. Forget about what happens in November. Donald Trump was very much a known quantity in 2024. And the American people in overwhelming numbers looked at the Democrats from the presidential candidate on down through the Senate and House candidates, And they said, yeah, we're going to choose the felon.

23:42Yeah. Why? Why? Why? And so, you know, oftentimes people don't want to do the introspection required to deal with that staggering indictment of the Democratic Party in 2024. So believe me, I'm not necessarily popular in Democratic circles for doing it, but that introspection has to continue to occur. Just give us a window into that briefly. I mean, without rerunning the whole sort of, you know, Kamala Harris 107 days, fundamentally, what are the Democrats still getting wrong or what were they getting wrong? Yeah, I mean, we can spend an hour on another autopsy of what occurred in 2024, you know, and it would include a conversation about the remarkably little time that Harris had, etc., etc.

24:27But but this isn't at a headline level, this isn't hard. And it was articulated during the Clinton and the original Clinton campaign in 1992 when James Carville said those immortal political words. words. It's the economy stupid. Right. So, you know, for example, you know, the Republicans are very successful at painting us as exotic and radical. They say they don't care about what you're paying for gasoline or health care or whether you'll have a retirement. They're struggling over whether you can tell the difference between a man and a woman. Now, that points to very real issues. But the point is, Democrats must, you know, as items number one, two, three, four and five center affordability and the economic well-being of the American people.

25:10Congressman Jim Himes, thanks very much for joining us. And a happy Easter to you. Thank you. Thank you very much.

25:22It's 2026. We upgraded our phones, our cars, even our coffee. So why are we still acting like pleasure is negotiable? At Pink Cherry, it's not. They've got hundreds of toys that actually deliver. And whether you know exactly what you like or you're still figuring it out, there is a wide range to explore. If you'd rather skip the guesswork, their mystery boxes make it easy. They curate a mix for you so you can discover new favorites without overthinking it. And they ship discreetly with free shipping on orders over$59, which we love. So go to PinkCherry.com and use promo code CHELSEA to save up to 80 % off site-wide.

25:59Because life is hard, feeling good shouldn't be. PinkCherry.com because everyone deserves pleasure.

26:10The News Agents USA. I'm allowed, meaning we are allowed to continue building as necessary to, let's see, what is that? To cover the safety and security of the White House and its grounds. So it says here very carefully the safety and security have to be protected of the White House grounds. Well, that's what we're doing because everything's bulletproof glass, etc., etc., including the ballroom. And then it goes construction and all of the things necessary. It says personal safety of the president and his staff are a part of that. So it talks about that we're allowed to continue building. In other words, he put an order on and even that he gave 14 days.