A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
President Trump sent Congress a formal notification this week that the U.S. is once again at war with Iran.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
The administration argues this gives them a new 60-day clock to use military action without congressional approval. But the greater concern for the president and his inner circle may not be approval from Congress, but from voters, particularly as the midterms get closer and closer.
MARTÍNEZ: NPR White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez joins us now. Franco, so a restarting of full-scale fighting, there's got to be some political implications here.
FRANCO ORDOÑEZ, BYLINE: I think it kind of depends on what actually happens next. I mean, the president would rather not be dealing with all this. I mean, he's made that clear as he's aggressively pushed for the ceasefire. Now, I will say, A, if these new strikes actually kind of break the regime, if the Strait of Hormuz actually opens and gas prices drop down, then actually maybe the political implications could be kind of good for the president.
But if fighting continues, you know, next week and beyond that, and energy prices continue to rise, then obviously that would not be good for the president or for Republicans, for that matter. And just one other factor is whether voters actually feel the U.S. won or lost the war or is winning or losing. I mean, it's certainly not going to sit well with Americans if they feel the president started this war and then the U.S. lost. So the success of this latest offensive could also be very important from that political perspective as well.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. And the thing on that is that foreign policy really rarely dominates midterm elections. I mean, could this year be an exception?
ORDOÑEZ: I mean, yes, in that this is a big foreign policy challenge. But no, or really only because it's helping drive such major domestic challenges. I mean, voters are not necessarily going to point to the war for how they voted. I was talking with Jon McHenry, a veteran pollster with North Star Opinion Research. You know, he says exit polls will not show the war, but they'll more likely show voters citing higher energy prices and the economy, which are driven by the war.
JON MCHENRY: Ultimately, the gas prices may be the determining factor in how this plays out politically because gas prices have a ripple effect on everything. Prices, you know, at every retail shop and at the grocery store will go up because, (laughter) you know, a gallon of milk doesn't walk to the grocery store. It gets driven there by a truck. So the gas price is sort of the crux of the whole matter.
ORDOÑEZ: Now, that could change, of course, if this continues to grow and if, for example, Trump commits ground troops to the conflict. Now, he's been reluctant to do that. But he has threatened the possibility.
MARTÍNEZ: So, Franco, is this what we're doing now, sporadic strikes and then just continued anxiety about the war all the time?
ORDOÑEZ: I mean, I'll say that Americans, though, have been expecting that. I mean, there was a new Reuters poll that came out that said, 4 out of 5 Americans expect the war to drag on indefinitely. I mean, less than 20%, A, expect the war to end in a matter of weeks.
MARTÍNEZ: The thing is, though, President Trump has said for months that the war is almost over - obviously not because Iran continues to stop traffic going through the strait. So what has this done to Trump's overall support?
ORDOÑEZ: Well, I'd say a majority of Americans oppose the war. But I'll just add that if you focus on Republicans, they largely continue to remain behind Trump. I mean, it's not necessarily that they're ignoring the evidence that you outlined, but they trust Trump's framing. And McHenry, the Republican pollster, tells me he doesn't expect that to change, no matter the reporting, no matter the facts on the ground - that Trump's core supporters trust how the president interprets those facts to them. And he says that they're likely to trust the president until they can't anymore.
MARTÍNEZ: That's White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez. Thanks a lot.
ORDOÑEZ: Thank you, A. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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