The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, speaking on Thursday on MS Now’s “The Moment with Katy Tur,” suggested Donald Trump has yet to grasp the political damage that his Iran war is inflicting on his presidency.
Haberman, co-author of the new Trump tell-all “Regime Change,” argued the White House is acutely aware that the war, launched by the president in February, has become deeply unpopular with his MAGA base, largely due to his previous “America First”-themed vows not to get the U.S. involved in another lengthy and costly conflict.
MS Now’s Katy Tur noted: “This is anecdotal. I was down the shore for the Fourth of July. I did not see one Trump flag, which is shocking. Not one. Do they understand how people have reacted, how the MAGA base, Republican voters, have reacted to this war?”
Haberman said Trump’s advisers “absolutely understand” the political fallout.
But Trump “absorbing it, I think, is a different issue,” she continued, adding that “one of the things that has been so radically different about this term, among many, many others from term one, is he’s so much less responsive to domestic politics.”
Haberman revealed that one Trump official had said the administration needed the Iran war to be “off the front pages by September.”
“Well, this is not heading that way right now,” she said. “They are very aware and concerned. He is not as focused on it as they are.”