Republican lawmakers are losing their patience with President Donald Trump’s flip-flopping Iran strategy.
A growing number are now openly warning that the war, and the inflation it’s fueling, could cost them their congressional majority in the November midterms.
Trump said last month during a Cabinet meeting that he does not “care about the midterms,” but Republicans on Capitol Hill certainly do.
Hours after Trump threatened to seize a major Iranian oil hub, several key Republicans told CNN they were deeply uncomfortable with the president’s willingness to escalate without a coherent endgame.
The anxiety spans the party’s spectrum, from centrists to leadership allies to die-hard MAGA loyalists, and is rapidly growing as gas prices and consumer costs continue to climb. This is another concern that the 79-year-old billionaire has downplayed, calling the affordability crisis a “hoax” cooked up by political foes.
“I think people are really feeling it,” said Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia. “It’s not just gas prices, food prices, and other things, and I think there’s a level of frustration. So I think the pressure is for the president to reach a peace solution and move on.”
Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a centrist from New Jersey who says he supports the broader goal of neutralizing Iran’s nuclear capabilities, was more blunt. “Get it done. Get out,” he said. “We need an exit strategy.”
Trump’s main domestic response to the economic fallout has been a push to temporarily freeze the federal gas tax, a proposal widely panned by his own party as offering negligible relief. Republicans say the White House isn’t helping itself with recent side projects, either, and his “I love the inflation” comment this week landed like a grenade in the camp.
“Makes absolutely no sense to me,” said Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who was beaten by Trump’s hand-picked candidate, controversial Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, in a runoff election last month.
“The fact that we’re not talking about or focused on the things that most people care about at election time, kitchen table issues, I think, is a problem,” he said.
Behind the scenes, the frustration runs deeper. Several senior lawmakers, including the House GOP’s top spending leader, Rep. Tom Cole, have complained they’ve been left in the dark about the war’s total cost. Trump has floated a Pentagon funding request of up to $350 billion, due sometime by August, and Republicans are already balking. Others say Trump has failed to make a convincing public case—or a private one—for the conflict.
“I think we can lay out the case right, but we haven’t done a good job at it,” said retiring Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, who has made a habit in his last days in office of dissenting against the MAGA figurehead.
The prospect of ground troops is where Republican alarm reaches its crescendo. Trump’s threat to seize Kharg Island, Iran’s primary oil export hub, drew swift warnings from within his own party.
“I don’t support boots on the ground. I don’t think America has the stomach for that,” said Rep. Nick LaLota of New York, who declined to rule out backing a formal congressional vote to authorize the conflict—against party leaders’ wishes.
Even Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, one of Trump’s most reliable allies, said he was “worried” about the Kharg Island idea, offering a stark historical warning: “This is how it started in Vietnam.”
Kennedy acknowledged the economic toll but stopped short of condemning the strategy outright, noting he’s not privy to classified briefings.
“I think the president has clearly decided to take the pain,” Kennedy said. “I think he’s decided that long-term, the benefits of crippling Iran permanently, if possible, are worth the costs to our economy, to our inflation rate, and the world’s economy. I think he’s made that decision, and it has been painful.”
One Republican lawmaker, granted anonymity to speak candidly, offered a grim outlook for the party. “It needed to happen even if it costs us our majority. And it might.”
Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota framed the electoral stakes plainly. “People often vote their pocketbook,” he said. “If people don’t feel secure financially, they oftentimes obviously respond by choosing somebody else.”
He added, with unusual candor, “I don’t think people have a great deal of confidence in any of us right now, quite honestly.”
Sen. Josh Hawley called this week’s inflation numbers a “wake-up call.” “If Congress doesn’t deliver the relief,” he warned, “I think voters are not going to be pleased.”
The White House has been approached for comment.
