Donald Trump admits that he knows his war with Iran is deeply unpopular, despite insisting in the same breath that most Americans approve of it.
As the conflict entered another week with no clear end in sight, the 79-year-old also claimed current gas prices were “peanuts” and that any economic pain was a small price to pay to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions in the long term.
“I thought the market would go down 25 percent, and I was OK with that to get rid of a nuclear potential holocaust,” Trump told reporters as he took them on a construction tour of his White House ballroom project on Tuesday.
“Would have been a nuclear holocaust. So, going down 25 percent’s OK when you get rid of a nuclear holocaust, so, uh, most people agree with me.”
The comments come as Trump’s approval rating fell to its lowest level ever, according to a recent New York Times poll.
The same poll also found that most Americans do not think Trump’s decision to join Israel in its decades-old conflict with Iran was worth the cost or that the U.S. economy is going to improve.
Despite this, Trump told reporters that “politically, I’m doing good.”
“Everyone tells me [the war] is unpopular, but I think it’s very popular,” he acknowledged on Monday, before adding: “Whether it’s popular or not popular, I have to do it, because I’m not going to let the world be blown up on my watch. Not gonna happen.”
After winning office, promising not to get embroiled in foreign entanglements, Trump ordered strikes on Iran on February 28, expecting a speedy victory against the authoritarian regime.
Since then, 13 U.S. service officers and countless Iranians have died, while a standoff in the Strait of Hormuz, where 20 percent of the world’s oil generally flows, has led to more pain at the pump for consumers.
Gas prices are now at a national average of $4.53 a gallon, according to AAA, creating a political headache for Republicans ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Trump’s health has become a growing concern as the war drags on, partly because of the incendiary posts he has put out since, from threatening to destroy “a whole civilization” to images depicting himself as Jesus.
Meanwhile, the president is struggling to find an off-ramp, oscillating between insisting that a deal with Iran is close, to threatening to break a ceasefire with the country.
On Monday, he announced that he had paused a planned resumption of hostilities after a new proposal by Tehran to end the conflict.
“I was an hour away from making the decision to go today,” he said on Tuesday.
“There seems to be a very good chance that they can work something out. If we can do that without bombing the hell out of them, I would be very happy.”
As for rising gas prices for consumers?
“This is peanuts. I appreciate everybody putting up with it for a little while. But I don’t even think about. What I think about is you can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon,” he said.
