Republican candidates are being advised by Donald Trump’s own allies to break with the president when talking about the Iran war in order to give the GOP a better chance in the midterms.
During Sunday’s episode of Alex Witt Reports, MS NOW White House correspondent Jake Traylor teased a report revealing that GOP strategists are secretly telling Republican incumbents and challengers to “put some distance and space” between how they talk about the Middle East conflict and how Trump does.
The reported advice came after another damning poll was published on Sunday showing just how deeply unpopular the Iran war is with Americans ahead of November’s crucial midterm elections, where Republicans are desperate to maintain control of the House and Senate.
A CBS News/YouGov survey found that 65 percent disapprove of the Iran war, while 66 percent believe the nearly five-month conflict is going “somewhat” or “very” badly. More than two-thirds (67 percent) also think the war should end now, while 60 percent believe Trump is trying to make things sound “better than they really are” with regard to the conflict.
“We’ve consistently seen incredibly negative polling on the president’s handling of the war. The question around all this, especially when they’re talking about American citizens, is how does this impact the midterm election?” Traylor said.
“My colleague Vaughn [Hillyard] and I have talked to multiple different senior officials, allies close to Trump, people in charge of leading the midterm strategy for Republicans. They’re advising candidates, whether they’re incumbents or challengers, Republican candidates, to essentially not talk about the war the same way President Trump is.
“They’re encouraged to actually put some distance and space between the way Trump talks about the war and the way they do because they’re aware they don’t have a winning strategy when it comes to the midterms,” Traylor added.
“Obviously, we are just 100 days out here. Every bit of messaging on this matters, and the Republicans around Trump know that, and that’s why they’re encouraging others to distance themselves from his language in this moment.”
The report from Tralor and Vaughn Hill, MS NOW’s senior White House correspondent, was published online Monday morning.
It featured multiple quotes from Republican figures confirming that the best strategy going forward for midterm candidates is not to blindly show support for Trump on the Iran war.
“You’re not going to have candidates or lawmakers running out to defend the president’s handling of the economy or the war—polling shows that most people don’t agree with his handling,” one Republican operative working on the party’s midterm races told MS NOW.
Another GOP strategist familiar with the White House’s midterm plans said Republicans would be falling into a “Democrat trap” if they openly support the war on the campaign trail.
“If a candidate lets their race become a referendum on Iran, that’s a mistake,” they said.
“They can say, ‘I’m going to work with the president to get things done, and occasionally we may disagree on something, but my Democrat opponent, they are just going to oppose everything—even good things for working families—and bring total gridlock to Washington.’”
Trump has repeatedly insisted the Iran war is going well, even as it has stretched into a fifth month with no end in sight.
On Sunday, Axios reported that the U.S. paused strikes on Iran for a third consecutive night after the top U.S. military commander in the Middle East, Adm. Brad Cooper, advised Trump that the bombing campaign around the Strait of Hormuz had reached the limits of its effectiveness.
The New York Times also reported that there are concerns within the Trump administration that continuing the war will drain the U.S.’s stockpile of air defense munitions to a dangerously low level.
Mike Waltz, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, dismissed those concerns and insisted that the U.S. has “everything that it needs” for military operations against Iran.
However, during the same interview on NBC News’ Meet the Press on Sunday, Waltz also suggested that the Pentagon had “inherited a depleted situation … and a depleted military” from the Biden administration.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
