The Memo: Political pressures grow on Trump over Iran

President Trump faces a plethora of political pressures stemming from his decision to attack Iran — and they are likely to escalate the longer the conflict goes on.

In terms of domestic politics, the gravest threat is the economic effects of the strife in the Middle East. 

Gas prices in the United States have risen sharply, chiefly because of the de facto blockage of the crucial Strait of Hormuz off Iran’s southern coast. Around 20 percent of the world’s oil transits the narrow channel under normal circumstances.

The national average price for a gallon of gas has soared from roughly $2.90 a week before the first U.S. and Israeli assaults on Iran to around $3.61 on Thursday, according to the GasBuddy website.

The gas prices are reflective of massive volatility in the price of oil. The swings in oil’s valuation have sometimes been driven by Trump’s public remarks, with prices easing when he implies he might draw the conflict to a close and rising when that outcome looks more distant. 

As of 4 p.m. EDT on Thursday, the price of Brent Crude oil had again edged over $100, up more than 9 percent for the day. Within the past five days, the price has ranged from approximately $84 to $116.

Trump sought to make the best of these price gyrations in a Thursday morning social media post, in which he contended: “The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money.”

But it seems highly dubious whether that argument will resonate with an American public already dismayed by the state of the economy, worried about rising prices and unpersuaded by the arguments for war in Iran.

“The way the administration has handled the political and diplomatic aspects of this war have fallen way short of where they need to be,” said former Rep. Charlie Dent (Pa.), a moderate Republican who has been critical of Trump.

Dent said that while the U.S. military had performed well, “as expected,” the president has not made a compelling public case for why force needed to be used in the first place.

“He didn’t make the case, and that’s reflected in the fact that there is clearly not majority public support for this war. So, consequently, every Republican who is up for office knows this will be a political vulnerability for them going into November.”

An Economist/YouGov poll released earlier this week showed no “rally around the flag” effect of the kind commonly seen at the outset of past conflicts. To the contrary, it found 39 percent of surveyed adults approving and 52 percent disapproving of how Trump had handled Iran.

This is broadly in line with other polls. And, in terms of raw politics, it is especially perilous because of the public dissatisfaction that already exists with Trump’s handling of the economy in general, and rising prices in particular.

The Economist poll gave him a net negative rating of almost 30 points on his handling of inflation, with just 33 percent of surveyed Americans approving and 62 percent disapproving. Notably, 1 in 4 respondents who said they had voted for Trump in the 2024 election disapproved of his performance on the topic.

To be sure, a swift and favorable conclusion to the war could change the political dynamics at a stroke.

If, for example, the Islamic Republic’s governing structure collapsed, Trump would no doubt claim a historic victory and some voters might let go of their misgivings about an enterprise that the president has called “a little excursion.”

Such an outcome is not implausible. Nobody really doubts that the combined military forces of the U.S. and Israel are superior to those of Iran. Tehran is being bombed every day, and sometimes calcified regimes can disguise evidence of their own impending collapse until they are right on the brink.

Advocates of the war praise Trump as a commander in chief willing to take action where others would have been too timid.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), an especially fervent supporter of military action, wrote on social media earlier this week that the U.S. is “destroying Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities and weakening the regime’s ability to threaten the world with terror.” 

This would not be possible, Graham asserted, without Trump.

Politically, though, a big part of Trump’s problem is time.

A sustained calming of oil and gas prices seems highly unlikely unless the threat of Iranian drones and missiles hitting energy-producing nations elsewhere in the Gulf is mitigated and the Strait of Hormuz reopens.

The longer those prices are elevated, the greater the chances of inflationary pressure being felt across the board. The costs of fertilizer and of running farm equipment would increase, for example, likely leading to higher prices on supermarket shelves. 

Trump, too, is famously sensitive to the political ramifications of shifts in the financial markets.

The major U.S. indices suffered another day of losses on Thursday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the broader-based S&P 500 each falling by roughly 1.5 percent. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite was off by almost 1.8 percent.

For the year to date, those three indices have fallen by roughly 3.5 percent, 2.7 percent and 4 percent, respectively.

Looming over all of this is the midterm election, now less than eight months away.

Republicans make little secret of the fact that they would prefer to run on the tax cuts included in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed last year and on “putting the brakes on cultural wokeness,” as GOP strategist Dan Judy put it.

Judy argued that media speculation about the Iran war causing cracks in Trump’s base of support was “premature.” 

But when it comes to domestic politics, he acknowledged the potency of gas prices in particular. 

Prices will certainly rise steeply if the war is prolonged, he said — and could easily be elevated for some time even if the war is brought to a speedy conclusion.

“That’s not something that Republicans want to be dealing with,” he said.

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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