Trump’s Iran trap

Today on The Playbook Podcast, Iran war anxiety pierces Trump's orbit, with one source telling me Trump is caught in a, quote, escalation trap. Meanwhile, the MAGA Inc. Super PAC reaches $400 million. But where is the money actually going? And on the Hill, Trump is seeing some victories, but there are many more hurdles on the horizon. Hello, I'm Dasha Burns. And I'm Alex Gingitano. It's Wednesday, July 22. Alex, you and I have shared many bylines, but we have not yet shared the podcast mic, so it's great to have you on. I know. This is such a privilege. Thanks for having me. Well, we got so much to talk about. First, of course, the Iran war looms over everything right now. You know, for months, Donald Trump has insisted that he could manage the Iran conflict on his own terms, hit hard, force a deal, and keep the United States out of another long Middle East war. But instead, let's talk about where we are. The U.S. and Iran are escalating strikes. More U.S. service members have been killed. Gas prices are on the rise again. And the administration's diplomatic off-ramps seems to be narrowing. We saw Secretary of Defense Pete Hexeth yesterday say that he estimates that the war has cost around $37.5 billion so far. You know, most sitting presidents don't want to have an unpopular war on their hands ahead of a midterm. But Trump, as we know, is not most presidents. Alex, you're in the thick of it, day in and day out. Where is your head at vis-a-vis the president's head on this? Yeah, I think that's exactly right. This is a situation that President Trump is proving again that he is not like most presidents. Just yesterday, while he was talking to reporters in the Oval Office, he said that Iran is, quote, probably trying to impact the results of the elections. The president said that they won't, though, have any impact on him. Do you believe that Iran is trying to impact the midterm elections by threatening the street of four hours? They won't have any impact on me. I'm just going to do the right thing. I don't view it as, gee, we're having an election in a period of time. So basically, he thinks that Republicans, Americans, voters, everybody is impressed with how the conflict is going. And he was dismissive of the idea that the upcoming midterm election could influence how he goes about this fighting in Iran, how he's feeling about the conflict. But this, of course, comes as Republicans are telling you, telling me that they're concerned about the implications of a return to an all-out war. We're in July. They are putting, you know, the numbers up, saying we are just months away from the midterm election. When is this going to end? What kind of assurances do we have that gas prices won't keep going up? Because voters have a lot of questions. I know you're talking to folks every day in Washington, too. So what else are you hearing? Yeah, I mean, what we heard from President Trump in the Oval Office yesterday is exactly what has been frustrating. Candidates, operatives, anyone involved in trying to keep Congress in Republican hands. One GOP operative working on midterm races told me that, quote, we're preparing for the bottom to fall out. This operative says that contests in Iowa, Alaska, Ohio, along with House districts that Trump carried by double digits are now firmly in play. And another person close to the White House really described their disappointment with Trump's handling of the war. This person said this is the opposite of what he campaigned on and said that the administration's handling of the war was mismanaged and driven increasingly by the president's refusal to look as though he lost. This person said, quote, they don't have a plan here, saying this is a classic escalation trap. One interesting analogy that this person made that really struck me is they compared the Iran war to the COVID crisis during the first Trump administration, saying that this was another complex emergency that demanded sustained attention and disciplined decision making, which is where the person says the president really struggles. And they say that this runs the risk of ruining his second term. I mean, Alex, how much does this reflect what you're hearing, too? And do you feel like the stakes are escalating for both the president and Republicans at large as we get closer and closer to the midterms? Yeah, I think the stakes are really going to impact Republicans in 2026. It's going to impact some of the administration that wants to run for president in 2028. This is something that will, I think, follow the party and follow especially the MAGA wing of the party. We know the president ran on an end of endless wars, ran on anti-interventionalism. And now here we are in this war that the main question is, when is this going to end, especially when service members are dying abroad? Americans have more and more questions. And what I'm hearing as Republicans hit the campaign trail is they want to know what to say to these voters who are asking them these questions because they don't know the answer for when this will end either or when gas prices will go back down. Voters also have concerns about grocery prices and housing costs and all these things that they'd rather be talking about on the campaign trail and what Republicans have done to tackle those issues, tackle inflation, as opposed to be talking about this war. But now we're really in the thick of this escalation. And one source even described this to me as a quagmire that the administration is in right now to try to get us out of these tensions. Yeah, not the words you want to be hearing if you are Trump or the White House or Republicans right now. The numbers also reflect some of what we're talking about here. A new Politico poll shows that even the president's core supporters, what you've been just talking about here, Alex, are skeptical. Just 37% of Trump's MAGA base says the US should continue its involvement in Iran if it increases costs. That's down 13 points from May when half of MAGA Trump supporters said continued involvement was worth the costs. One thing that could potentially alleviate this problem is, of course, cold hard cash. And Trump has a lot of it. Let's talk about some great reporting that you've done about this massive war chest that Republicans have at MAGA Inc., the super PAC that relies almost entirely on MAGA donors. We are talking donations of upwards of a million dollars, and they are sitting on so much money. But there are a lot of questions about how and when this is all going to be spent. Alex, set the stage for us. What is the latest with MAGA Inc.? Yeah, I've been combing through these FEC filings that dropped on Monday and what the numbers look like for MAGA Inc. So basically, this war chest that the president is sitting on has reached $400 million. That's for the end of June. That means the super PAC added $18 million in the month of June, and it added $100 million over the last six months. That included donations in June alone from NASA Administrator Jared Isakson and also the billionaire Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss. So the big question, though, that Republicans have while they're looking at these numbers is where and when is the president going to spend this money? This is a lot of money, as you said, that could go towards helping candidates in the midterms. In June, these funds were not given out to help candidates. And actually, these funds have not been given out since March when the super PAC went to help a special election down in Georgia. So I've been keeping on looking at these numbers, but also talking to donors and Republicans in the states about how they're feeling that we don't have a roadmap yet. We don't know when the president's going to start spending and where the president's going to start spending, because these are some really competitive races that are making Republicans really nervous as they're trying to hold on to their majorities in Congress. Alex, oh my goodness, that is so much money. There are so many wealthy donors that have come in and been extremely generous with this super PAC. So what is the holdup that, given everything we've talked about, Republicans clearly are chomping at the bit to get access to this cash? That's right. We've heard everything from the cash will go out very soon without an actual date on that. We've even heard that maybe the president will wait till after the midterm convention that he's throwing in Dallas. That's in September, though. And so that will only be less than two months from election day. And of course, there's some races that that money can make such an impact. I mean, I'm thinking about like holding on to Senator Cornyn's seat in Texas that now Ken Paxton is the Republican nominee taking on Telerico, the Democrat. You know, they could use all the cash they can get in that race. And Republicans are really feeling a squeeze here. The RNC has a ton of money also to spend this midterm cycle. But of course, $400 million is $400 million and could go a very long way. Yeah. And I mean, everything that I'm hearing is from from the folks over at MAGA Inc. and behind the president's fundraising efforts is this will come. Don't you worry. I'm also hearing a lot of people that are pretty worried and they want a plan and they want to know if help is coming because of all of the headwinds that that they're facing. All right. To close us out, let's talk about Congress. And, you know, the president did have a few small victories yesterday, but he has a lot of hurdles up ahead. So House Republicans cleared a procedural hurdle to advance to the next step of a budget framework for reconciliation 3.0. And Republicans have agreed to attach a version of the Save America Act to the defense bill, the NDAA, which they're set to vote on as soon as today. We know that Trump at this point cares more about the Save America Act than anything else that Congress is doing. His allies on the Hill are trying to deliver. But where are we at right now with the priorities, both for the president or Mike Johnson? And then, you know, how is this all going to play out for the Senate with Leader Thune? Yeah. So the president's, of course, watching very closely. He, ahead of this House Republican vote on the budget resolution, urged Republicans to vote yes. We know that he gets involved via True Social in a lot of these issues. And the Save Act has been such a big priority for him. This is a narrower version that has gone into the defense budget bill. But, you know, the question is also the Senate. The Save Act has been a headache for Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who for months and months has been saying that there's simply not the votes to get this done on its own. Now it's attached to the defense bill, which reliably becomes law every year. And so that was a vehicle that they could look at to put some of the provisions of this into. So it's definitely giving a win so far for the president that it's gone this far. So we'll see what the next phases look like. I mean, what what are the actual chances given all the all the obstacles up ahead? You know, I think there's so much at play here. We have Senate Democrats not interested in helping and doing anything that's going to assist the administration, especially while the war in Iran is going on. The defense budget that Trump has requested from Congress is $1.5 trillion. And then on top of that, he's also requested $67 billion to cover the cost of the war in Iran. And a lot of Democrats are saying we're not interested in giving more money to the Pentagon until we know some answers about Iran. So there's a lot of hurdles there. All eyes will be on if Thune can actually get enough votes and how the president really puts the pressure on Republicans here. He's put the pressure, as I mentioned, through True Social time and time again, even saying that people should lose their elections if they're not willing to vote for something that's a priority. This is a huge priority. So we'll see if he wraps that up. Well, and he has been willing to to go full court press and real attack dog on folks that are not supportive of this. One of the people that he has he has made a bit of an enemy of is Senator John Cornyn. And he is posing yet another challenge to the president now in the wake of all of that. Alex, what are you hearing? Yeah, this is super interesting. As I mentioned, Ken Paxton is running for Cornyn's seat down in Texas as the Republican nominee. And that's because the president endorsed him. He was challenging Cornyn in the Republican primary. And so we've been kind of waiting to see if Cornyn has a revenge plan or if he's willing to go that route. And I think this is part of it. He's threatening to sink the ambassador nominations of two pretty high profile allies of the president unless the White House commits to distributing AIDS funding in Africa. So using a lot of leverage there saying he won't vote to advance Carrie Lake for ambassador to Jamaica or Doug Mastrano for Ambassador Slovakia. These are some familiar names in Trump's orbit. And so in terms of how he's feeling about leveraging his vote to move the White House towards some of his preferred policies, he told our colleagues, quote, it's kind of fun. So I think that's pretty telling on where John Cornyn's head is right now. It's kind of fun, you know, always look on the bright side. All right, that is all for today's show. As always, we have much more news and analysis in today's playbook newsletter, which you can find at politico.com slash playbook. And don't forget to hit the subscribe button to get the latest news from Washington. We'll be back tomorrow. Have a great day.