Transcript: Trump Iran Tirade Rattles GOP as Leaks Expose New Blunders |
Transcript: Trump Iran Tirade Rattles GOP as Leaks Expose New Blunders
As damning revelations make the Iran fiasco worse for the GOP, an international relations expert explains why its economic damage is only just beginning—and why Trump is politically stuck.
The following is a lightly edited transcript of the May 14 episode of The Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.
Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
Republicans are growing increasingly frustrated with Donald Trump’s war with Iran. Three GOP senators just voted with Democrats to stop the war, and numerous news accounts report that GOP cracks are growing. This comes as an extraordinary New York Times exposé shows that Trump’s war has been substantially less successful than he and Pete Hegseth have claimed. Meanwhile, Republicans are running away from Trump’s bizarre tirade yesterday, in which he admitted he isn’t concerned with how inflation from the war is impacting ordinary Americans. Here’s the bottom line: all signs are that this will get substantially worse politically for Trump and the Republicans.
So we’re checking in with Nicholas Grossman, a professor of international relations who has a new piece for MS Now, arguing that the economic fallout from the war is only just beginning. Thanks for coming on, Nick.
Nicholas Grossman: Hi, thanks for having me. Great to be here.
Sargent: So let’s start with the news from the U.S. Senate. Three Republicans joined with Democrats to support a resolution that would end the war in keeping with the War Powers Act, which requires a congressional vote after 60 days have passed. The three senators are Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Rand Paul. As Politico reports, there’s new frustration and deepening divisions among Republicans over this. Nick, what’s your reaction to all that?
Grossman: I’m not surprised that some of them are starting to move away from it because the economic liabilities and associated political liabilities are rising. The senator who ended up making the vote fail was John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, which is unfortunate. So it was a 50-to-49 vote. If he had gone the other way, it would have passed.
But also, the War Powers Act—the way that they’re acting now is a sign of America’s democratic backsliding, of shifting power towards the executive branch. And this actually happened in Trump’s first term because the way the War Powers Act is supposed to work is the president is allowed to use force in an emergency or self-defense without Congress’s permission. And then if he doesn’t get congressional permission in 60 days, it automatically ends.
And what happened in Trump’s first term is when the U.S. was supporting Saudi Arabia’s campaign against Yemen, against the Houthis, and doing things like midair refueling—so actually directly involved, not just, say, sending weapons—the Senate passed a resolution saying that Trump had to stop that. He vetoed it, which is not supposed to be the way it goes. And then there were enough MAGA loyalists in Congress to prevent a veto override.
So already the War Powers Act is not really acting like it’s supposed to. But now, when we have Congress trying to assert itself, I think that would be a positive thing. More of this power is supposed to be in Congress and it would be positive if they can get a resolution saying that we assert our power under the War Powers Act. I don’t know if Trump would listen, but even so it would be a good step.
Sargent: Well, it would be a good thing, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen anytime soon. Trump, meanwhile, is very rattled by any hint that the war isn’t going as well as he’s claimed. He erupted on Truth Social saying this: “When the fake news says that the Iranian enemy is doing well militarily against us, it’s virtual treason.”
Trump continued that the media is aiding and abetting the enemy. And he called the media “American cowards that are rooting against our country.” He called them losers, ingrates, and fools. You know, Nick, it’s going to be harder for Trump to continue claiming that anyone who questions his war is a traitor when even Republican senators are now doing so, right?
Grossman: It makes it more politically difficult. And also just the objective reality of it makes it really difficult, because Trump seems to be approaching the war as if the goal is to get the U.S. media to speak positively of it, or to successfully lie to the American people—as if lying to the American people is his most important foreign policy goal. Whereas the realities of the war are going to continue whether or not he gets the U.S. media to say differently.
So Iran has weapons. They are able to fire them to block the Strait of Hormuz. That is creating massive shortages in things like oil and gas and........