The Memo: Trump’s frustration on Iran boils over in attacks against media

President Trump’s frustration with media coverage of the war on Iran boiled over Thursday when he alleged that reporting from The New York Times was “seditious” and called CNN “stupid” and “the enemy.”

Verbal fusillades against the media are commonplace for Trump, but the unusually intense Thursday attack seemed emblematic of his frustration with a conflict that is not going well.

The price of oil has shot up, propelling costs at the pump for Americans to new highs. The national average gas price on Friday, according to AAA, was $4.39, up more than 30 cents in the last week alone. Before the war, the average price was just below $3. 

A poll released by The Washington Post on Friday indicated that 61 percent of Americans — including almost 1 in 5 Republicans — see the war in Iran as a “mistake.” 

The cost of the war so far to American taxpayers is at least $25 billion, according to the Pentagon, and the short-term economic impact is multitudes higher. 

Meanwhile, the leadership of the Islamic Republic, though battered by thousands of military strikes, remains defiant.

The media has reported on all this — to Trump’s clear displeasure.

“If you see CNN, you think they [Iran] are winning the war,” he complained in the Oval Office on Thursday. “If you read The New York Times, it’s actually seditious, in my opinion. You read The New York Times, you actually think they’re winning the war. I read some of these columnists, but it all starts with the top. It’s a terrible thing.”

In more hospitable precincts of the media, Trump insists that victory has already been achieved and that an even greater triumph is at hand.

In a phone interview Thursday afternoon on Newsmax, the president was asked by host Greta Van Susteren, “Haven’t you already won?”

“We’ve already won, but I want to win by a bigger margin,” Trump responded.

That’s clearly not how it is seen by others. 

Trump’s insistence that regime change has already been achieved in Tehran is........

© The Hill