ALEX BRANDON / AFP
Donald Trump, here on April 1, during a speech on the war in Iran.
President Donald Trump’s war in Iran increasingly appears as political poison for Republicans, giving Democrats more arguments to show voters that the president’s party does not care about the cost of living that allowed him to be elected.
While the White House hoped his Wednesday speech might stem his continued decline in popularity, the president’s most politically significant remarks actually came earlier in the day, at an Easter luncheon.
« We make war »declared Trump during this closed-door event during which he denigrated Emmanuel Macron, whose video has since been removed from the White House website. “We can’t take care of daycare centers. It is not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. States can take care of this. We must focus on one thing: military protection.”
The price of gasoline is also exploding in the United States
These comments, which prioritize a war that most Americans consider unnecessary while rejecting any responsibility to help families pay for child care, seem almost designed to fuel the Democrats’ argument. “This is a really, really bad midterm election for Republicans.”a déclaré au HuffPost US former Representative Reid Ribble (Republican of Wisconsin).
Ribble, who served in the House of Representatives from 2011 to 2017 and was one of the few Republicans to oppose Trump early, explained that Republicans with traditional foreign policy positions, like him, favor military intervention against Iran (albeit with Congressional approval). But the public cares much more about their own wallets, and the war will hurt them. “This is going to affect prices everywhere. And people already feel like they’re out of breath. They already have the feeling that Washington is not listening to them. They already think health care is too expensive, groceries are too expensive, and now gas is getting too expensive.”continued the former elected official.
Trump’s war has pushed the average price of a gallon of gasoline above $4 for the first time in four years. It’s the fastest rise in gas prices in decades, and Democrats have already started running ads blaming Trump.
Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and former economic adviser to Joe Biden, said rising fuel prices will cause food prices to rise even more. “Food inflation was already high. Now we have higher diesel prices, while 80% of our food is transported by truckhe declared Thursday during an exchange with journalists. We’re already seeing large food retailers add surcharges… which are then passed on to retailers and consumers.”
Democrats and the memory of the war in Ukraine
Trump and his allies say high fuel prices will come down as soon as the conflict with Iran calms, which Trump suggested Wednesday, citing a time frame of two to three weeks. This was before he relaunched his threats with an ultimatim which will expire this Tuesday. In any case, experts and markets expect prices to remain high for several months at least.
For Democrats, it’s reminiscent of 2024 when, in focus groups with voters, they said they didn’t understand why the United States was sending money to Ukraine when they themselves were having trouble paying their rent. Trump and his allies then presented Biden’s support for Ukraine as a mistake risking provoking a world war.
“The Republicans and Trump have managed not only to collude in two of the most unpopular positions possible — being in favor of a war abroad and doing nothing to help people cope at home — but these two dynamics completely reinforce each otherwants to believe a Democratic advisor to the House of Representatives. Every day, Republicans make Democrats’ arguments more credible, concrete and convincing.” It’s up to them to take advantage of it during the midterms next November.
Note: This article is a translation produced by the editorial staff ofHuffPost Franceà partir d’un article paru en mars 2026 sur le HuffPost US. The original article can be read here.
