Washington Examiner chief political correspondent Byron York said on Tuesday that the conflict in Iran could either help or hurt President Donald Trump and the Republican Party this November.
The United States collaborated with Israel in striking Iran over the weekend, days before Tuesday’s primary elections in Texas, Arkansas, and North Carolina. York doubted this new conflict could impact the primary election results, as Republicans generally support the strikes, whereas most Democrats oppose them.
Rather than impacting the primary elections, York said “everything” in the Iran conflict and its effect on the midterm elections will depend “100%” on the mission’s success.
“If the president succeeds in disarming Iran, and creating an Iran that lives in peace with its neighbors, all of the Democratic criticism we’re seeing is going to be seen as nitpicking, anti-Trump nitpicking, and the president will look very good,” York said on Fox News’s Fox & Friends. “If, on the other hand, you have kind of an Iraq kind of situation [in] which Iran descends into chaos, the president will pay a political price for that.”
York’s statement comes after Washington Examiner senior writer Joe Concha said Monday that Democrats risk looking “foolish” if the Iran conflict is over “in a matter of weeks.” Trump said on Sunday that he expects this conflict, dubbed Operation Epic Fury, to last four weeks and has since said that it is moving “ahead of schedule.”
Polling data from Reuters surveying 1,282 U.S. adults stated that 43% of them disapprove of the strikes against Iran, compared to 27% in approval and 29% who are unsure. York said he believes the 29% are “waiting to see what happens.”
York also reiterated his belief that Trump didn’t make “the public case” for why the U.S. ought to strike Iran, saying the Trump administration stayed “kind of quiet” over the weekend. While the administration has since provided some detail on this conflict and U.S. involvement, the public was initially left “in the dark.”
“So it’s no surprise that a lot of them are going to say, ‘Well, you know, I’m just going to wait before I tell you whether I approve of this or not,’” York said.
TRUMP, FOREVER WARS, AND IRAQ SYNDROME
Trump dismissed concerns over the past couple of days that the U.S. operation in Iran is impacting critical munition stockpiles. The president wrote on Truth Social, “We have a virtually unlimited supply of these weapons.”
Trump also said Tuesday afternoon that the U.S. government will offer financial and logistical help, including Navy escorts, to shippers navigating the waters around Iran. The move comes as crude oil prices have been soaring in the past few days since the attacks on Iran.