STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Now the president's news conference was at an annual House Republican retreat, which was held at the president's own property, his golf club in Florida. How do Republican lawmakers and voters read the president's statements? Political consultant Sarah Longwell joins us once again. She's publisher of the website The Bulwark. Welcome back.
SARAH LONGWELL: Thanks so much for having me.
INSKEEP: Does it surprise you that the president would want to sound like he's declaring victory?
LONGWELL: No, both because this is a president who wants everything - to be able to say everything is going perfectly. But also because this is a war that is very unpopular, including with the president's own voters. I've been doing focus groups with voters ever since we bombed Iran. And for a lot of Trump voters, it feels like the betrayal of an essential promise.
And for other Trump voters, they sort of do say, well, look at what we did in Venezuela. That was quick. It was a smash-and-grab job and then we were out. And so they're willing to tolerate it for a very short period of time, but not if they have to pay consequences themselves in the form of higher gas prices or food prices, or if the war is prolonged and it starts to look like it is a quagmire war in the Middle East, which is one of the things that Donald Trump and most of the members of his administration promised wouldn't happen.
And so they'll give him a little leeway, some of them. But they won't give him weeks and weeks and weeks of leeway. But to me, it felt like a George W. Bush mission accomplished moment, where it's easy to celebrate kind of the precision of the bombs dropping and the excellence of the American military being able to kind of, you know, do its job in a first strike. But figuring out what to do next is the big challenge. And Trump seems to have not figured out what he wants to do next.
INSKEEP: So I think you're telling me the president tried for a war that fit with the criteria that MAGA voters would expect, which is it would be very quick, no boots on the ground, no real consequences for me. But it turns out there are consequences for people and that creates a political problem?
LONGWELL: Yeah. Although, I will say this - I'm not sure that Donald Trump cares that much about what the American people think. And I - because I spend a lot of time listening to voters and because we've all - do politics in a way where we think, well, look, the American people are sort of the final - they've got the final say.
But Donald Trump won the election, and after that, he won. And I'm not sure he's listening to the American people as much as he's listening to the people around him and that are close to him and other billionaires who care. And so if it's a pain point for the average American, I'm not sure that matters to him nearly as much as if it becomes painful in terms of the phone calls that he's getting from billionaires and other people that he actually does care about.
INSKEEP: The administration is already turning to the next regime change operation, talking about doing something to Cuba. Is that likely to be any more popular with Republican voters?
LONGWELL: No. Look, right now, I mean, first of all, Donald Trump is very unpopular overall with American voters. But the extent to which voters heard two things from Donald Trump - one was that he was going to lower prices and the other was he absolutely wasn't going to get in any wars. Now, they also heard a lot about immigration, so I should throw that in there. But he has betrayed two very central promises that he made to voters.
Prices are not lower, and in fact, are going up. Meanwhile, the president is doing all the foreign adventurism that he and everybody in his administration promise they wouldn't do. And so voters are feeling very disappointed, and now they're starting to get a little scared.
INSKEEP: What do you think about when the president makes a statement to CBS at a little after 3 o'clock in the afternoon that the war is very complete and instantly moves markets? He keeps doing these things that move markets. Do people notice that?
LONGWELL: Well, you noticed and I noticed. And I do think it is starting to become, yeah, like a routine where Trump is saying things that move markets. And he said it one way before the markets closed. And then when he expanded on it after the markets closed, it became clear he was not saying that everything was over. I think there was a statement where people thought, oh, no, oh, good. It's going to end. But, of course, that wasn't true. The markets should stop being manipulated. They're also starting to build in the idea that Trump changes his mind all the time.
INSKEEP: Thank you so much, Sarah Longwell.
LONGWELL: Thank you.
INSKEEP: Author of "How To Eat An Elephant: One Voter At A Time." Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
