President Donald Trump sat down for nearly half an hour with Axios correspondent Marc Caputo after signing a memorandum of understanding to wind down the Iran war — and that reporter flagged one particular statement that stood out to him.
The 80-year-old president acknowledged that he negotiated an end to the war to avoid a global economic recession, but he denied that he had been humbled by the experience and instead had determined "there are no limits" to his power.
Caputo shared his takeaways from the sit-down with MS NOW's "Morning Joe."
"What stood out for me is theguy didn't really sleep," Caputo said. "Thepresident hadn't slept much, Ithink maybe two hours [since] he hadflown back from Europe. But hisgeneral attitude was verypositive. Despite all of thenegative commentary andpushback over the deal, thepresident seems pretty relievedbecause he has an exit here,and he's looking at two things.He's looking at the stockmarket, and he's looking at theprice of oil, and the price ofoil is down."
Caputo highlighted the quote that stood out the most to him about the president's state of mind.
"At one pointin the interview, he said it ata few points in the interview,he said, 'It's a gusher,' as if heliterally struck oil through this deal because of the pricelowering," Caputo said, "and that reallyimpressed me because it justshows what Trump is reallyfocused on."
The reporter was asked whether Trump would seek to punish Republicans who have already spoken out against the terms of the peace agreement outlined in the memorandum of understanding, and he declined to speculate.
"Woe betide him who predictswhat Donald Trump is going todo," Caputo said. "Nevertheless, I would findit difficult to believe that hewould change that much. Mygeneral view of Trump is thatif you criticize something thathe has started to put his chipsin, he doesn't like thecriticism. I asked him duringthe interview, are you going topunish any of the Republicanswho oppose you on this? Becausethere are elements of the dealwith sanctions that are goingto need to come back to Congress for final approval, inpart to set up or makeeffective this $300 billionreconstruction fund."
"Ittook me a little while to get the president to answer, but he said basically no," Caputo added. "Now, I'mwondering if that'll change, that is, if the criticismreaches a fever pitch from hisown party, does he start to push back and start totarget people? I don't knowthat."
The war had grown increasingly unpopular, especially as gas prices soared as a result of the Strait of Hormuz closure, and Caputo said Republican chances in the midterms were a consideration in Trump's decision to negotiate an end to the conflict.
"If you scratch a few layers beneath the surface, yeah, you'll hear that," he said. "But there certainly is going to be nothing on the record or even on background. But you can tell that what was just really concerning them is not just the poll numbers, but what was causing the underlying poll number troubles, and that was the price of gas."
Caputo identified a potential opening for Republicans to campaign their way out of the problem Trump created for them.
"My guess here, having talked to them over the past months about the war, is that the argument they're going to make is, is, look, everyone was complaining about gas prices – well, gas prices are coming back down," Caputo said. "Therefore, what the president is proposing is a good idea, and that might be a challenging argument for his opponents and his critics to push back on."
"The American people don't really pay a lot of attention to the finer points of foreign policy, and, you know, these various points of the MOU, they're focused on their lives and they're driving around," Caputo said, "and every day there's been a scoreboard on street corners that people have seen, and that's the price of fuel. Even if you drive a Tesla, you at least can see what the price of fuel is doing, and it's been up and people don't like it, and now it's going to come down. The president's hope is, as a result of that coming down, the fortunes of Republicans increase. That is, if they take yes for an answer, his version of yes and embrace this deal."