U.S. President Donald Trump deboards the new Air Force One, a plane gifted by Qatar, upon arrival at Ellsworth Air Force Base in Belle Fourche-Cheyenne Valleys, South Dakota, U.S., July 3, 2026. REUTERS/Kylie Cooper
A former Republican strategist on Friday argued that a major development in President Donald Trump's Iran war has gone under the radar and will change the outcome of elections in November.
In an interview on his podcast, The Warning, Steve Schmidt discussed the disastrous fallout over the war in a conversation with Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear. The two talked about how Americans will rebuke Trump and his administration in the midterms this fall and how the latest incident has changed the shape of the conflict.
"There is a momentous event that occurred this week that I think is underreported and commented on, which is that a Ukrainian drone struck an Iranian ship in the Caspian Sea, combining these two theaters of war," Schmidt said. "What should the American people know about this moment in time and the danger we're facing?"
"The American people should know that Donald Trump and his foreign policy are absolute failures," Beshear said. "He got us into a war of choice that has only made the country that we went to war with more powerful. Iran is more powerful today based on their control of the Strait of Hormuz than they were before this war started."
Beshear criticized Trump for starting a war without a realistic goal that could be achieved. And in the process, putting Americans at risk as the national deficit and debt rise.
"This is not just bungling international. It is really damaging at home," Beshear added. "And he doesn't have a way out of it. And part of it is look at who he sent to negotiate. We have amazing people in the Foreign Service that spend decades understanding every nuance of every word that an Iranian negotiator would say at the table to put us in the best position to get a peace deal that prevents a nuclear weapon. But we don't send them."
He called Trump out for sending developer and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff with his son-in-law Jared Kushner, along with JD Vance, "a vice president who is way out of his league just being vice president, much less trying to negotiate and failing to negotiate any lasting peace."
"It is bananas that foreign policy would be conducted this way and that the Senate and the House haven't stopped it and are allowing a president to just go to war and make decisions on his gut," Beshear added. "When we know our munitions are low, when we know our sailors have been on some of the longest deployments ever. It is the worst that you could ever potentially run a foreign conflict."