President Donald Trump is not only losing his war with Iran, he is also losing the hearts and minds of prominent Fox News personalities who are reading the writing on the wall that voters are taking his failure seriously, Morning Joe's hosts said Tuesday.
The hosts of the MSNOW show shared clips from their conservative network counterpart, where longtime commentator Britt Hume was nothing but gloom and doom about a war that one White House insider told Politico is nothing less than a “quagmire.”
“Some of the things that he might need to do to get the Strait [of Hormuz] open, for example, and perhaps even to accomplish other ends in dealing with Tehran, may be militarily feasible,” Hume told Fox host Bret Baier. “But politically they're very difficult. I mean, we're seeing some casualties now. So I think the president's in kind of a tough spot here in that sense.”
He then added, “And he promised to keep us out of endless wars or unsatisfactory wars and now he's in one and it's not at all clear how it's going to end.”
That was followed by a clip of a grim-faced Laura Graham, who put the president — and Republicans — on notice.
“With the midterm elections a little more than 100 days away, the clock is ticking for President Trump to get out of this war before voters head to the polls,” she told viewers.
“It’s making a lot of Republicans nervous. It’s already, as we know, unpopular,” she continued. “According to the new Washington Post/Ipsos poll, 69 percent of Americans disapprove of the handling of this conflict. Republicans cannot let this become an endless distraction, especially if they want to win in November.”
Returning to “Morning Joe,” co-host Joe Scarborough observed, “That's some Fox News analysis of the political cost for Donald Trump and the Republican Party: the ongoing war in Iran. Fascinating, if you listen to them talking about politics.”
“And it's, of course, something that the Iranians always depend on,” he added. “They depend on Americans being strapped down to elections coming up that create false deadlines, that put us in a weak place to negotiate.”