The Trump administration was expected to move forward with continued strikes in Iran regardless of how Americans feel about it, a New York Times reporter said Monday.
In his first comments since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes against Iran this weekend, President Donald Trump signaled Monday that the campaign was progressing, said Tyler Pager, White House correspondent for the New York Times, during a live broadcast with CNN anchor Dana Bash.
Trump's comments come as a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS revealed that 59% of Americans do not approve of the strikes in Iran and anticipate a long-term conflict in the region.
"Most say they lack trust in Trump to make the right decisions about US use of force in Iran, with 60% saying they do not think he has a clear plan for handling the situation and 62% saying he should get congressional approval for any further military action," CNN reported.
"I think the White House will largely ignore some of this data," Pager said.
"But I think one of the things that we just saw is the president has clearly struggled to outline clear objectives for what he is doing and what measures of success are and how long this is going to go as Kristen [Holmes] said, this is the first time we're hearing from the president in a live setting," Pager explained. "And I think there's a lot of Americans who woke up Saturday surprised by this operation, surprised that this could go on for weeks and have a lot of questions about what we're trying to do here and how will Americans know when it ends, and I think the president did not provide a lot of clarity there about what the length of this operation looks like."
Trump suggested Monday that the conflict could last four to five weeks, or possibly longer.
"And he also is saying that American troops may be on the ground," Pager said. "The one thing that I spoke to a lot of the president's most ardent supporters over the weekend and they are giving him a long leash, the MAGA base, there's obviously some high-profile, vocal opponents Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, but a lot of the rank and file are giving the president some space to operate here, and we'll see how long that lasts."
