Trump is running out of time to sell his rationale for Iran war

Senior officials keep offering justifications for the conflict with Tehran that the president upends.

The Trump administration hasn’t figured out how to sell Iran — and it’s running out of time.

Four days into the war, senior administration officials are only able to say what this conflict is not: It is not Iraq. It is not a forever war. It is not a war of choice.

And even that message is muddled by President Donald Trump, whose myriad asides to reporters have undercut nearly every rationale.

As the administration scrambles to explain the attacks — suggesting that Iran was either on the precipice of having nuclear weapons, possessing ballistic missiles or attacking Israel — Trump allies are warning the window for the White House to make its case to the president’s most loyal supporters is closing.

“I don’t put a timeline, I put a bodycount,” said a former Trump official, who like others in this report, was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “That’s a narrative in the media that erodes how people feel about this war.”

Six U.S. service members have been killed since Saturday’s strikes began.

The war comes as MAGA Republicans have urged leaders to focus on problems at home and are wary of a prolonged conflict that could drive up gas prices and undercut the president’s affordability message — demoralizing voters crucial to the party’s success in November.

Trump’s America First movement was built, in large part, on skepticism of neoconservative interventionism, posing a challenge for a White House forced to square an operation some MAGA allies say runs directly against what the president once promised his voters. Prominent conservative commentators and Trump allies, including Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and Matt Walsh, have all criticized the Iran attack and the administration for not successfully explaining its reasoning for the war.

“A significant, if not majority of the base, will be with him no matter what he does, but there are growing voices in this coalition, some of which is generational. Some of which is sensational,” said GOP strategist Matthew Bartlett, who served in Trump’s first administration. “Yet at the end of the day, they do pose some legitimate questions: If things go longer or go wrong, those questions will only grow, as will their concerns and skepticisms.”

Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby on Tuesday was the latest administration official to attempt to allay those concerns and insist that the war against Iran is targeted in its scope and doesn’t conflict with Trump’s “America First” agenda.

“As we understand from [Trump] and the goals of the military campaign, this is certainly not nation building,” Colby told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “This is not going to be endless.”

But Trump, in a social media post, said “wars can be fought ‘forever.’” He has also at varying times suggested the war could be over in a matter of days or last four or five weeks.

The danger for the Trump administration is that it could lose control over when the war ends. Iran has a say, too. And already its attacks are forcing the United States to close embassies in the region, evacuate American citizens and insure oil tankers.

Trump didn’t speak to the timeline in Iran during an appearance Tuesday with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, despite his supporters demanding that the operation will be quick.

“MAGA is not anti-force; It is anti-forever war,” said Vanessa Santos, CEO of Renegade DC, a conservative PR firm that represents MAGA media voices. “Support holds if this is quick, limited, low casualty, and avoids boots on the ground. The moment it looks open-ended or like nation-building, political support weakens quickly.”

At least one official expressed concern that Trump hadn’t given a detailed explanation to the public, beyond his brief one-on-one interviews with reporters and two videos he shared that were each less than 10 minutes.

Elliott Abrams, U.S. special representative for Iran in Trump’s first term, said he was surprised that the president has not given a formal speech.

“He will need public support if this continues beyond next week and there are many casualties, so he should be working at this now,” Abrams said.

Two senior administration officials briefed reporters Tuesday on the earlier diplomatic talks with Tehran led by peace envoys Steve Witkoff and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, and suggested that the attack happened only after it became clear that Iran was not negotiating in good faith and had no intention of giving up its nuclear program. While the administration has made this argument before, it shared what the officials described as new details of how Iran had no intention to negotiate in good faith in two rounds of talks last month.

“There was no deal that they were willing to do in the short term that we felt would have been a good deal that would make America and the world a safer place,” said the first senior administration official. “It was very clear they were just trying to buy time in order to preserve whatever they could to get past the term of President Trump in order to get a nuclear weapon.”

While Iran repeatedly argued through the process that enrichment was its “national right and national pride,” for the Trump administration, “our red lines were no enrichment whatsoever,” a second administration official said.

The U.N.’s nuclear watchdog has said Iran has no structured program to build a nuclear weapon. The two officials brushed those claims aside.

“They basically could have been days or weeks away from a weapon if they would have put the effort into it,” the first official said.

The administration has focused more on ballistic missiles since the campaign began, but Witkoff and Kushner excluded that concern from their diplomatic efforts, leaving that for other conversations, the second official said. Iran was supposed to initiate discussions with regional powers on the West’s concerns about those, but never did. That was “disturbing to us,” the second administration official said.

But that explanation, so far, has not quelled the concern that Trump has broken a core promise: keep the U.S. away from a quagmire that drains blood and treasure for decades.

“It needs to be over quick, otherwise, this is a fucking nightmare,” said a person close to the White House. “It already is a nightmare because you’ve got the MAGA coalition just tearing at the seams.”

Trump administration under fire as thousands of Americans are stranded in war zone

U.S. officials — and the president himself — have struggled to explain why the government wasn’t better prepared for the consequences of Iranian retaliation.

WASHINGTON — In the days after the U.S. and Israel launched an air war against Iran, the State Department issued new advisories warning Americans to reconsider traveling to several countries in the region. By then, it was too late.

Thousands of Americans are now stranded in the Middle East as Iran retaliates with drone attacks on U.S. facilities, prompting Democratic lawmakers and current and former State Department officials to sharply criticize the Trump administration for failing to plan for what they say was a predictable scenario.

“You would have had far fewer people in harm’s way,” a senior State Department official said on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

U.S. citizens marooned in countries like Jordan, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates have received conflicting advice from the State Department. They were told to evacuate as soon as possible in some places even though airports were closed. The State Department also advised people to contact U.S. embassies for assistance, only for them to be met with busy signals or by harried staffers unable to offer help.

“These issues were predictable,” dozens of Democrats in Congress wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “The lack of clear preparation, planning, and communication to Americans abroad is unacceptable and a violation of the State Department’s basic mission to provide consular assistance and the protection of U.S. citizens overseas.”

U.S. officials — and President Donald Trump himself — have struggled to explain why the government was not better prepared for the consequences of Iranian retaliation and what messages to convey to Americans in the area.

“It happened all very quickly,” Trump told reporters Tuesday.

Over the past few days, the U.S. Embassy in Jordan was evacuated because of the threat of an attack, the U.S. Embassy compound in Kuwait was struck by a drone, the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia caught fire after it was hit by two Iranian drones, and a drone attack set the parking lot ablaze outside the U.S. Consulate in Dubai in the UAE.

At least six American service members have been killed since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran. But there have been no reports of American civilian casualties.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt pushed back Wednesday against criticism that the administration should have done more to warn Americans and help those stuck overseas.

“There were many signs put out by the State Department,” Leavitt said.

She added that Rubio issued “Level 4 travel advisories dating back to January for many of these countries in the region.”

That is the highest level, amounting to a “do not travel” warning. A handful of countries had that designation before the war, including Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.

But it was only after the air campaign was launched over the weekend that the State Department issued Level 3 “reconsider travel” advisories for at least seven countries in the region: Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Cyprus.

The Defense Department said the military planned to aid the evacuation effort with C-17 cargo planes, and State Department officials said they are arranging charter flights to extract Americans from the war zone.

Late Wednesday, the State Department said on X that one such flight had departed the Middle East and was en route to the U.S.

Rubio told reporters Tuesday that the U.S. had organized flights for American citizens but that some countries had closed their airspace because of the Iranian aerial attacks.

“The challenge we are facing is airspace closures,” Rubio said, adding: “But rest assured, we are confident that we are going to be able to assist every American.”

As of Wednesday, the State Department said it had assisted nearly 6,500 Americans abroad, offering security guidance and travel help.

Current and former diplomats said the administration’s drastic cuts to the State Department’s workforce, as well as its failure to nominate ambassadors for several of the Arab countries affected by the crisis, had left the foreign service shorthanded at a moment when it needed seasoned veterans to manage a growing crisis.

“You’re hearing really mixed messaging from the White House,” a former senior State Department official said.

“When you don’t have the professionals that you would normally see, you don’t have confirmed ambassadors in post, you don’t have those direct connections with the White House, I think that’s really impacting both our planning and our messaging.”

The American Foreign Service Association, which acts as a union for employees of the U.S, diplomatic corps, said the crisis “exposes real gaps in America’s diplomatic readiness” after the administration slashed the State Department workforce.

The association said it has “warned that the State Department’s capacity has been weakened by the loss of experienced personnel with critical regional, crisis management, consular, and language expertise, including specialists in Farsi and Arabic—skills that are indispensable in moments like this.”

Cody Greene, 36, an American from Tampa, Florida, was on a work trip to Dubai when the war broke out.

“It’s my son’s first birthday today. I promised my wife I’d be home in time — and look what’s happened,” Greene told NBC News on Wednesday.

He said he called a phone number the State Department released for Americans stranded in the Middle East but got no help.

“It was an automated line that told you that the U.S. has no plans to rescue you, and you need to make your own accommodations,” he said.

Added Greene: “I feel betrayed and left out to dry by my own government who started this whole thing without any plan in place to get their own people out.”

Tillis threatens to hijack Senate business amid frustrations with Noem

The retiring North Carolina Republican lashed the embattled DHS chief during her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Thom Tillis ripped into Kristi Noem during her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. | Francis Chung/POLITICO

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) threatened Tuesday to use aggressive procedural measures to bring Senate work to a standstill if Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem fails to respond to his offices’ inquiries about an immigration crackdown in Charlotte, North Carolina.

An irate Tillis, who is retiring this year from the Senate, ripped into Noem during her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, saying that he would use his power as a senator to hold nominations and prevent bills from getting to the Senate floor.

“If I don’t get an answer that you’ve had a month to respond to, and the remaining ones … as of today, I’ll be informing leadership that I’m putting a hold on any en bloc nominations until I get a response, and in two weeks, if I don’t get a response, I’m going to deny quorum and markup in as many committees as I can until I get a response,” Tillis said.

The announcement from Tillis, who has called repeatedly for Noem to leave her post, would represent a rare escalation from any senator — in particular one from the president’s party — in the face of frustrations with a member of the Cabinet. Such a move, if he follows through with his threat, would hijack much of the Senate’s standard operating procedure.

Since 2025, the Senate has voted on some administration nominees en bloc — or as a group — to overcome tight margins. Meanwhile, denying quorum and markup in committee limits how legislation — and individual nominations — can advance in the Senate to the floor.

Tillis is a member of the Judiciary committee, as well as the Finance, Banking and Veterans’ Affairs committees. Disruptions to the latter three’s work could prove especially disruptive for the Senate.

Tillis’ anger reflects bubbling frustrations with Trump’s embattled DHS chief among Republicans, who have called for some changes to the tone and tenor of the administration’s immigration crackdown after immigration officers shot and killed two American citizens in Minneapolis in January.

In November 2025, ICE launched a crackdown in Charlotte similar to what it implemented in Minneapolis and other major cities across the country. While DHS claimed the operation was successful in apprehending hundreds of unauthorized immigrants with criminal records, concerns have been raised that ICE accidentally detained U.S. citizens.

White House addresses ‘redness’ on the side of Trump’s neck

Trump, who is the oldest person to be elected president, has faced questions about his health over the last year.

President Donald Trump’s doctor addressed what appeared to be red markings on Trump’s neck Monday, saying he was undergoing a “preventative skin treatment” using a “very common cream.”

“President Trump is using a very common cream on the right side of his neck, which is a preventative skin treatment, prescribed by the White House Doctor,” Dr. Sean Barbabella, the president’s personal physician, said in a statement.

Barbabella added, “The President is using this treatment for one week, and the redness is expected to last for a few weeks.”

The red, irritated skin was visible Monday as Trump spoke at the White House at a Medal of Honor ceremony. It was also seen in photographs taken during his State of the Union address last Tuesday at the Capitol.

Barbabella didn’t specify what cream Trump is using and didn’t explain the purpose of the preventive treatment.

by Taboola