It’s not exactly a secret that most Americans oppose the U.S. war in Iran. Donald Trump tends to claim that polls that fail to tell him what he wants to hear are part of an elaborate media conspiracy that only he understands, but in this case even he seems to realize that the military offensive he ordered is not popular.
When a reporter asked Monday, “What do you say to Americans who are not a fan of the war?” the Republican president replied, “They’re foolish, because the war is about one thing: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.”
Speaking of foolishness, Trump’s comment didn’t make a lot of sense. For one thing, it’s generally not a good idea for a president to scold his fellow Americans. For another, given that Iran does not have, has never had and was not close to building a nuclear weapon, his latest rationale for the deadly conflict fell far short of coherence.
But as it turned out, this wasn’t his only complaint about public attitudes in the country he ostensibly leads. Politico reported:
President Donald Trump on Monday said he would like to ‘take’ Iran’s oil — but that he hasn’t because Americans want to see the war brought to a close.
‘If I had my choice, I’d keep the oil. But I also want to make the people of our country happy,’ Trump told reporters at the annual White House Easter egg roll.
As part of the same exchange, the president said: “Unfortunately, the American people would like to see us come home. If it were up to me, I’d take the oil, I’d keep the oil, it would bring plenty of money.”
In recent days, Trump has been obsessing over the idea of seizing Iranian oil. A week ago, for example, at an Easter lunch, he said of the war in Iran, “I’d prefer just to take the oil.”
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Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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