Republicans Try to Craft Their Midterm Pitch Despite Conflicting Iran War Messages

DORAL, Fla. — President Donald Trump defended his decision to attack Iran at the annual House Republican retreat, contradicting his own timeline several times and dodging questions about when the efforts would end.

With voters indicating that inflation and the cost of living are their biggest issues ahead of the November midterms, Trump’s rhetoric appeared to distance the Republican Party from Americans’ concerns.

“I think you can say about the beginning, it’s the beginning of building a new country,” Trump told reporters when asked about when the war, which he’d initially said would end in a matter of weeks, would wrap. “We could call it a tremendous success right now as we leave here, I could call it, or we could go further, and we’re going to go further.”

The agenda for Republicans at their retreat in south Florida is focused on tax cuts and lowering prices for Americans. They are set to meet on Tuesday to discuss potentially plotting another budget bill before the end of the term. But now, congressional Republicans are left navigating how they can continue to push their economic and affordability messaging ahead of the midterms, which could potentially be overshadowed by the war in Iran.

Trump took questions from reporters for more than 20 minutes after presenting his vision of the next few months to Republicans, which included his push to pass the SAVE America Act, a bill that would require proof of citizenship for people registering to vote that’s already hit hurdles in the Senate. Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East and longtime friend, stood behind the president as he repeatedly defended his decision to strike Iran and his administration’s strategy for the war.

His remarks come amidst the growing war in Iran and record-breaking prices for crude oil, which Trump downplayed, claiming he “knew oil prices would go up” if the U.S. attacked Iran. Meanwhile, the battle for control of the House involves a fractured Republican conference facing a historic number of retirements.

Eleven days into the war, polling shows most Americans oppose it.

A new Marist poll found that 56% of U.S. adults opposed military action in Iran, with 86% of Democrats and 61% of independents saying they are against it. Most Republican voters — 84% — are, so far, supportive. Another recent NBC News poll found that 54% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of Iran.

Last week, Rep. Mike Lawler, who is running for reelection in a swing district, admitted that opposition to the war could increase.

“I think it is really going to be dependent on the time frame here. If this is a short-term endeavor, which I believe it will be, then I think the American people will be fully in support of it,” Lawler told NOTUS.

House Republicans gathered at Trump National Doral Miami for their annual issues conference to discuss how they can handle both the war and pocketbook issues. Some seemed confident they can balance both.

“The concerns on the domestic front don’t replace or downplay the ones abroad, and the ones abroad don’t supersede or take the place of the ones here at home, and we’re tasked with managing all of that,” Rep. Tom Barrett, a vulnerable Republican in Michigan, told NOTUS. “I look forward to a robust discussion with my colleagues to kind of lay out our priorities.”

“Having a good open dialogue for that, I think, is going to be helpful and important to move this forward the best way we can,” Barrett continued.

Rep. Nick LaLota of New York said Republicans “are on the right track.” He added that, “The facts are on our side, and if our conference sticks to the facts, I think more often than not, our constituents will give us another two years.”

But LaLota acknowledged that the conflict in Iran is bleeding into the U.S. economy: “Yes, we’re seeing a spike in home heating, oil, gasoline, crude oil, other derivatives of oil. My sense is, in the coming days and weeks, that it will moderate back to where it was when we deal with security issues about the Strait of Hormuz, the Arabian Gulf, and having a free flow of energy coming out of the Middle East. My hope is that will stabilize.”

Back in the Capitol, Senate Majority Leader John Thune also emphasized that stability is needed in the region before oil prices can come back down, and while the price increases are “real,” they’re not as bad “relative to what could have happened” because the U.S. is moving away from dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

The “best outcome,” Thune said, “is a fairly speedy resolution to the operations that are underway” in Iran.

Democrats successfully hammered concerns about rising health care and grocery prices in 2025, winning gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey by comfortable margins. As a result, congressional candidates from both parties are already stressing economic issues.

The Trump administration began air strikes on Iran in late February and killed its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Trump launched the strikes because he had a “good feeling” that Iran posed an imminent threat to the U.S.

House and Senate Republicans, as well as some moderate Democrats in competitive districts, voted against requiring the president to come to Congress to authorize military action, giving the green light to the administration to continue hostilities. Several U.S. military members have died in the war since, and Trump again noted that casualties are expected.

It was a split screen for the president on Monday, as he declared “major strides” in the military campaign. He was spotted huddled for lunch with some senior staff, including Witkoff and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, at a restaurant in his massive resort and golf course in Doral, Florida. On his way out, patrons applauded the president.

“We are doing very well in the war,” Trump told folks in the restaurant, “to put it mildly.”