Trump Rages at Fresh Iran Setbacks as GOP Midterm Panic Grows: “Bleak”

Donald Trump lost his temper with a reporter on Tuesday after she pressed him on why Iran is continuing to fight. In barely-concealed anger, he ripped her organization as “fake” and insisted Iran “desperately” wants to make a deal. But of course, that only revealed the line of questioning to be absolutely correct: Iran is not desperate, and he really does not know how to force Iran’s hand or get out of this fiasco. Meanwhile, Politico reports that GOP anxiety is growing about how the Iran war will hurt the party in the midterms. Politico sums up the GOP attitude with the word “bleak,” noting that Republicans are “distressed” about the war’s political impact, with one calling this a “quagmire.” We talked to former State Department official Marie Harf. We discuss the deeper reasons Trump is so stuck, what Iran has come to understand about Trump, how Republicans screwed themselves by giving Trump a blank check, and why only a Democratic Congress might be able to extricate us from this fiasco. Listen to this episode here.