{"id":13038,"date":"2026-07-22T00:15:30","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T19:15:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=13038"},"modified":"2026-07-22T00:15:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T19:15:30","slug":"trump-says-midterms-wont-impact-his-iran-war-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=13038","title":{"rendered":"Trump says midterms won\u2019t impact his Iran War plan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.politico.com\/8d\/21\/462a6fea45b38b4dec8872e04462\/trump-us-lebanon-16577.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>President Donald Trump dismissed the idea that the upcoming midterm election could influence how he goes about fighting Iran, following over a week of escalating strikes and three U.S. soldiers being killed over the weekend.<\/p>\n<p>The president, taking questions in the Oval Office on Tuesday alongside Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, posited that Iran is \u201cprobably\u201d trying to impact the results of the elections, before saying that \u201cthey won\u2019t have any impact on me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, the election \u2014 I can\u2019t think about that having to do with this,\u201d Trump continued. \u201cI think people are very impressed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Republicans have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/07\/21\/this-is-what-a-quagmire-looks-like-trump-enters-bleak-new-phase-with-iran-01005354\" target=\"_blank\">repeatedly expressed consternation<\/a> over the electoral implications a return to all-out war could bring, with oil prices on the rise once more. Shipping traffic has again ground to a virtual halt in the Strait of Hormuz \u2014 a vital channel for the world\u2019s oil \u2014 which has been one of the core points of contention between Washington and Tehran. <\/p>\n<p>Two American soldiers were killed over the weekend during Iranian strikes on U.S. bases in Jordan, and another was killed in Iraq during a \u201ccontrolled detonation\u201d of an Iranian drone, adding to the pressure to end the conflict before the November elections.<\/p>\n<p>Trump on Tuesday appeared to cast blame for the soldiers\u2019 deaths on what happens \u201cwhen you let other people do your job.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have the best equipment in the world, we\u2019ve stopped almost everything,\u201d the president said. \u201cBut when you let other people do your job \u2014 with the United States we let other people do the job \u2014 and sometimes it doesn\u2019t work out so well, but, we will be going and paying our respects at Dover.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The president sought to project strength in his remarks, referring multiple times to the damage American strikes have inflicted on Iran and sparring with a reporter who asserted that there are no signs that Iran is ready to cease fighting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou don&#8217;t know what the dialogue is behind the scenes,\u201d Trump retorted. \u201cThey want to meet desperately to try to end it because they are getting decimated.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Trump also announced that the U.S. would be striking Iran\u2019s Pickaxe Mountains \u201cpretty soon and very heavily\u201d after reports that Israeli intelligence had spotted <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/world\/middle-east\/israel-believes-iran-moved-nuclear-centrifuges-into-pickaxe-mountain-d29d21c0\" target=\"_blank\">Iran moving nuclear centrifuges into the mountains<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The president\u2019s remarks preceded a meeting with Aoun, the Lebanese president, in which he is expected to ask for the U.S. to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/7\/21\/lebanese-president-set-to-meet-trump-as-beirut-seeks-israeli-withdrawal\" target=\"_blank\">support its armed forces as it tries<\/a> to rip power back from Hezbollah in parts of the county and for help getting Israel to withdraw from Lebanon.<\/p>\n<p>Trump celebrated the temporary framework the two countries signed in June, though he said that \u201cwe\u2019ll be looking at that\u201d in response to a question about whether he was prepared to ramp up pressure on Israel to withdraw, following <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/israel-news\/defense-news\/article-903199\" target=\"_blank\">reports of IDF soldiers firing warning shots in the so-called pilot zones<\/a> created by the agreement.<\/p>\n<p>The president also said he wasn\u2019t concerned that Iran-backed Houthis announcing Monday that they would blockade Saudi shipping in the Red Sea would open up a new front in the war.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf something like that happens we take care of it,\u201d Trump said. \u201cWe&#8217;ve done that with the Houthis before.\u201d<\/p>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Donald Trump dismissed the idea that the upcoming midterm election could influence how he goes about fighting Iran, following over a week of escalating strikes and three U.S. soldiers being killed over the weekend. The president, taking questions in the Oval Office on Tuesday alongside Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, posited that Iran is \u201cprobably\u201d&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static.politico.com\/8d\/21\/462a6fea45b38b4dec8872e04462\/trump-us-lebanon-16577.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13038\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}