WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump won the White House pledging to wind down the nation’s many foreign entanglements and put “America First.”
But as his administration eyes the prospect of military conflict with Iran, Trump’s 2016 campaign trail promise is being put to the test. The political pitfalls ahead for the first-term Republican president could be serious ahead of his 2020 reelection campaign.
While Trump enjoys overwhelming support from his party, there is little appetite among his loyalists for a new military conflict in the Middle East.
Says Corey Stewart, who led Trump’s 2016 campaign in Virginia, “It would be a disaster for him and for the country getting into another military engagement in the Middle East.”