By Kevin Liptak, Alayna Treene, Kristen Holmes, CNN
Hebron, Kentucky (CNN) — President Donald Trump was touring a pharmaceutical company in Ohio Wednesday — trying again to turn attention to his domestic achievements — when talk again returned to the restive Middle East.
Was the conflagration a war, a reporter asked, or merely an “excursion,” as the president had just described it.
“Well, it’s both,” he explained.
“It’s an excursion that will keep us out of a war, and the war is going to be, I mean for them — it’s a war. For us, it’s turned out to be easier than we thought,” he continued.
For Americans eager for clarity on where, exactly, this is headed, it wasn’t much.
And for a president looking to present his best case on a conflict that has roiled markets and polls poorly, it was a window into a difficult political moment.
Wednesday’s two-state trip — first to Cincinnati and then a logistics facility in Kentucky, where he delivered remarks — was Trump’s first appearance before a crowd of his supporters since the conflict began late last month.
Even as the war has intensified, Trump has tried — at least occasionally — to maintain focus on the domestic priority his advisers believe is essential for GOP success in November’s midterm elections. Yet the war has badly complicated his attempts at an economic pivot. A spike in oil prices has driven gas prices higher, erasing a key talking point. Stock market see-saws, which Trump often views as a barometer for his policies, reflect concern among investors at where the world is headed.
And his confusing timelines about the conflict’s duration have done little to quiet the handwringing among nervous Republicans, many of whom have placed calls to Trump advisers encouraging a better messaging strategy, particularly around the price of oil, sources involved in and briefed on those conversations said.
Trump on Wednesday heralded an international agreement to release stockpiled oil reserves, arguing it would keep energy prices in check. And shortly after his remarks, the US Department of Energy announced the administration would release 172 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve starting next week.
But while Trump also touted his drug pricing and housing plans and tax cuts on Wednesday, he kept getting pulled back to a foreign conflict that the Pentagon has told Congress cost at least $11 billion in its first six days.
“You never like to say too early, you’ve won. We won. We won. In the first hour it was over,” Trump told the Kentucky crowd.
But after praising the International Energy Agency’s announcement, which he said would “substantially reduce the oil prices,” Trump defended the ongoing conflict.
“We don’t want to leave early, do we? We got to finish the job, right?”
Political risks for the GOP
In private, many Trump allies acknowledge the risk of political peril for the president and his party the longer the war persists. Many have encouraged the administration to offer clearer messaging about the goals of the war and the metrics for its success, hoping to offer concerned Americans a better picture of how it might end, sources familiar with the talks said.
A key throughline in the messaging has been for officials to clearly articulate that this is not 2003, and that the Trump administration has no plans for the nation building attempted in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars,