President Trump has never been a fuzzy, feel-your-pain kind of politician.<\/p>\n
That came through in an especially striking way yesterday, when he answered a question about whether he was motivated by the financial situation of Americans to make a deal to end the war with Iran.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot even a little bit,\u201d he replied, as my colleague Erica Green reported<\/a>. (You can watch the video here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think about Americans\u2019 financial situation,\u201d Trump added. \u201cI don\u2019t think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n It was a response that flouted fundamental rules of American politics \u2014 that voters are motivated above all by economic concerns, that they want to support politicians who \u201ccare about people like me<\/a>\u201d \u2014 and it was a risky one, given Trump\u2019s dire political standing:<\/p>\n His disapproval rating<\/a> is consistently hovering around 60 percent or worse<\/p>\n A new CNN poll<\/a> found that 77 percent of Americans \u2014 including a majority of Republicans \u2014 thought his policies had increased the cost of living in their own community<\/p>\n Inflation rose a startling 3.8 percent<\/a> in April, the fastest rate since May 2023, sending a flashing warning about how the war in the Middle East is raising prices for Americans<\/p>\n Republican pushback to the conflict is growing in Congress<\/a><\/p>\n And Trump has not exactly given the impression that he is single-mindedly focused on bringing down the cost of living. He spent one recent night unleashing a barrage of Truth Social posts<\/a> about various grievances and topics, including conspiracy theories about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.<\/p>\n \u201cPresident Trump was re-elected for four reasons,\u201d Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster, told me. \u201cTo improve the economy, to bring down inflation, to control illegal immigration and to get away from woke culture. Anything that works against any of those four goals is not helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n Republicans have had some good news, however, on the redistricting front. Two favorable court rulings for them have spurred a rapid escalation of Republican-led redrawing of maps across the South<\/a>.<\/p>\n