Voters from military towns are worried that President Donald Trump, despite campaigning on a “peace” platform, is “bumbling” America into another Iraq or Afghanistan war, The New York Times reports.

“It’s a waste of resources, a waste of money, and we come off as bullies,” Krystal Zimmerman, an Army veteran who fought in Iraq, told the Times. She had supported President Trump’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites last year, “but as the conflict lurches from bombings and threats of annihilation to a shaky truce with no clear exit, she worries that President Trump has now stumbled into his own forever war.”

The Times conducted three dozen interviews with voters in military towns across America — including Colorado Springs, San Antonio, and Fayetteville.

After six weeks of war, many voters “said they still had no clear sense of the president’s goals in Iran, or why he had joined Israel in attacking now. It all felt so fast and erratic, they said.” They were used to past presidents making the case for months to the public, as Republican Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush did.

“Nothing like that preceded the attack on Iran, the Times noted. “And the blizzard of shifting statements that Mr. Trump has offered in phone calls with reporters and late-night Truth Social posts only added to some people’s confusion.”

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On April 1, the White House published a press release declaring “President Trump’s Clear and Unchanging Objectives Drive Decisive Success Against Iranian Regime.”

It listed remarks made by several different administration officials including the president, offering varying reasons for the war, which the White House said were the Trump administration “repeatedly and unambiguously” reaffirming “core objectives.” Some of the quotes mentioned nuclear weapons, some did not.

“Nearly two-thirds of voters,” the Times reported, “and 71 percent of political independents — said they thought Mr. Trump had not provided a clear explanation in the lead up to the war, according [to] a Quinnipiac University poll from early March.”

“I don’t think Trump is making wise decisions,” Emmelia Lorenzen, a Trump voter from Fayetteville who was raised in a military family, told the Times. “One of Trump’s biggest campaign motives was that he is not a man of war,” she said. “And then you see us moving to war so quickly after saying that. It just doesn’t really make sense.”

She “was particularly disturbed by his vow to annihilate the entire Iranian civilization if Iran did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz — a threat averted at the last minute when the United States and Iran agreed to a two-week cease fire.”

Mike Keefe in Portland, Oregon, told the Times, “I’m incredulous that more people aren’t in the streets but, yeah, it’s kind of hard to be surprised or even shocked by anything he does now.”

Not everyone the Times spoke with opposed Trump’s actions.

“It’s a threat — it needs to be neutralized,” Gary Freese, who served in Iraq, said. He praised the president, saying his actions show “he’s got spine” by attacking Iran.

“These guys are religious zealots,” Wayne Brincks, a retired farmer, said of Iran’s leadership. “I think the president thought it was now or never, and we had to do something.”

Others disagreed.

Iowa farmer Mike Nelson, who questions Israel’s influence in Trump’s decision to attack Iran, told the Times, “I don’t think there was any imminent danger.”

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Image via Reuters 

From Iran to the Pope to Greenland to tariffs, President Donald Trump and his administration have yet to realize that bullying as a tactic does not appear to be reliably working with either friends or foes — and if the White House has noticed, they may not care, according to Politico Magazine.

“To date, there’s little evidence that Trump or his deputies understand the chain reactions they set off when issuing diktats or that they have learned lessons from past instances of blowback,” writes Politico’s Nahal Toosi. “They believe, with few exceptions, that America can use threats, economic muscle and military action to bend other capitals to its will.”

Richard Haass, a former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, told Politico that if “there were an appreciation that bullying was no longer a likely to succeed tactic you’d see a move away from it,” and yet, they have not.

Even when Trump backs down, after the damage has been done, sometimes he goes back for more.

Just last week, while fuming over Europe’s refusal to team up with the U.S. against Iran, Trump wrote on social media: “REMEMBER GREENLAND, THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE!!!”

READ MORE: ‘He Reported to Me in Detail’: Netanyahu’s Boast on Vance Fuels Blowback

Diplomats have long been distressed that Trump and his team approach foreign relations as if they were real estate deals, that everything is a transaction.

“But treating Russia’s war in Ukraine or the Palestinians’ claims on Gaza as being merely about land misses out on how identity, politics and the desire to simply survive as a people is what fuels many conflicts,” Politico noted. Trump and his team often “fail to realize that people tend to fight for what gives their life meaning beyond the purely rational or material cost-benefit analysis,” a former Latin American official told Politico.

Haass told Politico that Trump could be helping lead the U.S. into a “post-American world,” one in which the U.S. is no longer at the center — which would be playing into China’s hands.

In that world, roles would switch, and the U.S. would be forced to “regularly plead for help instead of knowing it can count on friends who instinctively trust and support it.”

Former Biden administration official Dan Shapiro told Politico, “Look, the U.S. is powerful and we have a lot of influence, but we don’t have infinite influence.”

“Even the best,” he said, “need allies, friends, partners.”

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Image via Reuters

Sir Edward Davey, a UK Member of Parliament who serves as the leader of the Liberal Democrats, blasted President Donald Trump on Monday, and warned that Britain’s King Charles should not visit the American president later this month.

Quoting President Trump’s recent threat to Iran, “A whole civilization will die tonight,” Sir Davey called the statement, “words I never thought I would hear from an American president,” and “a stark reminder of how reckless, immoral, and completely outside the bounds of international law this president is.”

Davey declared Trump “no friend of the United Kingdom” and “no leader of the free world,” but rather, “a dangerous and corrupt gangster” — and warned that is how Trump must be treated.

“So will the Prime Minister advise the King to call off his state visit to Washington before it’s too late?” Davey asked of Keir Starmer. “Because I really fear, for what Trump might say or do, while our King is forced to stand by his side. We cannot put His Majesty in that position.”

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The Independent reports that Starmer did defend the King’s upcoming U.S. state visit, and “held firm, arguing the visit marks the 250th anniversary of the relationship between the two countries.”

BBC News reports that Starmer did call Trump’s threat against Iran “wrong,” and said he would not have used the same words as the U.S. president.

King Charles’ U.S. visit will be the first UK state visit since Queen Elizabeth II came to America in 2007.

Donald Trump is no leader of the free world. He’s a dangerous and corrupt gangster.

The Prime Minister needs to call off the King’s state visit to Washington before it’s too late. pic.twitter.com/xt7nxrDPSu

— Ed Davey (@EdwardJDavey) April 13, 2026

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