Has Trump lost control of his own party?
The News Agents - USA
Global
4.3 • 719 Ratings
🗓️ 9 April 2026
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Beside Trump's threat to eliminate Iran, something else remarkable happened this week. A string of Republican Congressmen finally found the courage in themselves to come forward and criticise that threat.
One of his old allies, Senator Ron Johnson, told a podcast that he was "hoping and praying that President Trump is, that this really is bluster." Another Republican Senator, Lisa Murkowski, condemned the post - saying it "cannot be excused away as an attempt to gain leverage in negotiations with Iran". Congressman Nathaniel Moran posted: "That is not who we are, and it is not consistent with the principles that have long guided America."
Trump's actions in the Middle East are an electoral disaster for his colleagues. Gas prices are up, the affordability agenda is in tatters, and America looks on course for a humiliating military defeat to an old adversary. Is this the catalyst for widespread rebellion in the GOP as his colleagues start fighting for their own political survival? And is loyalty to Trump a luxury they can no longer afford?
Jon speaks to Marc Short, Trump's director of legislative affairs and then Mike Pence's chief of staff, about what happens now in this conflict - and to the Republicans in the midterms.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents USA podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:09.1 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:12.5 | Iran would probably say, you know, we understand that America's sensitivity point a certain price of oil. |
| 0:18.6 | But I think if the elections were today, it'd be a bloodbath for Republicans. |
| 0:21.6 | I kind of get the impression that there are a few people around Donald Trump who are making large sums of money out of this. |
| 0:27.6 | It seems that there's been an extraordinary amount of corruption in the second administration that I don't recall from the first administration. |
| 0:34.6 | That is Mark Short, who was Donald Trump's director of |
| 0:37.8 | legislative affairs in the first term, and a very senior and thoughtful Republican who thinks |
| 0:44.6 | that everything right now is going wrong. If Republicans are looking at a bloodbath in the |
| 0:52.4 | midterm elections, are they about to start turning against their |
| 0:56.6 | president? Welcome to the Newsagents USA. The Newsagents USA. It's John. It's mateless. And a little |
| 1:07.2 | later on, we'll hear a lot more from Mark Short as he sits down and talks about the problems facing the Republican Party and how to deal with Donald Trump and the widespread corruption that he now sees taking place before his eyes with the Trump family enriching themselves off the presidency and how he just feels the Republican Party has completely |
| 1:29.0 | lost its way under Donald Trump. And as I say, this was someone who was very close to the president |
| 1:34.6 | in the first term and was Mike Pence's chief of staff on that fateful day of January 6th, |
| 1:41.2 | 2021. But it's the consequences of Donald Trump and the war in Iran that we need to talk about now, |
| 1:49.3 | because is it fair to say that real cracks are now appearing in what the Republican base |
| 1:57.8 | think is acceptable from him, given the recent posts that he's made about, you know, effing and blinding about during Easter weekend. |
| 2:07.3 | And then again, of course, that fateful kind of statement the other day about he was going to wipe out a civilization in one evening. |
| 2:15.0 | I think it's so interesting because when that attack on Iran first |
| 2:19.1 | happened 40 days ago, we thought that the argument would be about military intervention, |
| 2:25.8 | about foreign interference, about the forever wars. And I think Trump certainly hadn't anticipated |
| 2:33.7 | how quickly this would just become a domestic issue. |
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