Trump says the war in Iran will end after Election Day

DALLAS — President Donald Trump attempted to turn one of his biggest political vulnerabilities into a strength for Republicans here Wednesday, making the war with Iran a key focus of his speech at the party’s midterm convention.“Does anybody here think that Iran should have a nuclear weapon? Anybody?” Trump asked the crowd gathered at American Airlines Center, articulating the administration’s core argument for attacking Iran.The audience responded loudly and decisively: “No!”Trump also repeated a claim he made to reporters earlier in the day.“The war will be over very shortly after the election,” Trump said.“They’re hanging out for dear life, hoping that we lose, so they can deal with dumb, weak Democrats, and they can have their nuclear bomb.

But we’re not going to let that happen.”Trump’s comments came with the war he once predicted would last only four or five weeks now in its seventh month.A recent NBC News Decision Desk Poll powered by SurveyMonkey found that 69% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the war.

The share of Republicans who say they strongly approve of Trump’s handling of the war has dropped 18 percentage points since the spring and now stands at 30%.Several convention attendees who spoke to NBC News said Trump has earned their trust on the war.“Any good thing in life is worth waiting for, and so if you put the Iran war and its ultimate conclusion in that context, I think that puts a slightly different light on it,” said Jack Etheridge, an alternate delegate from Ohio.“I mean, let’s face it: the election is part of the timeline.

The Iranians are taking advantage of that, I think, for their own purposes, but I think the reality is no one believes that Iran is going to defeat the United States.”Others echoed the president’s demand that Iran not develop or possess a nuclear weapon.“They are not just a bad dictatorship like China or Russia, they are an extremist theocratic dictatorship, and th...