A ‘military operation’ or a ‘war’? Inside Trump’s mixed messaging on Iran

Welcome to Meet the Press Now. I'm Kristen Welker in Washington where the president is under mounting political pressure as gas prices continue to surge because of the war with Iran. And the White House is now bucking the 60-day deadline for congressional approval to continue the war. The president today telling reporters he's not happy with the current state of talks and that additional US strikes are on the table. The president also arguing the War Powers Act does not apply to him in this conflict. Because it's never been sought before. There's been numerous many, many times and nobody's ever gotten it before. They consider it totally unconstitutional. But we're always in touch with Congress. But nobody's ever sought it before. Nobody's ever asked for it before. it's never been used before. Why should we be different? Now we do want to note report from the conservative Heritage Foundation has found that Congress has authorized the use of military force more than 40 times. And the War Powers Act states within 60 calendar days, the president shall terminate any use of United States armed forces unless the Congress has declared war or has enacted specific authorization for such use of United States armed forces. President Trump arguing in letter to Congress today that because of the ceasefire with Iran, the hostilities that began on February 28th, 2026 have terminated. But the president himself is continuing to say the US is at war with Iran including just hours ago. Take listen. The war in Iran is going along swimmingly. That's the way war goes, right? military operation. don't call it war. The gas will go down as soon as the war's over, it'll drop like rock. Even with the war, you know, we just hit new high on the economy. Think of it. We hit new high. We have the the best economy with the stock market just now hit new high during the war or the military operation or whatever you'd like to call it. When the war ends, gasoline prices are going to tumble. When the war ends, which shouldn't be too long, they want to make deal so badly, but they're not there yet. It comes as President Trump's approval rating has hit new lows due to the war and its impact on energy prices. New polling shows just 19% of Americans believe US military actions in Iran have been successful. 61% of Americans say using military force in Iran was mistake putting this war around the same level of disapproval as the war in Iraq in 2007 when the US was forced to surge troops to combat rising violence amid the multi-year quagmire. Half of Americans now also saying they believe gas prices will get worse over the next year. Prices at the pump rose 9 cents just overnight to new wartime high of $4.39 gallon. It's the biggest one-day jump since early March just days after the US launched strikes on Iran. The president also saying he's not satisfied with Iran's latest proposal to end the war while doubling down on his frustrations with Tehran's leadership. Take look. would say that am not happy. Their leadership is starting to get disjointed. very argumentative with each other. They come back. One says one thing, one says another. They're very confused. They've got to come up with the right deal. At this moment, I'm not satisfied. Joining me now is our terrific team NBC News White House correspondent Monica Alba, NBC News chief Capitol Hill correspondent Ryan Nobles, NBC News senior national security correspondent Courtney Kube, and energy industry analyst John Kilduff, founding partner of Again Capital. Thank you all for starting us off. Monica, let me go to you first. You asked President Trump today about that critical question about the war authorization. You obtained the letter he sent to Congress. What can you tell us? Yeah, Kristen, this is really something that the administration was starting to sort of lay the groundwork for in the last couple of days. You had the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth saying that he thought that the current ceasefire meant that that 60-day clock effectively stops or means that we're in pause. And that's exactly the rationale that the president laid out today in letter to both chambers of Congress saying that he doesn't think he needs to ask for any kind of official or formal approval because he's not asking for an extension, he says, and because he says essentially that the ceasefire from April 7th that was extended means that the hostilities have quote terminated. Now, what this doesn't address and what is really key here, Kristen, is what this means for the naval blockade and some fighting that we do know went on between US Navy destroyer and an Iranian cargo ship on April 19th. So this doesn't address all of that, but it also doesn't take future military action off the table. In fact, in the letter, the president writes that he thinks he will keep Congress updated and that this could change effectively restarting the clock potentially if he does decide to go ahead with some military strikes in the coming days, Kristen. Monica, let's talk about some of this mixed messaging that we're hearing from the White House. The president, some of his top officials saying it is war. You have the Defense Secretary saying it's not war. What do you make of this mixed messaging? What are sources inside the administration telling you? Is there concern about it? And look, the president has basically called this everything. He called it an excursion initially. He called it little journey. He has in that montage you've been playing referred to it in many different ways even within one same event or answering questions just there. He sort of talks about it in completely different tenses. Like the war has concluded or well, when the war is over, he says you're going to see gas prices come down. He really has said everything possible on this. And so when you ask the White House why the president seems to sort of change his tune on this or why he shifts it, they have not yet completely said what we've heard from lawmakers, which is they've tried to make the argument that this isn't war. The president very clearly calls this war and he does believe it is that, but they do seem to sometimes try to put some distance between that kind of language when they're talking about how active this is. But again, we know that the president has been presented with options that could resume bombing military operations in the way that we saw them in the beginning of this conflict. But what's really important to point out and remember here is that the White House had said this was going to be four-to-six-week operation. We are now well beyond week eight, Kristen, and this still has not wrapped up in any official sense. It's such an important point, Monica. The president set to travel to China in just few weeks. What are you hearing about that trip? Is the fact that the war in Iran is ongoing, could it interrupt those travel plans? We know that it's factor and that is because that trip has already been postponed once because of the war against Iran. They moved it back to this mid-May deadline. The president today said that he's really looking forward to the summit, looking forward to traveling to Beijing. So for now, the plan is proceeding as scheduled, but can tell you from conversations with White House officials, they really don't want to have to move it again. They're unsure whether they even could at this point. So this is factor in the conversations about what might happen next with Iran. It's not the only contributing factor, but we do know that it's an important part of the discussion because I'm told this trip is real priority for the president and he does want to make sure he can get there without there being anything on the Iran front that has to alter the plans. Yeah, he doubled down on just how important he thinks that trip is again today in talking to all of you on the lawn. Monica Alba starting us off at the White House. Monica, thank you so much. Ryan, let me turn to you now. Democrats have almost uniformly been opposed to this war since the start, but we are starting to hear more opposition from Republicans. What are you hearing? And don't even know if I'd call it opposition, but concern that they're not being looped in. In fact, some of the Republicans I've talked to have said, want to support this war. want to be able to go back and tell my constituents that this war is good idea. But if you're not keeping me looped in on exactly what the strategy is and what the end game is, it makes it impossible for me to do that." And so that's where think the next stage of this goes. Republicans getting more engaged in can in getting the administration to be more forthcoming. And you heard little bit of that from Senator Lisa Murkowski before they left for their recess. Take listen. This is an authorization, but is also restraint. It's not blank check. It would ultimately ensure that Congress is engaged. AUMFs should precede wars, not be enacted in their midst. That wasn't choice for us here, but it cannot be used as an excuse to abandon our responsibilities. So when you listen to that, at no point does she say it's bad idea. At no point does she say don't think the president should be doing this. She just says want to be part of this process. The problem though, Kristen, is that you are starting to hear rank-and-file Republicans say that. We're hearing nothing from Republican leadership in both the House and Senate. Their attitude is let the administration do whatever the heck they want and that's been their posture from the very beginning. the big divide. What if any recourse do rank-and-file Republicans have at this point? So think the breaking point will come when they come asking for money. And that's usually where Congress has the ability to exert their most authority. They control the power of the purse. The Pentagon's not going to go magically find another pile of money to continue spending what is essentially $25 billion every two months depending on how long this will go. They're going to need supplemental package of some kind. They're not going to be able to get the approval for that without getting specifically buy-in from Republicans, but likely they're going to need at least handful of Democrats unless they think they can do this through reconciliation, which the folks that I'm talking to are very skeptical that this would make it through reconciliation review. Yeah, that's where it starts to get really complicated. Courtney, you have new reporting meanwhile that in the midst of this ceasefire, Iran may be taking steps to reconstitute its military program. What are you hearing? What are you learning? And the reality is both sides are actually doing it. So, Iran, we know that only about half of their ballistic missile and drone stockpile were destroyed during the the war, the strikes by the US and the Israeli military. So, we now know that they are digging some of these out. So, you remember that during the war we were talking about the US taking these strikes with these giant penetrating bombs where they would penetrate down inside these vertical silos with ballistic missiles. So, in some cases they hit the tops of those, but they didn't actually destroy the missiles underneath. They can dig them out. And in some cases the Iranians themselves buried their launchers, their missiles, their drones. So, they're getting ready should in fact offensive combat operations restart. The US is doing the same though. They have brought in the USS George H.W. Bush and brand new carrier they just got out of training. They've got brand new carrier air wing, so fresh pilots. We did learn just just moments ago actually that the USS Gerald Ford, that was the third carrier strike group there, it has now left CENTCOM. It's finally heading home after about an 11-month pretty brutal deployment, but there still is that additional firepower. The reality is the US official tells me that they actually have are in better shape militarily the US than they were on February 27th should in fact combat operations restart. Well, and Courtney, it comes as President Trump huddled with his national security team to talk about potential options for reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Where do those talks stand? What are the options he's considering? So, we mean the president himself said that there that they were telling him about the possibility of sort of finishing this job or finishing this war or doing nothing. The reality is there's also lot of options in between depending on what the president decides to do. military option for reopening the strait is tough. Okay? That would be very difficult. It would have take tremendous amount of firepower and tremendous number of US troops to do it. And don't know if that's the kind of thing that they would do here. Instead it seems more as if they're looking to send message to the Iranians as part of this. There's no question that the talks right now or whatever we're talk calling this because they're not really talking. This whatever this effort is at peace is is very stalled. And so, think there is some hope that they can do something that would sort of restart that or get the Iranians to to maybe come to the table again. And and it looks as if they're looking at options that include kinetic options. So, let's just start with where we left off. The fact that we've seen this surge in gas prices. What do you make of it? We're going to continue to go higher. We're ripping through our available supplies that have been stored up before the war had happened because of market conditions wasn't purposeful thing. And US gasoline prices are likely headed towards the $5 mark next stop, no doubt. And how quickly you say the next stop, how quickly do you think prices could surge above $5 because was surprised to see how much they'd gone up overnight. And we're seeing the data come in and we're now able to measure just how much global oil supplies and refined product supplies like gasoline and diesel fuel are being drawn down. We probably have another three to four weeks left before the situation gets really extreme. So, just in time for Memorial Day at this point if there's no peace deal or if the strait isn't opened somehow some way, don't care if they make peace or not, then we'll be at the $5 mark just in time for the summer driving season. Well, President Trump said his blockade would cause Iran's oil industry to {quote} {unquote} explode. What have the impacts of the blockade been on the broader oil market? mean theoretically the Iranians, like the other Arab countries in the region, need to get their oil out because they don't have that much storage. But right now the Iranians are handling it. They have empty vessels that they're continuing to load. They still have on inland storage facilities available to them. So, this isn't like tomorrow situation where the Iranian oil industry implodes. It's going to be another several weeks before that situation gets extreme for them as well. So, again we're all on this collision path towards real energy crisis come come the June time period. There's no doubt about it. You have Iran claiming it controls the strait, the US claiming it controls the strait. Which does the oil market seem to believe? Well, the oil market sort of follows the lead of the insurance industry which won't insure the ships going through right now because the Iranians, they don't really control it, but they are making enough trouble and causing enough doubt about your ability to transit the traits transit the strait safely, he tried to say, that you can't go through. It won't go through and it's effectively closed. So, all of this is effective stuff because we can't guarantee safe passage to any of the vessels right now. So, as result of that the Iranians are basically blackmailing the world here and not allowing anything to get through by their threats. John Kilduff, thank you so much for your great information. We really appreciate it. Thank you. We thank you for watching. And remember stay updated on breaking news and top stories on the NBC News app or watch live on our YouTube channel.