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President Trump’s predictions of a relatively short-term conflict with minimal economic consequences appear to be crumbling.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs is a White House correspondent. He reported from The Villages, West Palm Beach and Doral, Fla.
May 3, 2026, 5:01 a.m. ET
Two months into the war in Iran, President Trump is confronting the complicated reality of a conflict that has proved costly, deeply unpopular and lacks a clear endgame.
Energy markets are in turmoil. The Pentagon has given its first public estimate of the war’s cost: $25 billion so far. Key Republicans in Congress are growing impatient. And Mr. Trump is lashing out at foreign allies, like Germany, who have shown no interest in joining the fight.
Speaking to a crowd of supporters on Friday, Mr. Trump insisted he had no regrets.
“I did something that was, I don’t know, foolish, brave, but it was smart,” Mr. Trump said at The Villages, a retirement community in a solidly Republican area. “I would do it again.”
Still, Mr. Trump’s predictions of a relatively short-term conflict with minimal economic consequences appear to be crumbling around him.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly defended the war, which he launched alongside Israel on Feb. 28, and said it is imperative that Iran never has a nuclear weapon. The United States and Israel have taken out military targets and killed senior Iranian leaders — including the Supreme leader — but the government there remains intact and able to inflict pain on the United States.
As the conflict continues, Mr. Trump has encouraged Americans to keep things “in perspective,” citing the long wars in Vietnam and Iraq to suggest that U.S. involvement in Iran is “not very long at all.”
