Trump is weighing a strike on Iran ahead of the November 3 elections, but a Republican says the real goal is to ‘look like he got a win’

With the November 3 midterms drawing closer, President Donald Trump is looking at a new strike on Iran, two White House officials told The Atlantic. They said Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth has been asked to assemble options for strikes against Iran before voters go to the polls.

The officials tied the idea to gas prices and the war. They said Trump wants voters to see that he is serious about bringing fuel costs down and moving the Iran conflict toward an end before Election Day. His favorability has dropped since strikes began in February. Democrats are favored to retake the House, and the party also has a chance at the Senate.

A White House official, speaking to the Daily Mail, said nothing has been taken off the table. “The Commander-in-Chief has all options available at any time,” the official said. “President Trump holds all the cards and will do whatever is best for the United States.”

Pentagon and Central Command are still shaping possible targets

That official also passed along the president’s view that the fighting is near an American victory. “The United States is in a very strong position with control of the Strait of Hormuz and the Iranian economy collapsing. Iran has been decimated, and things will go one of two ways; the easy way or the hard way,” the official said.

The Pentagon did not address the Atlantic account directly. An official there told the Daily Mail that the department’s role is “to develop and present military options to the President.”

How large any strike would be, and what it would hit, is still unsettled. Officials said U.S. Central Command is working through those choices and that no final decision has been made. The same account said people in the administration already know a new round of strikes by itself would not push Iran into talks or cut gas prices, even if voters began to read the move as progress.

A Republican familiar with the negotiations put the political reading in plain terms. “It would make the president look like he got a win and that gas prices would start going down,” the Republican said.

The war is also sitting on top of weak approval numbers and higher day-to-day costs, according to the report. The war’s costs reach beyond the pump, as Pentagon generals reportedly break ranks over the Iran war while Pete Hegseth faces a growing revolt.

Diesel climbed to around $6.50 a gallon last month, raising the cost of hauling groceries, building materials, and other goods. The report linked that jump to fighting in Ukraine and Iran, including attacks on refineries in Russia and the Middle East.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll put Trump’s approval at 32 percent. Other polls have shown Democrats ahead in both House and Senate races. 

Oil prices have risen with the fighting in the Strait of Hormuz, and U.S. diesel hit an all-time high on September 22. At a September 24 event, Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton was asked what he sees as “dragging” his campaign. He answered, “It’s not tariffs…. It’s the war, it’s gas prices, it’s diesel.”

Eight months in, gasoline is above $4 a gallon, and only about a third of Americans approve of the strikes on Iran. Republican Senate candidates in Iowa, Michigan, and Ohio have publicly asked Trump to end the war.

Iran’s top diplomat said Sunday that force will not settle the United States’ war with the Islamic republic, and talks were described as stuck. Heavy bombing did not finish the war that the U.S. and Israel opened in late February. In recent weeks Washington has pulled back military operations and leaned more on economic pressure.

The sticking point is still Iran’s effort to block the Strait of Hormuz, a main route for oil and gas from the Gulf. A U.K. maritime agency said Sunday that another tanker was hit by an unknown projectile. A June memorandum of understanding laid out a framework for a lasting deal, but Iranian attacks on ships in the strait brought U.S. military operations back.

Since the war started, Iran has tried to decide which ships may pass, striking vessels that move through without its approval. The U.S. has answered with a counterblockade of Iranian ports and has hit ships it says broke that blockade. Trump has said more than once that the fuel-price cost is worth paying so Iran does not get nuclear weapons.

AAA put the national average for diesel at $6.37 a gallon on Friday, down from a record $6.52 on September 22. Diesel has also set records in Europe. Trump has said it is “possible” he will step up bombing of Iran after the midterms, and that he turned down Iran’s latest peace offer because it was not good enough.

In a recent Time interview, he said he will not accept Iranian proposals that “he wouldn’t have approved a year ago.” He left the door open to bombing again after the election, then declined to say where. “I can’t tell you that because look, you know, you’re asking, where are you going to bomb?” he told journalists. 

He told Time he had only heard about those reports on the day of the September 28 interview, adding, “I can’t imagine this.” He also said that if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been warned ahead of time, “he would have done something about it” or “would have had people at least alert.”