White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt rolled out MAGA’s newest one-liner to explain the president’s increasingly precarious and unpopular war with Iran.
Leavitt, 28, appeared on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo this weekend, and unveiled her hollow ‘short-term versus long-term’ platitude when asked about the impact of the war on American citizens.
“With respect to what’s happening with gas prices right now, this is a short-term disruption for the long-term gain of taking out the rogue Iranian terrorist regime. And, finally ending their restriction of the free flow of energy in the Middle East and in the Strait of Hormuz,” she told the Fox News host.
While Leavitt is on the frontlines of MAGA narrative-spinning, she’s not the only GOP member to have used some form of the new buzzwords. As one X account called Blue Georgia pointed out through a video it posted on Sunday, the weekend’s MAGA news appearances were rife with endless variations of “short-term pain, long-term gain.”
The account shared the video with the caption, “Latest script just dropped.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz mirrored Leavitt on Meet the Press Sunday, when he assured host Kristen Welker that oil issues would only be “temporary.”
“This is going to be, it looks like, a bit of short-term pain for the long-term gain of Iran no longer being able to hold the world’s energy supplies hostage. We have taken out that capability,” he said.
A montage of “short-term pain for long-term gain” was shared on X shortly after the duo spoke, with media figures such as Fox News’ Kayleigh McEnany and Jesse Watters and CNN’s Scott Jennings joining Republican politicians in using the phrase.
New messaging aside, “pain” and “gain” revolving around ending Iran’s “hostage” of the oil industry was not the first reason 79-year-old President Donald Trump stated for his decision to join Israel at war.
When the president first announced that he’d taken military action against Iran on Feb. 28, he claimed that it was due to the country creating nuclear missiles with the potential to reach the mainland U.S.—claims which have been judged to be unfounded.
Within the first week of the joint strikes by Israel and the U.S., dubbed by the U.S. as “Operation Epic Fury,” an Iranian school was hit, killing more than 150 people, including children; seven U.S. service members have been killed; and the price of gas for Americans has skyrocketed during an ongoing affordability crisis in the country.
Polling shows that the majority of the American public does not support war with Iran, and some MAGA supporters reported feeling betrayed by Trump, who campaigned on being “the peace president.”
The “short-term” element of the phrase also contrasts with Trump’s messaging, with the MAGA leader recently having vowed to continue his war efforts for as long as he deems necessary.
“There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” the president wrote on Truth Social last week, before on Saturday proclaiming his “serious consideration for complete destruction and certain death” on a wider scale than previously planned due to “Iran’s bad behavior.”
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