As President Donald Trump’s war with Iran enters week three with no end in sight, some right-wing commentators are urging the administration to “declare victory” and “get out” of Iran “before it gets much worse."

The war is not going well politically for the Trump administration. Polling shows that over half of voters oppose the conflict. Now we’re facing the possibility of sending ground troops to Iran given the worsening situation in the Strait of Hormuz — which 74% of voters oppose. 

Some right-wing figures are fearful of what effect a military quagmire in the Middle East would have on the midterms, and a number of right-wing media personalities are urging the administration to save face by declaring victory and exiting the region. In reality, negative consequences seem to be on the way.

Meanwhile: Fox News isn’t bothering to sell the staggering cost of the ill-conceived war President Donald Trump launched against Iran. The Trumpist propaganda network provided roughly 11 minutes of coverage through Thursday to the administration’s request for an eye-popping $200 billion in supplementary spending from Congress — and less than 1 minute of discussion on its prime-time block, according to a Media Matters review.

• Newsmax’s Greg Kelly declared that Americans can “handle” higher gas prices.
• Fox’s Brian Kilmeade argued that an invasion of Iran's Kharg Island would not really count as ground troops in Iran because “If you're on an island, you're not really in Iran.”
• A Fox host said that Arkansas restaurateurs who asked Gov. Sanders to leave are “culinary tyrants” exercising “Soviet hospitality."

Trump is suggesting that his administration should shut down news outlets for producing critical reports of his ill-conceived war with Iran — or even consider treason charges based on spurious claims of collusion with America’s enemies. Trump’s hand-picked Federal Communications Commission chair, Brendan Carr, is signaling to broadcast stations that they will face regulatory retribution if they don’t “correct course” in their coverage of the war. 

This is all part of Trump’s agenda — he wants news outlets that produce Fox News-style propaganda. The protections of the First Amendment ensures that those outlets could likely prevail in court — but fighting is expensive, and over the course of Trump’s second term so far, the corporate moguls who control them have proven unnervingly unwilling to do so. 

Media Matters’ Matt Gertz wrote a great piece detailing the Trump administration’s threats against news outlets during wartime. You can read that piece here.

• After reading examples of Trump administration figures previously promising to avoid war, podcaster Shawn Ryan said that “every single one of these things is a complete fucking lie."
• In resigning from his position over the war in Iran, Joe Kent is not blaming Donald Trump for starting the Iran war. The Fox News hosts attacking him are not blaming Trump for appointing someone they're calling a disloyal, untrustworthy, Trump-hating conspiracy theorist.
• Podcaster Tim Dillon said, “The people that are cheering on this war in Iran have no fucking clue why we’re there.” (Dillon also called Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth a “war criminal.”) 
• Podcaster Tim Pool responded to the Trump administration pulling back from using the term “mass deportations,” saying, “The Trump administration telling people to back off of mass deportations — and that says to me, yeah, MAGA’s dead.” 
• Pool also said that the Iran war “looks to be like a massive blunder” and that “the facts that are being reported do not bode well for Donald Trump, and this is looking to be a massive, massive mistake”
• Nick Fuentes said Trump “needs to be impeached under the Democrats." Meanwhile, Fuentes and influencer Jake Lang are feuding over who is “the main pro-white advocate."
• Talking about the Trump administration, Megyn Kelly said, “If you wanted to destroy the country, you wouldn’t behave differently."

The current surge in gas prices in response to Trump’s war against Iran challenges Fox News’ long-touted narrative that so-called “energy independence” would insulate the U.S. from disruptions in the global oil market and potential overseas conflicts, specifically in the Middle East. And while Fox personalities have wielded this narrative against Democratic presidents and used its talking points to advocate for more drilling and fossil fuel extraction, the network has fallen nearly silent on the concept of achieving energy independence as domestic energy costs continue rising. 

In reality, the U.S. has never been truly energy independent, and such a policy is not even possible. Yet even as the the U.S. is producing record amounts of oil and the Trump administration pursues a voracious pro-fossil fuel agenda, the national average price of gas reached $3.45 on March 8 and oil prices spiked to over $100 a barrel (that is more than 40% higher than before the U.S. attacked Iran). As of March 18, the price of gas has climbed to a national average of $3.84 a gallon. 

With their empty talking points falling apart against the stark reality of surging gas prices, Fox personalities are now moving the goal posts, claiming that energy independence can be achieved by releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, that it means disruptions to gas prices caused by conflicts overseas are only temporary, or that energy independence enables the U.S. to start new wars. Of course, this is a pathetic effort to revive their bankrupt talking points.

• Media Matters prepared this fantastic piece detailing Nick Fuentes’ history of extreme misogyny. 
• Newsmax’s Michael Savage proposed “internment camps” for “homeless bums.”
• Fox News regularly touts the U.S. stock market performance (and gives the Trump administration credit), but in reality, American financial markets are actually lagging significantly compared to the stock markets of other highly-developed nations.