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Opinion
Updated July 17, 2026 — 1:17pm,first published 12:56pm
Updated July 17, 2026 — 1:17pm,first published 12:56pm
President Donald Trump addressed the American people and the world (Friday AEST) to announce a new war he is waging as commander-in-chief. In advance of the speech, he said he wanted to talk about voting machines in US elections and, “We’ll have a couple of other things to say, also. But I’d rather save it. But it’s really big news.”
The big news was China. Trump effectively indicted the government of China, and by implication its president and good friend, Xi Jinping, for the “election intelligence nightmare” perpetrated against America’s democracy. “They fought like hell to keep Donald Trump from winning.” Trump’s speech was laced with anger and retribution. How is the Trump-Xi relationship?
Years of investigations by the intelligence community have shown decisively that there has been no effective election interference by foreign nations or rigging of ballots or voter fraud. Massive vote recounts and audits of the 2020 election occurred in the swing states that determined Joe Biden’s victory. But Trump is obsessed with the 2020 election. No president, much less this president who was elected twice, has attacked the integrity of US elections. Six years later, Trump’s obsession with his loss to Biden is unyielding.
The nation is not thinking about the integrity of US elections. It is thinking about the war in Iran and widespread economic hardship in households. Right now, Trump is expanding this war and flirting with a forever war. Iran’s nuclear stockpiles are intact. Iran determines whether the Strait of Hormuz is open or closed. Iran has ample supplies of missiles. There has been no regime change; the hardliners in Tehran are even harder. Iran continues to support its terrorist proxies in the region. Trump’s flourishing signature to a memorandum of understanding in the palace of Versailles has been shredded. The record of Trump’s inexperienced diplomatic team is abysmal: no end to war in Ukraine or Iran, no rebuilding of Gaza, no Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
All Trump could say was, “We are winning big in Iran.”
Nothing that he said, and his opening of an enormous fight with China, has changed the politics of this moment, and what Trump and the Republicans face in the midterm elections that are just over 100 days away. Trump’s approval rating is low and has tumbled among Republicans. Support for the Iran war is crumbling with every one cent increase in a gallon of fuel. On every critical national issue – the state of the economy, prices and inflation, healthcare, trade and tariffs, jobs and wages, housing affordability, foreign policy – Trump is underwater with respect to the Democrats.
Trump’s failure as a wartime leader – the mad contortions of wartime tactics, his failure to consult with America’s allies to form a broad coalition to end Iran’s nuclear program and stabilise the region, his incessant rants and threats on social media that poison the prospects for any effective diplomacy – carries immense consequences for his leadership of the nation.
In every midterm election in this century, the president’s party in the White House has lost seats in Congress – bar 2002, when President George W. Bush’s war on Afghanistan following 9/11 resonated very strongly with the American people and Republicans gained seats in Congress. There is no fervour for war in Iran.
What other president could survive in office if he was forced to pay $US5.6 million in damages to a woman he sexually assaulted, who accepted as a gift a new Air Force One from a non-NATO ally with the United States, whose income soared by over $US2 billion after just one year in office while investors who bought Trump crypto products lost $3.8 billion?
Virtually no one in his own party, and almost no Republicans serving in Congress, have the temerity to express any sustained criticism about what goes on in his head and how he expresses himself in public, and what he then does next, out of fear of his vicious retribution.
Republicans are under his control, but Trump is increasingly out of touch with voters. His priorities – the White House ballroom, the Reflecting Pool, the “Arc de Trump” near the entrance of the national military cemetery, the new Air Force One, the UFC fighting cage on the South Lawn, his power within FIFA, the July 4 fireworks, the coming IndyCar race by the Capitol in August – are not theirs. Every day spent on those issues, and every speech Trump makes about China, is a day lost for campaigning on a better economic future for the country.
Hence the speech. A White House advisor said, “We want to get into the rhythm of doing this. It’s powerful when you give prime-time speeches that give a sense of importance to what he’s saying.” This from a president who is on the screen almost every day for several hours at a time. We will see whether this event commanded even close to the 32.6 million who watched his last State of the Union address in February.
Two television networks, NBC and ABC, did not run Trump’s speech live. Trump said that their editorial decision to deny him airtime is part of a plot to protect the radical left, and that they now run the risk of being punished by having their media licences rescinded.
Concluding his remarks, Trump said, “Together we will restore faith and confidence in our election system.” See you at the polls in November.
Bruce Wolpe is an author and columnist. He is a senior fellow at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre. He has served on the Democratic staff in the US Congress and as chief of staff to former prime minister Julia Gillard.
