WASHINGTON - At an impromptu press conference last week, US President Donald Trump waxed lyrical about his helipad, his ballroom and his granite paving stones.
The one thing he barely mentioned? The Iran war.
Six months after launching what he expected to be a lightning offensive, Trump appears bored or even in denial about the conflict as it puts a drag on his second presidency.
"Right now, the situation is so good," Trump replied when asked about Iran, after leading reporters on a tour of the White House's South Lawn to show off his latest renovations.
During the 36-minute event, Trump used the word "granite" 13 times and the word "Iran" just three.
But the war, in which at least 18 US service members have died and more than 750 were wounded, according to Pentagon figures, has become a millstone around Trump's neck. Thousands more have died in Iran and Lebanon.
US voters are angry about the war's knock-on effect on the cost of living and crucial midterm elections are around the corner.
Even his MAGA fans are questioning why the man who vowed to start no new foreign wars has got America into another quagmire with no apparent plan to get out of it.
"Is there a rabbit in the hat? No, I think the hat is empty," William Galston, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told AFP.
- 'Very boring' -
Trump's public approval ratings have fallen since his return to office in 2025, and the drop accelerated after the United States and Israel went to war with Iran on February 28.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted on August 14-17 found that his approval rating had fallen to 33 percent, the lowest of his current term. Other major surveys also show Trump deep into in negative territory.
For Trump, Iran was meant to be a quick win like the US capture of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro in January. In a telephone interview with AFP after the announcement of a ceasefire in April, Trump declared "total and complete victory."
But as the truce collapsed and Iran refused to bow to him, Trump has veered from military to economic pressure, just as his justifications for starting the war have changed from regime change to ensuring Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon.
Then as Iran has kept its grip on the Strait of Hormuz -- a pressure point that only came into play after Trump started the war -- the 80-year-old has become first frustrated, and then disinterested.
"Frankly, I thought they started to get very boring," Trump said of the sputtering Iran talks as far back as June.
Garret Martin, a foreign policy expert at American University, said Trump "famously has a short attention span."
"He was convinced that he could repeat a little bit what happened with Venezuela, a rapid show of force," Martin told AFP. "I think now he's in a position where there is no easy exit."
- 'Reckless war' -
While Trump prefers to talk about the $400 million ballroom he is trying to build and puts his name on public buildings in Washington, voters are still thinking about Iran.
"I think it's completely unnecessary, and that it was a reckless war, and I think it's going very badly," said Joe Plenzler, a US Marine for 20 years.
"The impact on the American consumer has gone up tremendously," he said, adding that there was growing dissatisfaction in the rural, normally Republican area of Virginia where he lives.
Gasoline prices have soared well above $4 per gallon since the start of the war, compared with the national average of $3.14 a year ago, with a huge knock-on effect on consumer prices.
The reckoning for Trump could come in November's midterm elections.
Analysts say dissatisfaction with the war could cost the Republicans their control of the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate, scuppering Trump's legislative plans and putting him at risk of a third impeachment.
But has Trump completely checked out of the war? The 80-year-old's search for a legacy after his second term ends in 2029 means it's unlikely.
"I think he cares about his standing in history," said Galston.
But he added: "Maybe he believes that statues and buildings and other things named for him will substitute for the kind of performance in office that makes you a memorable president."
- by Danny Kemp (AFP)