US President Donald Trump, the master pitchman who has sold everything from golden sneakers to gold cards, is struggling to convince Americans to buy into his biggest project yet: war against Iran.
Before donning an oversized, USA-emblazoned baseball cap and declaring the start of another conflict in the Middle East, the salesman-in-chief neglected to persuade the public about why he was doing it, even though he'd had weeks to do so and had promised over and over again that he would end wars.
In the days since, messages from Mr Trump and his administration have been muddled at best, and a picture is emerging of a rush towards military action with a shoot-first, ask-questions-later mindset.
On Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US struck Iran because it knew Israel was about to attack the country unilaterally, a move that would then lead to an Iranian attack against American forces in the region.
In other words, America pre-emptively attacked Iran because it feared a retaliatory strike after Iran was pre-emptively bombed by Israel.
Mr Rubio sought to clarify the confusing comments on Tuesday after they infuriated Mr Trump's Make American Great Again base, who saw his remarks as proof that Israel dictates US foreign policy in the Middle East.
“The bottom line is … the President determined we were not going to get hit first. It's that simple, guys,” Mr Rubio told reporters.
“We are not going to put Americans troops in harm's way,” he added, without mentioning the six US service members who have already been killed.
Mr Trump has made even more of a hash of it, giving a host of differing justifications for launching the war. Most obviously, he spent the months since Operation Midnight Hammer against Iranian nuclear sites last June crowing about how the bombing raids had completely “obliterated” the nuclear programme, only to recently assert that a war was needed to stop Tehran from developing a bomb.
He's also said that a justification for the war was regime change, and suggested that he wanted to kill Iran's leaders because they apparently tried to assassinate him in 2024.
Top Democrats on Tuesday said the Trump administration has failed to justify why it started a war and warned there is no “endgame”.
Speaking to reporters after a closed-door Iran briefing from Mr Rubio, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and other officials, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said the Trump administration “doesn’t seem to know what it’s doing”.
“Every hour, there’s a different rationale as to why we’re doing this,” he said.
Democratic Senator Cory Booker said the administration is jumping “around until they think they found an explanation that could satisfy the most people.”
“They have changed their justification for this time and time again, and we got nothing that even approached a justifiable reason for the President to commit an act of war by attacking another nation,” he said.
Mr Trump is an unpopular president, with approval ratings stuck south of 40 per cent. Iran won't help him, especially as economic costs rack up and the US death toll mounts.
Worryingly for him before the November midterms, at this initial stage in the conflict, most Americans appear to be against the war.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll found just one in four Americans support US strikes on Iran, while a CNN poll reported 59 per cent of Americans disapproved.
Compare this to a poll in March 2003, days after the US-led invasion of Iraq. Back then, 72 per cent of Americans favoured the war in Iraq and then-president George W Bush enjoyed an approval rating above 70 per cent.
The difference of course is that the Bush administration spent more than a year after September 11, 2001, assiduously laying the groundwork for an invasion of Iraq, even though it had nothing to do with the attacks by Al Qaeda. Mr Bush won backing for his ultimately disastrous war from Congress and most Americans.
The latest US foreign military intervention appears to have divided Mr Trump's supporters at a crucial time for the President. While many appeared to back his decision, some high-profile voices such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, who resigned from Congress after a public dispute with Mr Trump, are livid.
“America is going to be force-fed and gas-lighted all the 'noble' reasons the American 'peace' President and pro-peace administration had to go to war once again this year, after being in power for only a year,” she wrote on X, calling it all “head-spinning”.
At a media conference on Monday, Mr Hegseth outlined the military aims of the conflict: to destroy Iranian offensive missiles and missile production; destroy its navy; and stop it getting a nuclear weapon.
But what about the day after? No one seems to know. Mr Trump on Tuesday said the US or Israel had killed the very Iranians it was hoping might take over the government.
“And now we have another group – they may be dead also, based on reports,” he said at the White House. “So I guess you have a third wave coming in. Pretty sure we're not going to know anybody.”
In other words, he has no clue what is coming next.
None of it bodes well, and it's unclear why Mr Trump didn't bother trying to convince a sceptical America, already struggling with high prices and extreme anxiety of the direction of the economy, why they should pay for a new war.
We are still early on in the conflict, but the midterms will determine how much America is suffering from buyer's remorse.
