The unified front from four presidents spanning both parties is virtually unprecedented in modern American history. While former presidents occasionally criticize their successors on specific policies, such coordinated public denials of a sitting president's claim are extraordinarily rare and suggest the depth of concern about the war's legitimacy.

"This is about protecting the credibility of the presidency as an institution," said David Gergen, who served as an adviser to four presidents. "When a president makes a claim about conversations with predecessors that turns out to be false, it damages trust not just in him but in the office itself. They felt compelled to respond."

The White House initially doubled down on President Trump's claim, with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt telling reporters that "the President knows what conversations he's had." However, by late Monday afternoon, the administration had quietly walked back the assertion, saying President Trump may have been referring to "general sentiment" expressed by former officials rather than a specific conversation.

The episode has provided fodder for critics who argue that the President has struggled to build support for the Iran operation even within his own party. Unlike the broad bipartisan coalitions that supported military action in Afghanistan after 9/11 and the first Gulf War in 1991, the Iran campaign has been marked by deep skepticism across the political spectrum.

Congressional Republicans, many of whom privately harbor doubts about the war's strategic rationale, have largely avoided direct criticism of the President. However, several GOP senators have called for greater transparency about the intelligence that prompted military action.

"Fabricating support from former presidents—if that's what happened—suggests a level of insecurity about the decision," said Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah), one of the few Republicans willing to criticize President Trump publicly. "Americans deserve honesty about why we're at war, not manufactured endorsements."

For Democrats, the false claim has become a rallying point. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said the episode demonstrated that "this President will say anything to justify a war that never should have happened."

The impact extends beyond Washington's political class. In swing states like Wisconsin and Michigan, where voters have expressed growing unease about the Iran conflict, the public dispute between President Trump and his predecessors could further erode support for the military operation.

"People want to believe their president, especially when troops are in harm's way," said Emily Chen, a political science professor at the University of Michigan. "But when four former presidents from both parties say he's not telling the truth, that's going to penetrate with voters who were already skeptical."

The episode also highlights the unusual isolation of the Trump administration on foreign policy. During previous conflicts, presidents could typically point to support from at least some predecessors or from broad swaths of the foreign policy establishment. President Trump's claims about phantom endorsements suggest a recognition that such traditional backing is absent.

Some historians noted parallels to President Lyndon Johnson's struggles to maintain public support for the Vietnam War, when questions about the Gulf of Tonkin incident undermined the conflict's legitimacy. In that case, revelations of misleading statements contributed to a broader erosion of trust that shaped American politics for a generation.

"The credibility of presidential statements during wartime is everything," said Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian. "Once you lose that, it's very difficult to maintain public support, even if the military operation itself is going well—which, in this case, it's not."

As of Monday evening, the White House had not clarified whether President Trump would address the denials directly or which former president he believed had supported the Iran operation. The press office said the President was "focused on winning the war, not on palace intrigue about phone calls."

As Americans like to say, 'all politics is local'—even in the nation's capital. And in the case of a controversial war, the politics of presidential credibility matter everywhere from the Oval Office to kitchen tables in Akron and Atlanta where families watch the news and wonder whom they can trust.