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Welcome to April! In today’s edition, Bridget Bowman analyzes the latest polls on the Iran war as President Donald Trump prepares to address the nation tonight. Plus, Andrea Mitchell delves into Trump’s recent rhetoric about “regime change” in Iran.
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—Adam Wollner
Polls show consistent majorities oppose military action in Iran after a month of war
By Bridget Bowman
when the president donald trump provides an “important update” on the Iran war tonight, will address a nation that has been deeply skeptical of the military operation since it began.
Polls over the past month have found that most Americans oppose US military action in Iran, although Republicans remain broadly supportive of Trump’s actions. And even larger majorities remain opposed to sending American ground troops into the conflict.
When the war began, an NBC News poll conducted from February 27 to March 3 found that 52% of registered voters said the United States should not have taken military action against the country, while 41% supported the action and 7% were unsure. That was a marked change from other recent conflicts, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when majorities in NBC News polls expressed support for military action from the start.
Even as voters broadly opposed the attacks, 77% of Republicans (and 90% of voters who said they were aligned with the Make America Great Again movement) supported strikes on Iran in the NBC News poll.
Since then, polls have found persistent majorities opposing the military operation in Iran, and Republicans remain steadfast in their support.
A CBS News/YouGov poll conducted March 17-20 found that 60% disapprove of the United States taking military action against Iran, and 40% approve, including 84% of Republicans.
A Fox News poll conducted March 20-23 found that 58% of registered voters opposed military action and 42% supported it. Meanwhile, 77% of Republicans supported the action and 23% opposed it.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted March 27-29 showed that 60% of Americans disapprove of the attacks on Iran, while 35% approve. But Republicans still supported it: 74% approved of the war and 22% disapproved.
Most Americans have also disapproved of Trump’s handling of Iran, with approval ratings on the issue ranging from the high 40s to the low 30s. That’s slightly below his overall job approval rating, which hovers around 40% in recent polls.
Read more →
Trump’s spin on ‘regime change’ in Iran
Analysis by Andrea Mitchell
President donald trump has taken credit for what he calls “regime change” in Iran, seeming to suggest that with the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the failure (so far) of his son, Mujtabato come to light publicly, the country is now in its “third regime” since the war began.
Trump calls this different group “very reasonable.” To veteran Iran watchers, this sounds reminiscent of the “moderate Iranian” president. ronald reaganIran’s first-term national security team figured it would free American hostages in exchange for Israeli missiles in 1984. Later known as the Iran-Contra scandal, history recorded how well it turned out.
As Trump and his negotiators cite progress in talks while the government in Tehran issues routine denials, it’s hard to know what to believe. The president appears to be referring to the speaker of the Iranian Parliament. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf as the most “reasonable” leader, although he joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps at age 18 and spent most of his career in that military wing of the government. In an interview with the Financial Times, Trump credited Ghalibaf with authorizing a goodwill gift to allow 10 Pakistani oil tankers to sail through the Strait of Hormuz last week. Iranian state media denied that claim.
If negotiations are underway as the administration claims, do they involve direct or indirect messages with Trump’s special envoy? Steve Witkoff? Are they commercial proposals? With conflicting messages from both capitals, a safe bet is that neither is entirely accurate.
What seems more likely is that Iran’s surviving political leaders are hardened, radical ideologues, embittered by the war and more determined than before to rearm against future attacks. They are also unlikely to trust US envoys again after being ambushed twice by US airstrikes in the middle of negotiations. And with Khamenei dead, so is the fatwah, or religious edict, he issued decades ago against taking the final steps toward building a nuclear weapon from his enriched uranium. Whether or not it has been observed in recent years, it is no longer binding on your heirs.
A more fundamental question is why Trump and the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu They thought they could collapse Iran’s regime by assassinating the country’s elderly supreme leader, the head of its National Security Council, Ali Larijanithe commander of the Revolutionary Guard and the leader of Iran’s navy.
Their successors are seen as more radical than the men they replaced. Accustomed to Israel’s vaunted intelligence and success in targeted assassinations, Iran was also known to have created layers of leaders to step up and fill sudden vacancies. The least powerful in its theocratic and military system are those most accessible to the West: the country’s political leaders, particularly the president and foreign minister.
Another incorrect assessment was Israel’s promise to the White House that assassinating Tehran’s top leaders on the first day of the war would spark an uprising by Iranians to overthrow their government. That was unlikely with the brutal Revolutionary Guard Corps more empowered than ever, along with the internal Basij paramilitary militia that killed some 32,000 Iranian protesters in January, according to outside human rights groups, while imprisoning thousands more. At the time, Trump promised that “help is on the way.” None came.
Although regime change was not one of Trump’s original goals in the war, he now claims it as a measure of the war’s success. Meanwhile, the Secretary of State marcorubio He told ABC News he doubted anything had changed in Iran.
“The people who run them, this clerical regime, that’s the problem,” Rubio said. While he said it would be nice if they were more reasonable, he concluded: “We have to be prepared for the possibility, maybe even the probability, that that may not be the case.”
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🗞️ Other featured news today
- ⚖️ SCOTUS Clock: Members of the Supreme Court expressed skepticism about the legality of Trump’s proposal to limit the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship for anyone born on American soil. Trump personally attended the oral argument, a first for a sitting president, but left before it ended.
- 🏛️ Closing Showdown: House and Senate Republican leaders announced a plan they said would end the Department of Homeland Security shutdown that caused major delays at airports. Read more →
- 🗳️ See voting: Trump signed an executive order that seeks to create federal lists of eligible voters in each state and restrict voting by mail, a measure that election experts called unconstitutional. Read more →
- 📝 In the states: Governor. Ron De Santis signed Florida’s version of the SAVE Act, which requires proof of citizenship to register to vote and imposes stricter voter ID rules. Read more →
- 🩺 In limbo: The White House asks the Senate to confirm Dr. Casey means as US surgeon general “without further delay,” even as Trump signaled uncertainty about her path forward. Read more →
- 🚁 Thinking about it: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said there will be no punishment or investigation after two army helicopters were blown up by children’s rockThe house of. Read more →
That’s all from the Politics Department for now. Today’s newsletter was prepared by Adam Wollner.
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