The Memo: Polls show deep public skepticism of Trump’s case on Iran

Six days after the U.S. attacked Iran as part of a joint operation with Israel, opinion polls reveal grave doubts among the American public about the endeavor.

The lack of public support spells political peril for President Trump, even as he enthuses about how well American actions are going, celebrates the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and suggests that U.S. operations against the Islamic Republic will likely only last four weeks or so.

Trump has so far abjured the traditional modes of wartime communication, such as a prime-time televised address to the nation. He has instead opted for a combination of videos released on his own social media accounts, extemporaneous remarks at White House events and a succession of brief, on-the-record phone interviews with journalists.

To be sure, Trump’s use of social media and his penchant for headline-grabbing statements have probably been a political asset as much as a liability in the past.

But in this instance, he is using them to justify a war of choice, with little groundwork done in advance to prepare public opinion.

The results speak for themselves.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted right after hostilities began found only 27 percent of surveyed Americans approve of the U.S. actions against Iran, while 43 percent disapproved and 29 percent said they were unsure.

A CNN/SSRS poll, which did not include a “not sure” option, found 41 percent of respondents approve of the decision to take military action against Iran, while 59 percent disapprove.

And an Economist/YouGov poll released Wednesday found support for the use of military force to overthrow the government of Iran at 32 percent and opposition at 45 percent.

The polling data shows a predictably massive chasm between how Democrats and Republicans see the Iran attack, but a strong plurality of independents in all three of the polls mentioned above disapprove.

Trump remains characteristically adamant that he is doing the right thing. On Wednesday, the president mused at the White House that, if asked to mark U.S. progress in Iran on a 10-point scale, he would give it “about a 15.”

He added, “We’re in a very strong position now, and their leadership is just rapidly going. Everybody that seems to want to be a leader, they end up dead.”

On Thursday, he said of Iranian forces, “We want to fight now more than they do.”

Meanwhile, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday insisted that the American public is on Trump’s side.

A reporter at that briefing noted that Trump had not given the “kind of traditional speech to the nation” making the case for action on Iran and asked the press secretary whether the president believed the nation supported his actions so far.

“I think he does,” Leavitt responded. “And I think the president knows the country is smart enough to read past many of the fake news headlines produced by people in this room that this action was unjustifiable.”

On Capitol Hill, Democratic-led efforts to curb Trump’s room to maneuver failed this week. War powers resolutions were rejected in the Senate on Wednesday and in the House on Thursday.

But the broader pattern of public support — or the lack of it — is disconcerting for Trump and his allies. The general pattern with overseas conflicts is that their popularity ebbs over time.

For example, when Gallup asked Americans in 1965 whether it was a mistake to deploy U.S. troops to Vietnam, only 24 percent of respondents thought it was, while 61 percent said it was not. By 1973, those numbers had almost entirely reversed, with 60 percent saying it was a mistake and 29 percent saying it was not. 

A generation later, 66 percent of Americans in a February 2003 Pew Research poll favored military action against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, as advocated by then-President George W. Bush. By November 2011, 75 percent approved of former President Obama’s decision to withdraw all combat troops from the nation.

Adding another knot for Trump, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan severely drained the nation’s appetite for foreign wars generally. Some of the president’s supporters rallied to his Make America Great Again (MAGA) banner in the first place because they believed he shared their skepticism about such bloody entanglements.

Now, some prominent figures in the MAGA universe are expressing their dismay about the course Trump has taken.

Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has called the loss of American lives in an attack on Iran “absolutely unnecessary and … unacceptable.

Conservative commentator Megyn Kelly said on her show earlier this week, “This feels very much to me like it is clearly Israel’s war.”

Some of the critiques appear to have gotten under Trump’s skin.

On Thursday, he complained in a phone interview with Jonathan Karl of ABC News that Tucker Carlson had “lost his way” and was “not smart enough” to properly understand the MAGA movement. Carlson has been among the most vociferous conservative critics of the attack on Iran.

Meanwhile, among liberals, there is a sense that Trump is repeating some of the mistakes made by Bush on Iraq — without the extensive efforts to convince the public of the wisdom of the effort.

Of course, the central premise of Bush’s war — that Saddam’s Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that it could use to attack the United States — proved false.

“It’s like not a single lesson was learned,” said Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist who was the campaign manager for former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (D) in the 2004 presidential race. Dean became the leading standard-bearer for anti-war sentiment in that race, though he ultimately did not come close to winning the nomination.

Trippi drew a straight line between the Iraq War and the instant unpopularity of Trump’s actions in Iran, citing parallels like the hope for smooth regime change, or the claims made then about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction and now about the imminence of an Iranian nuclear weapon.

“The reason this is so clearly unpopular is because the American people have watched this movie before,” Trippi said.

“They have watched it all before. All the same things.”

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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