The Political Cost of Trump’s War

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This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times' opinion.

You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it.

Hi, I'm Robert Siegel, once again in conversation about politics

with two people who know much more about the subject than I ever will.

E.J. Dion, who has covered and written news stories, columns, books about politics for decades.

Welcome.

Joy to be with you.

And joining us for the first time, Christian Sultis Anderson.

She's a Republican pollster and writer. She wrote the book The Selfie Vote About Millennials.

She has contributed stories to the Times about some very interesting focus groups

that she's conducted.

Kristen, welcome. It's great to have you with.

Thank you for having me.

I don't want to say it's a joy to be with Kristen, whom I'm known for a long time

and learned from, from a long time.

Yes, what a privilege this is to get to be here with E.J.

and to be with you.

We begin inevitably with the war.

The war which the president has made a peculiar practice of calling an excursion.

We're talking on Wednesday.

It's now been almost two weeks since the U.S. and Israel

launched a series of strikes against Iranian,

nuclear and military targets.

A series of oil refineries have been hit.

It was a tragic strike on an Iranian elementary school.

And Iran has attacked more than 17 U.S.

sites all across the Middle East.

We'll get to what this means for American voters in a moment.

But first, E.J., what do you make of what's happening?

Well, I think from the very beginning of this war,

we got a sense that there wasn't a great deal of serious thought put into it

by the president of the United States about how it might end.

What are objectives were what needed to be done to protect Americans who are in the Middle East?

What might happen to oil in the straits of hormones?

All you have to do is look at a little map and see how dangerous it is.

That little space there or all the oil from the world has to get out of.

He sent this message by announcing the war,

not in a speech to the American people from the White House.

But in a video released in the early hours of the morning,

wearing a baseball hat.

And maybe I'm all fashioned, but that did not look terribly presidential.

To me, it looked like he was rooting for a side in a video game.

And I think what we've seen since is a problem in explaining why we were at war.

And so I think that even among the minority of Americans who supported this war going in,

and you're noticing some of this in the commentary,

there are grave doubts about what is the president doing here.

And no matter how many times Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth

repeats the word lethality,

that is just not a strategy for ending the war in a way that would be in the American interest.

Yeah, this war was not really a surprise.

The U.S. made no bones about moving two carrier groups to the region to be within range

of Iranian targets.

But apart from signaling a willingness to attack,

as you've said, there never was that speech explaining why this was necessary or important to do.

A Kristen, given that lack of that particular kind of effort,

how are Americans reacting to Trump's work?

Well, in the absence of a clear case for why we have entered into this conflict,

people's attitudes about it really are just reflective of,

do you generally trust Donald Trump or not?

Do you like Donald Trump or not?

So things like approval of the war tend to track pretty closely with

things like Donald Trump's overall job approval figures.

You know, this week we had with Quinnipiac came out with some of their numbers showing

that the president's job approval is both not great,

but also not significantly lower than it was, say, a month ago.

And I think that's where the White House has sort of run into a challenge of its own making on this,

in that there are some justifications for military engagement in Iran

that do get better numbers than just how do you feel about Donald Trump today?

The American public is very eager, that Iran not be able to have nuclear capabilities and so on

and so forth.

But in the absence of evidence or a compelling case being made,

that this is the reason why we've done this,

people have sort of defaulted to, do I trust Donald Trump or not,

and problematically for the White House right now,

that means that you are starting with approval for this war that is lower

than approval from almost any conflict that the United States has entered into in recent decades.

No, I think that's right and I think it's very important that Trump went into this war

unpopular so that the baseline for support of the war at best is low

and that some of the cases that they might have made like this will get rid of their nuclear threat,

it's almost certain that they can't completely get rid of the nuclear threat with the war.

And so many of the other rationales just don't wash with people.

So the result is looking at a group of numbers,

there's less support for this than even the intervention in Libya,

which was never a particularly popular well below Afghanistan,

below Iraq, below almost any other intervention that we have made.

And it's because the American people just have not heard a great case for why we should go to war

and why we should be spending a billion dollars a day. I think that number has really caught

on with people and people are asking themselves, well, what else could we do with a billion dollars

a day say for healthcare or housing or the things that people were worried about the day before

this war started? I'm curious, Kristen, I understand that people who consider themselves supporters

of President Trump will answer in the affirmative. But what about people who are in independence

but voted for Donald Trump, not MAGA members, but vote Republican, do they feel the same way about it?

Well, independent voters I often find in my data are among the most isolationist group of voters

that you have on the one hand Democrats nowadays, a little bit more open to the idea of American

projection of power around the world, at least when it is somebody that they trust at the helm I

should add. You saw Democrats consistently ahead of Republicans in terms of providing support to

Ukraine and its fight back against Vladimir Putin. And then for Republicans, there's a lot of

really old, old baked in DNA there from the Cold War of America is good, America is strong,

American power around the world is a positive thing. You saw a lot of this in very bold form during

the George W. Bush administration and the global war on terror of the world is better off when

America's projecting power. And even though you've had this isolationist strain really,

sort of take root and grow within the Republican Party in recent years, it is still like the majority

view that I find in my data of Republicans feeling like yes, let's use American power around the

world. But there is a bit of a generational divide and some of these younger independence that

Donald Trump brought to vote for him if not brought to the Republican Party itself are among those

voters who I think are looking the most skeptically at this and wondering to what extent this is something

that is in their interest. They did not grow up in a world where they've seen American projection

of power around the world turning into something that they feel benefited them directly or greatly.

And that's one, I think, one of the political risks of this.

I mean, their world, it's been Afghanistan and Iraq is what it's been. I would just add that

there doesn't appear to be much discussion of an invasion of Iran or the large use of ground

troops, maybe special operations forces to locate enriched uranium and seize it from the Iranians.

But Trump's insistence that he should be involved in picking the person who leads Iran suggests

imperial designs without imperial conquest. Can you run Iran from offshore?

Well, he did it in Venezuela, he thinks. And so the Venezuelan model has left and has

said the idea that he, you know, presto, he can sort of, in this case, just kidnap a leader or grab

a leader, put him on trial here and get a person in power who will do business with him. And so,

I think just to build on one point that Kristen made, it really shows how unpopular this war is

because it's hard to think of a regime that is less popular in the United States than it was.

They did the Iranian regime for older people. They remember the hostage crisis under Jimmy Carter

for everybody. They remember the brutality of this regime and putting down a democratic opposition

and protest. So there's no sympathy for the Iranian leadership here. And yet Americans in

exceptionally large numbers are still asking, why are we carrying out this war? And I sometimes

think about the president as believing that he can make almost any case he wants and kind of change

day by day until he's, it's like he's running a focus group. And while that didn't work

yesterday, so let's try this. You know, selling a war is not like selling Trump University or

Trump stakes. Selling war is a very serious business and he just has not gone about it in a very

serious way. Well, one thing that has resulted from the war is an increase in oil prices. And even

before the war began, the cost of energy was emerging as a very important cost of living issue.

This from a president who ran virtually with the price of gasoline at the pump as the measure

of his effectiveness as president. Kristen, what do we know about how voters see the two parties

when it comes to dealing with the cost of energy? And how might the war affect that further?

Well, when you ask voters which party they trust more on the overall question of cost of living,

much to Republicans chagrin, it's become a more even fight than it was certainly than a year or

definitely than two years ago. But when you break it out by different categories, which party do

you trust more on an issue like healthcare? Democrats tend to be much more trusted to bring down

the cost of healthcare. When you ask who do you trust more to bring down the cost of education,

Democrats are much more trusted. But on energy and gas prices, that is one area where voters have

tended to trust Republicans more. They look at Republican policies to expand domestic

production of energy. And they say, look, I think that if somebody's going to make my price at

the pump cheaper, it's going to be Republicans. I think if somebody's going to make my power bill

cheaper, it's going to be Republicans. And so for Republicans to preside over a moment,

where suddenly that's no longer the case, that really complicates what was one of their sort of

best issues within this broader bucket of cost of living. And there's a real short term versus

long-term challenge that I think the Trump administration is going to face in trying to sell

the benefits of why we've done what we've done. They may say that over the long-term,

our world is safer if we no longer have this regime in Iran. Look, all of our friends and allies

in the Gulf have come to our side to join us in pushing back against what Iran is doing.

The world will be safer. World energy markets will be more stable if we can achieve what we

want to achieve. But in the short term, you're going to have attacks on American military assets

in the Middle East. You could have attacks here within the United States if sleepers cells

get activated. And then on the energy issue, you are likely to see effects at the pump. And so the

short-term pain for a promise of some vague long-term gain is never a political dynamic that works

out well for anybody. EJ, it is remarkable. The president's capacity to throw away the potential

he had going in. He had a real possibility of building a new coalition when you saw the shifts.

It didn't happen in 2004. That was a close election. But there were these gains among younger people,

particularly not young women, but young men. There were gains among Latinos. And it was all,

a lot of it was overpriced as the economy and a whole stand-up for my economic benefit.

Whether you agree with that or not, you could understand. It's easy to forget that right before

the pandemic. In January, I looked to separately in January of 2020. Trump had a 49% approval rating

overall, but he had a 63% approval rating on the economy. So that many, many Americans had good

memories of Trump. They said the pandemic was caused by a virus, not Trump. And boy, that was

pretty good. Low unemployment, low prices, low interest rates, rising wages. All of that has been

thrown away. Our colleague, Jamal Buoy, I thought had a great column about the alternative

presidency of Donald Trump, where essentially he is Trump one, not Trump two, and doesn't do

quite so many wild things. And I think he was elected to be Trump one. And all the people who voted

for Trump one are unhappy about prices, unhappy about the effects of the war on prices. And just

sort of take a look at the news and say, you know, why is he acting this way when he used to act

that way? I'm not sure that I let me push back a little bit on the idea that Americans voted for

Donald Trump because they wanted Trump one. I do think that his message in running for re-election

in 2024 did suggest a bolder, let's, you know, throw off the restraints kind of approach. I don't

think that he sort of hid the ball on that at all. And I do think that there was an extent to

which voters said, you know, it feels like the control room has been empty for the last four years.

I might like Donald Trump back in there. And frankly, Donald Trump unplugged might be exactly what

America needs. But very quickly, we're sort of disabused of that notion when you had tariffs

go into place that were immediately pretty unpopular, a lot of market turmoil around that.

And just a variety of issues like that where people went, oh, I wanted the border more secure.

But gosh, you're deporting people from the parking lot of my local Home Depot. That's not what I

wanted. I wanted fair trade deals. But gosh, it seems like the market's gotten a little bit chaotic. I

got a little worried about what this means. And that's where I think things ran into trouble.

And energy is one of those issues where Donald Trump has consistently said, I want to be bold,

I want to be aggressive, drill baby drill. We're going to have energy independence.

But when a war in the Middle East is dramatically affecting your price at the pump,

one, it sort of betrays just how independent are we truly? It may feed into a narrative of we

need greater American energy independence, but at least in the short run, people's wallets have

a big influence over how they think and how they vote. Just a couple of things in response,

at first, this war shows why the idea of having more alternative energy is a good idea.

Because if you get rid of wind, which the president seems to want to do, he seems to hate wind

for some reason. If you get rid of solar, we are more or not less dependent on oil. So that's

I think a policy problem that I think you're going to hear a lot about from people saying, why

did we walk away from alternative energy? But I do think Trump hid the ball a lot for a lot of

voters. Yes, to his base, he said some things, you know, he's going to fight 2020 election forever.

But when he was asked about Project 2025 and all the ideas in Project 2025, he said, who me? What

is Project 2025? I know nothing about that. And then lo and behold, he gets elected. And Russell

Vaughn is one of his top people in the White House over at OMB. And Project 2025 is the model.

Again, some of us did expect what you said, which is why we were worried about this man being

elected again. But I think an awful lot of voters, he was that was to reassure them that it won't

be so bad. I won't be so radical. And they voted for him and they got the radical.

But when you include in that in that description of Trump to the candidate,

when you say he disputed the 2020 election, it was pretty clear what he thought about the

presidency. Well, I think there are two questions here. Question one, do I think it was very high

risk to elect Trump? Yes. Do I wish myself the people that look back and said, wait a minute,

look what he did at that moment? Yeah, of course I do. And that's what I think. I think that when

the election came around, there was sufficient frustration in the country that sort of began,

Joe Biden, whose presidency I still think deserves more credit than it. I think it'll get more

credit over time. But after the Afghanistan withdrawal, his numbers never recovered. After,

as soon as he might have recovered that, the inflation went up by June, I guess,

the next year to about 9%. And his numbers were flat all the way to the end of the administration.

He had to withdraw. Kamala Harris had to jump in at the last minute. So a lot of Americans said,

we just start want to go back to this other thing because it kind of sort of worked better.

And a lot of voters vote on that basis. And that's okay with me. I think that voters have a right

to compare what they got, what they thought they had and make their choice. In the end, I think

this is not what they voted for. There was a special election this week in the very conservative

Georgia House District that was represented by Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was retired.

And the Democrat running, and it's a jungle primaries, both Democrats and Republicans and

libertarians all ran. And the one who came in first didn't quite make 50% was the Democrat in the

race. Still had a couple more points this time than the last time he challenged Marjorie Taylor

Greene in the same district. So Democrats still have reason to feel some enthusiasm for them out

there, even in very conservative places. So what do you say, Kristen, to Democrats who sense

something, they sense enthusiasm, excitement, a bunch of young new candidates and think,

I think we can take Texas. I heard that before. But there's always a first time. I guess it's not

a first time. There was a time, a point in time, even in my lifetime, where Texas was occasionally

voting for Democrats statewide. So I joke a bit. But look, this is going to be a good year for Democrats.

I think it remains an open question. How good. So let's take something like the Texas race,

where you had Senator Cornyn. Right. Senator Cornyn is the incumbent. We had the primary somewhat

recently. On the Democratic side, you have James Taleriko emerging as the Democratic candidate.

It is still an open question, who the Republican candidate will be, and whether President Trump will

endorse in this race. But I think back to 2018, that was the last time that there was a real

strong, I think, contention for who would be the Senator from Texas work out close. And in that

race, you had Beto O'Rourke coming within about three points, I believe, of Senator Ted Cruz at

the time. But recall that 2018 was a blue wave year. It was a very good environment for Democrats.

It was where you had the initial backlash to Trump, the hashtag resistance movement. You had a

lot of Democratic voters very fired up to push back against what they saw as an administration

in Washington that needed standing up to. And in that race, so I would then ask if you're looking

at something like Texas, I believe you would need three things to fall into place for it to be

that extreme. The Democrats could win Texas. One is the environment better than 2018. I'm not yet

convinced that it is the political environment for Democrats. It is certainly the case that in all

of my data, I see Democrats are much more enthusiastic and motivated to vote than Republicans are.

The reality is voters don't turn out to say thank you. They turn out to say they're Matt as hell.

And right now, Democrats are Matt as hell. But you also have candidate quality. And so is the

Democratic candidate in that race, James Tallerico, is he better than Beto O'Rourke was as a statewide

candidate in 2018? I'm not yet convinced of that. And is the Republican candidate going to be a

worse candidate statewide than Ted Cruz? I think it remains to be seen who emerges from this

primary on the GOP side. So there are a lot of variables both in terms of the overall environment

and then at an individual level, who the candidates are in these different races that are going

to affect whether Democrats can take the Senate in November.

Well, first of all, I appreciate Kristen's loyalty to data, which teaches humility. And it is

March and we're talking about November. So that should be stated right up front. I think that

what you're seeing in the enthusiasm gap that she mentioned is very, very important. It's a

particularly large enthusiasm gap. Both, you know, if measured by determination to vote,

comparing the numbers of who strongly approves and who strongly disapproves of Trump,

what's really striking is there's sometimes a big gap between strong approvers and strong

disapprovers with the disapprovers being much bigger. So in that sense, I think that it is very

possible that if you compare 2018 to now, this could be more dangerous for Republicans than 2018

was. When it comes to Texas, first of all, I think Tel Rico is a fascinating candidate because he's

doing something I personally believe should have been done a long time ago, which is he's a religious

Christian candidate who is picking a fight, who is making an argument about what it means to be a

Christian. And he is arguing that not just that Christian should be compassionate toward the poor

and in favor of lifting people up economically and being for the outcast, which is standard.

He's also saying this should affect the way we treat each other. And I think what's fascinating

about his victory speech is it combined a really fierce attack on, you know, Trump and the Republicans

with the idea that aren't we tired of being divided in our families over politics? Aren't we

tired of not being able to talk to each other? And David French, our colleague wrote very

thoughtfully about this. I think there is something really interesting about the kind of campaign

Tel Rico is running. Just to jump more generally, it would have to be a very large turnaround from now.

I'm curious if Kristen agrees for the Republicans to hold onto the House of Representatives. If the

numbers in November are anything like they are now looking at the enormous success of Democrats

in virtually every special election we have seen since this beginning of 2025. Huge about a

13 point swing on average to Democrats. This is supposed to be real trouble for Republicans. No,

Kristen. I mean, it's certainly a tough place to be. And it's especially tough given that right

now Republicans hold the majority. And yet that majority is already so thin that through illnesses

and unexpected deaths and scandals and goodness knows what that majority is already somewhat

imperiled on a day-to-day basis. And we're not even at November yet. And so it's to say that

Democrats could pick up the House is not necessarily going out on too far of a limb. Saying the

Democrats could pick up the Senate does feel a little premature to me and not yet supported by the

data. As they campaign to win back the House and maybe do well in the Senate,

do Democrats have the ability to win back blue collar voters whom they've been

hemorrhaging in recent cycles to the Republicans? I think that is the important question to ask

for now and for the long term. If there's anything that the sort of left of the party and the center

of the party agree on, it's that they need to win back larger share of blue collar voters. They

don't need or another way to put it a large share of the part of the electorate that does not have

a college degree. They tend to fight a little bit over how to do it, although I think there are

kind of approaching a consensus. I think what you're seeing right now is a consensus that you can

be sort of open on social issues. The country doesn't like the mistreatment of immigrants,

especially the citizens by ice. So there's some room there. Every Democrat agrees. Let's talk

about prices. Let's talk about health care. Let's talk about housing. And if this is, if I may go

way back, a hairy Truman style kitchen table campaign, that can bring together these arguments of

the center and of the left. And I think that's what Democrats are growing toward.

Chris, is the Democrats problem with these voters whom they'd like to see return to the Democratic

Party? Is it basically cultural issues or is it bread and butter issues?

I think it's a little bit of both. I mean, I think, you know, we talked about Tallariko and

this race in Texas. I mean, let's be clear, there are going to be an unbelievable number of ads

aired on television in Texas that highlight pieces from his various sermons where he has said things

that are certainly outside of the mainstream and are certainly to the left of where the median

Texas voter is. And even if said in the context of a sermon in a church is going to be something

that Republicans will be all too happy to highlight. So I think that's, I would not understate the

importance of that. But like, when we think about the bread and butter issues, I think a big weakness

that Democrats have is they can say affordability is our new buzzword. It's our new watchword. We're

going to talk about affordability all of the time. But I think the question is, what are you going

to do about it? And if the answer is we're going to subsidize XY and Z more. That's our policy plan.

Well, to what extent is that different from the spending that we saw during the Biden presidency

that kind of fueled some of this inflation? And so I do think that Republicans sort of benefit from

the fact that they are running against a Democratic party who sort of know the words to mouth,

but haven't yet said, here's what our agenda is that would actually bring your prices down.

They know it's the issue to talk about, but they're not quite sure exactly what it is that they

would do about it or how to communicate that to voters. Where Republicans can say, we're cutting

your taxes in one big beautiful bill. And if people get their tax returns back in April and that's true,

they'll be able to point to that. They used to be able to say we're bringing your gas prices down.

But of course, we know that they've now sort of lost that talking point, at least in the short term.

But that's where I think Democrats have a weakness is they can sort of say they can pantomime

that they care about affordability. But what's their plan to actually make things cheaper besides

saying, I'm not Donald Trump? I think that's still a vulnerability they have.

We could rehearse the whole campaign here because I think a couple, I just wanted to make a couple

of points there. We could run over a little bit if we do that. Well, that's okay.

But I just want to say, if you use a word, it's like subsidy, people say it'll like subsidies.

If you say should government help me afford health care, which is unaffordable without those

subsidies, it is very popular. And the cuts Republicans made in health care are very unpopular.

The cuts they made in food stamps are unpopular. And a lot of these programs benefit

core Republican areas. And the tax bill, you remember back when they passed the tax cut in 2018,

it was unpopular. Why? Because most Americans don't like big tax cuts for the rich. Why?

Because most of us aren't rich. And so I think there's a much more problematic path

on those issues for the Republicans, but we'll see how it plays out.

Well, we've made a practice here after we've talked about

wars and taxes and profound political divisions of thinking a little bit about joy.

And what it is in our lives that has brought a little bit of joy to us in recent days, weeks,

months, whatever. EJ, it's your turn. First, this is joy to be back with Kristen.

And in this format with Kristen, I love talking politics with her. Two sources, joy.

One is, we learned earlier this year that our son, James, is engaged to his girlfriend, Kate

Applegate, whom we love. She has been part of our family already. Now it will become formal.

That's a real source of joy. The other is a sports one. I love that Jason Tatum is back playing

basketball. And I think for the my dear Boston Celtics. And that's a heroic story, not just because

he's a great basketball player and improves the Celtics chances of winning. He tore his Achilles

and no one expected him to be back at this point in 298 days. And the determination he showed

should inspire anybody who ever went through rehab of any kind. And the smile he had, I have never

seen a sports player do an interview who had just such a deep smile of happiness because he liked

being back and he liked being back with his teammates and ate that why we like to watch sports.

I think so, Christian. Well, mine is a sports one as well. I'm a very big motor sports fan.

Love Indie Car. And it was recently announced that Washington DC would become host to an Indie

Car race as part of the broader America 250 celebrations. And this week the track map was announced

showing that there are going to be cars going at an enormous rate of speed around the national

archives in front of the Capitol. I understand that there are some sort of partisan feelings around

a lot of these America 250 celebrations to what extend as to celebration of the president versus

our country. But my hope is that we can all unify around fast cars. Are they crossing the river

at all and to Virginia? No, it's actually I feel like a fairly short track. And I'll be very

interested to see from a technical perspective how the drivers prepare for this. They'll have no

simulation ability. They've not raced this track before because it really didn't exist

until about a week ago when the rap was announced. But it will be a spectacle. That's for

me. A Republican pollster loving fast cars would focus group very well. I love that.

Are you trying to talk me into running for something, you Jay? That would be great. You know,

a Republican party could use somebody like you. Well, my surprising source of joy is a book.

David Margolix, when Caesar was king, this is not about ancient Rome, it's about

Sid Caesar, the greatest comedian on our early television. And it's about the writers who worked

with the Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner and Larry Gelbart. And it's about the Borscht belt and what

Caesar ate. It's a wonderful story. And I've been enjoying it terrifically. E.J. Kristen,

it's been a joy having both of you with a nice to see you again. And we'll see you soon. I hope.

Yes, thank you, Albert. Thank you.

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