My guest is Steve Erlanger.

Steve Erlanger is the chief diplomatic correspondent covering Europe for the New York Times.

He has reported from more than 120 countries and been bureau chief in London, Bangkok,

Moscow, Paris, Jerusalem, Berlin, Brussels, Prague and Belgrade, as well as chief diplomatic correspondent in Washington.

Among other awards, he has shared in two Pulitzer Prizes.

Welcome back to the podcast, Steve.

Thank you, Paul, very much.

It always sounds like an obituary when you go through all that stuff.

Well, it's a very impressive list of assignments you've had over the years.

We teed this up this podcast chat before the invasion, should we call it, of Iran by the United

States and Israel.

But I want to try, if possible, not to spend too much time talking about the current

conflict, partially because events are moving so quickly, and partially because there's no

shortage of comments, certainly. But I would like to talk to you, if I may, about the impact

of this war on Trump's electoral position back home. In particular, let's start off with,

the impact on his MAGA-call votes, being a president who fought an election, as you know,

much better than I, of no more foreign wars by the United States.

He seems to have forgotten that particular part of his stump speech.

So what do you think is the impact going forward, starting with his core MAGA electorate?

Well, there's a lot of anxiety, I would have to say, among them. You see it in the position of

Vice President J.D. Vance, who is very much pushing for this vote for the future. Vance argued

against this invasion. The feeling was it was being pushed by the Israelis and by his Israelis timing.

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