New poll shows growing number of Americans disapprove of Trump's handling of Iran war
PBS News Hour - Segments
PBS NewsHour
4.1 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 6 May 2026
⏱️ 5 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Now for a closer look at how Americans are seeing the war in Iran and rising gas prices. |
| 0:05.1 | Lisa Desjardin is at the super screen with insights from our latest PBS News NPR Maris Poll. |
| 0:10.7 | So Lisa, the U.S. and Israel launched this war in Iran at the end of February. |
| 0:14.5 | President Trump promised a quick conflict. |
| 0:16.7 | More than two months on, how are Americans seeing the war? |
| 0:19.0 | The war is unpopular and it's becoming more so. |
| 0:21.9 | When we asked, American adults told us only 33% of them approve of this war in Iran. |
| 0:28.1 | And the president's handling right now that leaves 60% who disapprove of this war. |
| 0:33.2 | Now, we wanted to have some historical context. |
| 0:35.5 | This is significant historically. |
| 0:37.4 | We looked back at 2007, another unpopular war, the war in Iraq. |
| 0:42.0 | What were the ratings then for President George W. Bush at the time? |
| 0:46.0 | 64 percent of Americans disapproved, registered voters at that point. |
| 0:50.3 | Now you can see these numbers are not that far apart, even given the fact that this had |
| 0:54.2 | been war for a couple of years with American lives lost in the field. |
| 0:57.9 | You can see Americans do not have an appetite for war and are unhappy with the president about |
| 1:02.7 | it in particular. |
| 1:03.9 | There is, however, a partisan divide. |
| 1:06.5 | Republicans stand out because overwhelmingly, they approve of what President Bush Trump |
| 1:10.5 | is doing in Iran right now. |
| 1:12.4 | However, this isn't all good news for him when it comes to Republicans. |
| 1:16.0 | That number is down seven points from March. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from PBS NewsHour, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of PBS NewsHour and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

