Poll: Most Americans oppose war in Iran, but most Republicans support it

The NPR Politics Podcast

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Daily News, News, Politics

4.4 • 25.7K Ratings

🗓️ 9 March 2026

⏱️ 24 minutes

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Summary

A majority of Americans oppose the United States' military action in Iran, according to a new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll. However, that opposition breaks down along party lines, with a majority of Republicans saying they support the war. We discuss whether the lack of public support could alter President Trump's next steps and how the war could affect this year's midterm elections.

This episode: voting correspondent Miles Parks, senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.

This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye.

Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting.
0:08.6	I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent.
0:13.1	And today on the show, a new NPR, PBS News, Marist poll shows that most Americans do not approve of the war with Iran.
0:21.1	Domenico, let's start there.
0:22.7	Tell us more about what this poll found.
0:25.0	Well, you know, 56% of people said that they oppose the military action in Iran.
0:30.0	36%, only 36% approve of Donald Trump's handling of it.
0:34.3	And 55%, a majority said that Iran represents only a minor threat or no
0:40.1	threat at all. And we should say that this poll was conducted during the first week of the bombing.
0:45.4	It's kind of impossible not to hear those numbers and think that sounds very similar to Trump's
0:50.3	overall approval rating, right? It sure does. And I think that we've seen a lot of things
0:55.1	this way where the numbers are pretty baked in when it comes to Trump and the kinds of actions
1:00.8	that he's taking, especially highly controversial actions, where you have a pretty sizable
1:05.6	percentage of people who are strongly disapproving of things that he's doing and then a very locked in
1:11.9	portion of his base. More than 80% of Republicans in this survey approve of military action
1:17.8	in Iran and 79% of Republicans approve of the job that he's doing in handling Iran.
1:25.3	That's so interesting. Tam, I mean, Trump ran on this idea of kind of getting America out of these Forever
1:31.2	Wars, very a sort of isolationist message on the campaign trail.
1:35.4	Does it surprise you at all that Republicans are so on board with this level of military action?
1:41.2	Polarization is one hell of a drug.
1:43.1	And I know we say that a lot, but that's what's
1:45.3	happening here. Republicans are backing the president. They are giving him the benefit of the doubt.
	...

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