Trump Humiliated as Viral Exchange with Journo on Iran Backfires Badly

THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

The New Republic

News, Politics

4.4 • 800 Ratings

🗓️ 11 March 2026

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Donald Trump claims Iran is responsible for the bombing of an elementary school that killed scores of children, even though the evidence continues to mount that the United States is responsible. In a striking exchange with a reporter, Trump was asked point blank why no other government official will confirm what he’s saying. He said straight out: “Because I don’t know enough about it.” But in saying this, Trump admitted that he'd made an incendiary factual claim about an extraordinarily serious matter without having the foggiest idea what the facts actually are. Trump’s assertions about the school bombing also forced White House Karoline Leavitt to undertake a clumsy clean-up effort. We talked to Paul Waldman, author of a piece at his Substack, The Cross Section, discussing a new analysis showing that Trump’s war is the most unpopular U.S. war in modern history. We discuss why that exchange was so humiliating to Trump, what it revealed about the White House’s indefensible war and his inability to sell it, and the deeper reasons why Americans are not reflexively rallying behind the “commander in chief.” Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network.
0:16.4	I'm your host, Greg Sargent. Donald Trump's attack on Iran is the most unpopular U.S. war in the history of modern polling.
0:33.1	The New York Times looked at polls on U.S. wars going back to World War II and found Trump's war at the
0:39.1	very bottom of the heap. This comes as new exchanges between reporters in the White House
0:44.9	show that Trump's positions on the war are falling apart. In particular, one exchange with a reporter
0:51.2	over the bombing of an Iranian school blew up in Trump's face rather spectacularly.
0:57.0	We think it's significant that the public is not reflexively rallying to Trump's war. It says
1:02.8	something fundamental about the American public during the Trump era. Paul Waldman has a good
1:08.1	piece on his substack, the cross-section, digging into why Trump's war is so unpopular.
1:13.5	So we're talking to him about all this today.
1:15.7	Paul, good to see you. Thanks for coming on.
1:18.5	My pleasure. Thanks a lot.
1:20.1	So the Times looked at 10 wars going back to World War II and found that initial support for Trump's war is lower than at the outset of any other
1:28.4	conflict. The Times puts support for the Iran war at 41 percent. Other averages of polls have it
1:34.9	even lower at 38 percent. Paul, the key here is that there's no reflexive support for the quote
1:41.4	unquote commander in chief. In fact, I wonder if it's the opposite.
1:45.5	People are predisposed to see Trump's case for war as, you know, made up, which it is.
1:51.1	What do you think?
1:53.0	Yeah, I think we have this perception that there is what we often call the rally around the flag effect.
2:00.4	Whenever there's a war, the public rallies
2:02.9	around the flag and wants to defend the country and comes to the president's side. And the truth
2:09.2	is that that's not necessarily true. It really is contingent on a lot of things. That has certainly
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