'Never thought I'd see the day!' CNN analyst floored by GOP's eye-popping reversal
The Republican Party under President Donald Trump has gone from a largely expansionist, neoconservative foreign policy to old-school isolationism, to the point that they repudiate their own party's previous military leadership, CNN data analyst Harry Enten told host Kate Bolduan with a degree of astonishment.
A key demonstration of this is Vice President JD Vance proclaiming it is not in anyone's interest "for Europe to be a permanent security vassal of the United States," as an argument against taking leadership in NATO affairs.
"JD Vance has even since before they got in office, very clearly has jumped on board with Donald Trump's isolationist, America First kind of agenda when it comes to foreign policy," said Bolduan. "But do Republican voters agree at this point?"
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"Increasingly so," confirmed Enten, a frequent number-cruncher on Trump's sinking political fortunes. "I mean, look, the percentage of Republicans who believe that the U.S. should have ... an active role in world affairs. I mean, look at this trendline dating back over the last few decades. I mean, this is very clear. It was 74 percent in 2004 ... look at it now. It's just 54 percent. So it's a bare majority that is within the margin of error. In fact, if you look at 2023, it was slightly under 50 percent. Kind of vacillates back and forth on the 50 percent line. But republicans are increasingly of the view that the U.S. should not, in fact, play an active role in world affairs."
"And JD Vance was also commenting in this interview on the Iraq War, suggesting that it could have been avoided if the Europeans had been a little more independent," said Bolduan. "What did you find about sentiment on that war?"
"Yeah, this — you know, I remember we were talking in the break," said Enten. "I remember when the Iraq War started, there were so few Republicans who were opposed to us going into the Iraq War. It was just 5 percent who opposed the U.S. going into Iraq. And now you look and you say, what percentage of Republicans, in fact, say that it was not worth it? It's 53 percent. I never thought, Kate Bolduan, that I would see the day in which a majority of Republicans said it wasn't worth it to go to Iraq, especially considering where Republicans were at the start of the Iraq War."
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