U.S. President Donald Trump arrives at a dinner for NATO heads of states and government hosted by Dutch King Willem-Alexander and Dutch Queen Maxima, on the sidelines of a NATO Summit, at Huis ten Bosch Palace in The Hague, Netherlands June 24, 2025. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann
President Donald Trump is falling further underwater with the American public after bombing Iran's nuclear sites over the weekend.
The New Republic's Greg Sargent noted in his Tuesday column that the post-bomb polls are being released, showing that Americans don't trust Trump to handle the attack appropriately. But for those who spent decades of GOP flag-waving and "freedom fries," repelling from support of a president during war is an evolution.
"For politicians and pundits of a certain age, it’s normally assumed that military action will unleash a 'rally around the flag' effect, leading the public to reflexively approve of the decisions by the 'commander in chief'—particularly if he’s a Republican—and automatically see criticism of him as unpatriotic," wrote Sargent. "But it’s unlikely that we’ll see a similar dynamic this time around."
He cited "a surprising new CNN poll" and a Reuters poll, which delivered a startling wake-up call for the five-month-old administration.
Reuters shows just 36% of Americans support Trump's bombing. Sargent asked, "Will this hold amid an enduring truce? I think it might. Paint-by-numbers pundits are assuming voters like war. Let's not assume this."
The CNN poll shows 56% of people are against the bombing, and 55% don't trust Trump to make the right decisions on Iran. The startling number of that group, however, comes from a whopping 62% of independents.
"People who lived through the run-up to Iraq assume war is good politics for GOP presidents," but no more, he said.
Some critics question if Trump's urgency to bomb Iran has to do with his failure to "fix" the economy he promised could be done "on day one." He's also failed to stop the war between Ukraine and Russia, despite saying it would be "easy" and that he could probably do it before taking the oath on Jan. 20.
"It’s no accident that the CNN poll also finds that 58 percent of Americans say Trump’s bombing will make Iran more of a threat to the U.S.," Sargent assessed, noting that the two things might be connected: Americans against the bombing and those who don't trust him.
"This will surprise those who were snakebit by George W. Bush’s popularity in the run-up to the Iraq War and Karl Rove’s political warfare at the time," said Sargent. "The grounds for that war were visibly thin. Yet it’s hard to convey to people who didn’t live through it how unshakable Bush’s grip on public opinion seemed after September 11, 2001; how rampant war fever and rank Islamophobia were in this country; and how deeply it all penetrated into every crevice of American life."
Things are different two decades later, and Sargent said it isn't difficult to see why. Even Trump attacked the war in Iraq and pledged to stop "forever wars" during his campaign. Unlike with Bush, there wasn't a 9/11 attack to bring Americans together around a strong leader. Instead, it has been a contentious decade, and the economy has been limping along after the global pandemic.
"No matter how hard Trump and his propagandists spin otherwise, the bombing was unjustified and probably illegal, the runup to it was a clown show, and we'd be better off with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Folks shouldn't assume voters will forget all that," he noted on X.
Ultimately, it's clear that a majority of the country doesn't trust Trump to handle national security decisions, and even though Americans want Congress more involved, Sarget said it's clear they're all "on a very short political leash."