'Ominous signal' for Trump spotted as war winds down: 'What was the point of all that?'
U.S. President Donald Trump during the G7 Summit in Evian-les-Bains, France, June 17, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
June 18, 2026
CNN's Harry Enten presented fresh polling data measuring public opinion on President Donald Trump's war in Iran.
The 80-year-old president signed a memorandum of understanding Wednesday to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial traffic and pause fighting for 60 days while negotiating the terms of a final deal on nuclear weapons, and Enten said Americans will likely wonder why he launched the war in the first place.
"Yeah, I think the Americanpeople are going, what was thepoint of all of that?" Enten said. "What wasthe point of all that? Becausethe American people hate it, andthe way you can know that theyhate it, just take a look. Trump's net approval ratingshit lows for Fox News and Fox polls. In May, he had his lowest-ever rating at minus-22 points. Youcome into the poll that wasreleased last night, the second-lowest ever, one point better at minus-21 points, way underwater, andwith independents."
"I know youlove when I point out theindependents – 55points underwater," Enten added. "I mean, mygoodness gracious. This was apolitical disaster. No wonderthe president wants to move onfrom it."
Trump admitted that he feared becoming Herbert Hoover and being saddled with a global depression, and Enten said those concerns were justified.
"You mentioned Herbert Hoover, the economy,right?" he said. "That sunk his presidency, inflation is what is sinking Donald Trump's presidency to all-time lows, at least according to Fox, because just take a lookhere, look at Ipsos polling.Trump's approval rating oninflation pre-war – it was bad,right? It was 33 pointsunderwater. But then look in thepast month, the average,according to the Ipsos polling, look at that – 51 pointsunderwater. There was nopresident ever before that hadany poll in which he was 50points underwater on inflationor worse, and the average of the Ipsos polling over the lastmonth was 51 points underwateron inflation. The Iran warabsolutely drove Trump to newlows on the issue that got himre-elected in the first place, inflation."
Enten looked at past presidents to get a sense of where public opinion would stand now that the Iran war appears to be over.
"Just take alook at this, [Joe] Biden, right, the Afghanistan withdrawal days," Enten said. "Biden had a negative netapproval rating post-Afghanistan, Afghanistanwithdrawal, all of them. Hispresidency was simply put, sunkby it. Now, I'm not sayingthat's necessarily what's goingto happen with Donald Trump, butit is an ominous potentialsignal for him when, in fact, youhave getting out of a situationthe American people don't like."