by Steve Benen | Jul 23, 2026 | Iran, Iran Tensions, Maddowblog, News, Politics
During a brief Q&A with reporters on Wednesday morning, Donald Trump was reminded that most Americans oppose the war in Iran. The president immediately pushed back against the assertion.
Q: Americans are firmly against this war—TRUMP: Well, Americans aren’t against the war. A poll just came out. Americans don’t want high gasoline prices, but they’re not against the war. That just came out loud and clear in a poll.— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-07-22T13:54:36.364Z
“Well, Americans aren’t against the war,” he said. “A poll just came out: Americans don’t want high gasoline prices, but they’re not against the war. That just came out, loud and clear, in a poll.”
Trump has spent much of his political career referring to survey data that exists only in his imagination — up to and including making up approval ratings for himself, citing data that he thinks ought to exist. So when the president told reporters about a poll that “just came out,” he didn’t elaborate, probably because he was making stuff up again.
To the extent that reality matters, plenty of polls show just how wrong the Republican is about public attitudes toward the ongoing military operations.
Last week, for example, the latest Washington Post-Ipsos poll found that 68% of Americans believe the war was not worth fighting. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were also unpopular, but according to previous Washington Post polls, public opposition to the current war in Iran is even worse than attitudes toward those other recent conflicts.
Similarly, the latest Fox News poll found 66% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of U.S. policy toward Iran.
It’s possible the president discards such data because the surveys
by Steve Benen | Jul 23, 2026 | Iran, Iran Tensions, Maddowblog, News, Politics
When it comes to U.S. service members who have made the ultimate sacrifice during the Iran war, Donald Trump has struggled to know what to say — and how to say it.
In early March, for example, the day after he launched combat operations, the president posted a prerecorded video to social media in which he tried to comment on the deaths of U.S. troops. “Sadly, there will likely be more,” Trump said. Appearing to break from the text on his teleprompter, he added, “Before it ends, that’s the way it is.”
A few days later, Time magazine asked the president whether Americans should be worried about possible retaliatory attacks from Iran. “I guess,” Trump replied. By the end of the first week of the war, the president had attended the dignified transfer of six fallen U.S. service members as they were returned home, but he defied American tradition and wore a baseball cap as caskets were carried from the plane.
The image that came into focus was a leader who appeared to be approaching his responsibilities with an unmistakable mix of disrespect and a blasé attitude about developments that he should have taken with a sobriety that he just couldn’t muster.
This week, as the U.S. death toll reached 18, the Republican appeared to use his social media platform to suggest that the total number of fatalities wasn’t that bad because other modern wars were even deadlier. On Wednesday morning, he again traveled to Dover Air Force Base to attend another dignified transfer (he didn’t wear a hat this time), but before departing for the event, the president spent a couple of minutes
by Steve Benen | Jul 20, 2026 | Iran, Iran Tensions, Maddowblog, News, Politics
After months in which no American troops were killed as part of the war in Iran, the news took a devastating turn in recent days: U.S. Central Command confirmed that three American service members — two in Jordan and one in Iraq — were killed in action and one remains missing after Iranian attacks over the past few days.
Soon after, the U.S. military responded by carrying out a new round of airstrikes to “swiftly punish” Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
What’s more, The New York Times reported that shortly before the latest round of U.S. fatalities, Iran carried out other strikes against U.S. forces in Jordan that injured dozens of U.S. service members — developments which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other Trump administration officials failed to disclose.
It was against this backdrop that Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo said something on the air of surprising significance.
Maria Bartiromo questioned how Iran could still be fighting, saying she does not understand how the country retains those capabilities when Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed the U.S. “obliterated” Iran’s military.— Mediaite (@mediaite.com) 2026-07-19T17:36:56.496Z
“I don’t understand how it’s possible that Iran has the capabilities to fight this way and continue to try to lash out at Gulf countries and U.S. military bases,” the conservative host said Sunday morning, “because the U.S. has obliterated Iran’s military, and [Donald Trump] continues to reiterate that.”
I won’t speculate as to Bartiromo’s motivations, but she stumbled onto an important detail. On the one hand, there’s the incumbent American president who’s spent the last several weeks, if not months, assuring the world that the U.S. military, at his direction, has destroyed Iran’s military capabilities.
Indeed, less
by Steve Benen | Jul 15, 2026 | Iran, Iran Tensions, Maddowblog, News, Politics
For the first two months of the war with Iran, the White House faced plenty of questions about just how much the conflict was costing American taxpayers. Trump administration officials insisted they didn’t want to talk about the price tag and refused to offer even vague answers.
In late April, however, the Pentagon shifted gears. Jules Hurst III, the Defense Department’s chief financial officer, told lawmakers that the military offensive had, as of April 30, cost the United States “about $25 billion.” Two weeks later, that same official offered a revised total, telling lawmakers that the price tag for the conflict was “closer to $29 billion.”
It was tempting to be pleased with any kind of budget figure from the administration, especially after months of silence and stonewalling, but a different kind of problem soon emerged: Many Democrats said the cost estimates were suspiciously and unrealistically low.
There’s fresh reason to believe that their skepticism was warranted. NBC News reported:
The cost of the war with Iran could be more than triple the most recent estimate of roughly $30 billion, according to three U.S. officials and three people familiar with the internal cost estimates.
The Defense Department’s internal overall cost estimate is $80 billion to $100 billion when the costs of repairing damaged U.S. bases, replacing destroyed aircraft and fully replenishing expended American weaponry are factored in, according to the sources.
The report, which has not been independently verified by MS NOW, was published just hours after the Pentagon’s acting comptroller, Jay Hurst, said at a Senate confirmation hearing that he didn’t have an updated cost estimate for the conflict.
The comments were not well received. Sen.
by The Associated Press | Jul 4, 2026 | Iran Tensions, News
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of mourners began a dayslong funeral on Saturday for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, beating their chests in sorrow before the glass case containing his flag-draped coffin in Tehran and calling for revenge against Israel and the United States.
The funeral for Khamenei, who ruled Iran for decades before he was killed at age 86 in a Feb. 28 airstrike in the opening moments of the Iran war, could provide a boost for the country’s theocracy and its new supreme leader, his son Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei.
That is important as Iran tries to leverage its hold on the Strait of Hormuz in negotiations with the U.S. over a permanent end to the war and as concern lingers that Israel could attack again. The funeral was delayed as the war raged, and talks appear to be on hold until it is over.
During the ceremony, Iran’s top negotiator warned France and the U.K. over their comments about potentially launching joint patrols in the waterway, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil and natural gas once passed in peacetime.
Mourners wept at the sight of Khamenei’s coffin alongside those of his family members also killed in the airstrike, with some chanting: “Our word is one! Revenge! Revenge!” Some carried banners and flags. Billboards across the city bore Khamenei’s image. Crowds of men rhythmically beat their chests in mourning, a common practice at Shiite funerals.
“Imam Khamenei was our heart, our father, our everything,” mourner Masoumeh Mohammadi said. “I still can’t believe they martyred him. We will not rest until we avenge his death.”
Coffins on display at Grand Mosalla
An outdoor
by Steve Benen | Jun 18, 2026 | Iran Tensions, Maddowblog, News, Politics
On the first day of the war in Iran, a missile strike on an Iranian girls’ school killed 175 people, many of them children. A week later, a reporter asked Donald Trump whether the United States was responsible for the horrific incident. The president replied, “No. In my opinion and based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran. … We think it was done by Iran.”
In the days that followed, he repeated the claim, which the White House stopped echoing after a preliminary investigation by the Pentagon found the strike was the result of dated targeting information: U.S. intelligence indicated the school had been part of an Iranian Revolutionary Guard base that had been turned into the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school several years ago.
Three months later, a reporter asked the president whether he’ll hold anyone accountable for what happened. The Republican apparently didn’t like the question.
NYT: Can you now say whether you will hold anyone in your administration accountable for the strike on a school that killed more than 100 children?TRUMP: No. It’s such a strange question to be asked. It’s a long time ago. Mistakes are made. I would ask Pete Hegseth that question.— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-06-17T16:57:20.374Z
“No,” Trump replied. “If it was a fault, and as you know, that’s under investigation. It’s such a strange question to be asked at this date, because you’re talking about a long time ago, but nobody did that on purpose. I guess you’d have to say about them, what about the thousands of soldiers that they blew up when they opened their car door?”
Relying on one of the worst passive-voice
