5/19/26: Trump Calls Off Iran Attack After Military Warning, MAGA Mom Says Trump Abandoned Her

25:37She's been noting recently a lot of conservative, Republican, triple Trump voters who are calling in and saying they're very upset. They feel, in the words of this one woman who called in yesterday, betrayed by Trump. Let's go ahead and take a listen to what one caller had to say. Heading now to Janet in Long Island. You're on the Megyn Kelly Wrap-Up Show. What's on your mind? I'm Phil abandoned. I'm a Trump diehard. I'm 68. My husband's 69. We're never going to stop working. He's a contract electrician. We built our house. We're going to have to move out of Dick's Hills because the taxes are$16 ,000.

26:10I don't want to quit working because Medicare is too much money. So I get benefits where I work. He has abandoned the middle class. He has to show us that all those people on barstools across America, you know, hardworking construction guys, plumbers, the people that stood up to him when it wasn't popular to stand up for him. He needs to help us, give us back, black tax, anything. Just make our life easier. And Janet, when did you start to feel this way? Was it into the Iran war as gas prices were spiking?

27:05dying in a war that has nothing to do with us. It's time to give back to the American people that stood up for Trump when nobody stood up for Trump. When he came down that escalator, when you shouted, he has my voice. He knows exactly how I feel, but he's abandoned us. I love him. And I have one more question. Are you sort of a Republican, conservative? Are you independent who just really likes Trump? Where do you sort of find yourself on the political spectrum? I would say I like truth. Right now, I'm a registered Republican, conservative. I don't like all those riots in all parts of the country.

27:44I don't like how lax the, what would you call it, legal system is. I want rules and regulations because without them, there is chaos. And I want feedback given to the people that stood up to him forever. And I don't want a war. I don't want my money going towards a war. I don't want me having to pay for gas. So somebody, you know, in Iran, I don't know what it has to do with the American people. It's frustrating. I don't want to give up on him. I think he's the best thing that ever happened to America. But I'm starting to get really sad and betrayed. Very interesting. Yeah, very interesting to hear that.

28:22She says she feels abandoned. She feels betrayed. She still she says at one point, I love him. She says, I think he's the best thing that ever happened to America. And yet she's also watching, you know, one of her friends have a baby and be like, oh my God, I don't want this baby boy to be drafted. I don't know why we're in this war with Iran. I don't, he's not doing anything for the people that helped to elect him. So pretty interesting to see someone, even someone who clearly like was committed to him, feeling this kind of way and calling into express it. So when I see a 35 year old who's like, I've broken with Trump, I'm like, Yeah, we'll see.

28:56Right. Because for me, it's what we were talking about yesterday with the Thomas Massey vote. This is the bedrock of the Republican coalition, like boomer grandmas, people like this. They just sit there and are sitting in a trance when they watch Jesse Waters on the Fox News. Literally, you know, remember back in the 90s when like Republican women were putting televisions in the kitchen so they could watch Fox News, like so they could never. This is a serious thing. I'm not kidding. And like that that level of devotion to Donald Trump. That's why I was I never bet against his control over the Republican Party.

29:31Like it's not it's it's beyond ideological. It's beyond policy. Like it's genuinely like a cult of personality. And so for them, I never really expected much to shake. But this is interesting. Now, look, it's a single caller, single data point. But and you get the most noteworthy part. You get the feeling he could win Janet back. A hundred percent. She's looking for anything. You know, if he gets out of the war and he sells her some deal on Fox News, she'll be like, see, I was right about him. He's still the greatest thing that ever happened to America. Janet is still winnable for you, President Trump.

30:02Right. Right. But you've got to get out of the war. So, yeah, win back Janet. I do think, you know, if cracks like that are where things begin, that's where things actually begin to get interesting because that's somebody who's like, I'm very dissatisfied with the way the administration. It also demonstrates a lot of people say, oh, nobody's paying attention to the Iran war. Not true. That comment about being drafted, there's probably a lot of mothers around America who think that way, especially – by the way, Thomas Massey's opponent just supported a national draft in case you're wondering. for who's true MAGA actually in this race and not the guy who was like, hey, why are we in this stupid war in the first place?

30:38So I think that stuff really matters. I also think that her point around feeling abandoned, the bar stools, she's like the people who have always defended you. I mean, one of the things that was the biggest talking points amongst the people, remember, below$100 ,000 who voted Republican was the economy was better under Donald Trump. So when you have a much worse economy or definitely you have like very, very high gas prices, high inflation. That is, you know, it pierces the core argument that a lot of these people would make. And I heard it all the time. It was about screwing liberals. It's like, okay, he did that.

31:11But the second part was cost of living. And actually, the third part was general lack of chaos around the world. Like, it's true. There were no new major conflicts that erupted under Donald Trump's first presidency. Then Biden came in. There were two massive geopolitical earth-shaking events. And then when Trump came in, not only are those two still going, but he did a third by choice for literally no reason whatsoever. So that does begin to pierce the veil of a lot of the majesty, you know, stuff around the first term that people built up in their hands, especially under the chaos of Biden. Long Island is where she lives.

31:47Oh, that is like MAGA town. Yeah, but it's also a place that's, you know, relatively high cost of living. So she's certainly going to be feeling the crunch. and the gas prices are quite high there, et cetera. So in any case, let's take a look at the numbers that back up some of what Janet is seeing and feeling out there. Let's put this up on the screen. This one, the New York Times, Siena, their polling has been relatively predictive in the past. For example, they were some of the first polls that picked up on how much Latinos and even some black Americans were shifting towards Trump in the run-up to 2024.

32:19In any case, his approval is sinking dramatically here. And the first question we've got up on the screen is, do you think Trump's decision to go to war with Iran was the right decision or the wrong decision? 30 percent say it was the right decision. Sixty four percent say it was the wrong decision. Two thirds of Americans. And let me tell you something, folks. This is very different from previous wars. Typically, Americans get right on board with the latest war that they are being sold. This is very, very different. The Iraq War favorability numbers at this point in the war were sky high. There was a loud, vocal anti-war minority, but it was a decided minority of the country.

33:02Just to keep this up, with Democrats, it's just basically unanimous. That probably won't surprise you. Only 5 % say that it was the right decision. 93 % say it was the wrong decision. Look at the numbers, though, with independents. Only 21 % of independents say it was the right decision. 73 % of independents say this was the wrong decision. And with Republicans, they overwhelmingly support it. 70 % are on board. But, you know, for Trump, with Republicans, to have 22 % saying it was the wrong decision, that is a, you know, notable minority. That's not nothing. Normally, with his decisions among Republicans, who at this point, if you're a Republican, you are a MAGA Republican, normally when he makes the decision, basically everybody gets on board with it on the Republican camp.

33:45So that is a notable minority there of the coalition that is unhappy with this. Let's go ahead and put B2 up on the screen. We can see some of the numbers inside of this poll. So Trump's approval rating now is at 37 percent. That is a decline of three points from the previous poll. And it is the lowest approval rating that this particular poll has found for him in either term. So hitting a new record low for him. Also very noteworthy. You can look on the right side of the screen. You've got his net approval on key issues. Underwater on everything. Underwater 15 points on immigration, 31 points on the economy, 31 points on what they describe as the Israel-Palestinian conflict, 32 points underwater on cost of living, and 34 points underwater on his handling of the war in Iran.

34:36And then also very noteworthy as we head into the midterms, let's take a look at the congressional generic ballot here. It has Democrats up by 11 points. And if you narrow the field, if you narrow the universe of voters here to those who are most likely to vote in the fall, the Democratic lead expands to 14 points. Now, that would be a greater—we've seen a lot of shellackings in midterms, both for Democrats and Republicans, over the course of our adulthood and covering politics from 2010, 2018 was obviously a big win for Democrats. We have never seen an 11 or certainly a 14-point landslide. That would be extraordinary even in modern terms where we have these big wave elections.

35:24And it does line up with what we're seeing in special elections across the country and with the number of Democrats who are turning up to vote in places like Georgia and even places like Texas. So, you know, that's why I think it could be credible, even though the numbers are quite extraordinary. Yeah. I mean, sticking with all these polls, we talked about D plus 11. It would be insane. That's 2008 levels of madness where Democratic senators are in Louisiana. And the thing is, it can happen. It happened in my lifetime. There's polling that has the it's one of the Vindman brothers who's running for Senate in Florida.

36:00there's polling that has him up. There's polling that has David Jolly, who's a former, actually was a Republican member of Congress. We switched to the Democratic Party. He's running for governor. There's polling that has him up in Florida. Now, if you're talking about D plus 11 or D plus 14, those are the sort of things that are actually in play. Exactly, and that's why you can't rule any of this stuff out. Like back in 08, where he had insane outcomes. It was a little different because it was before the whole blue, during the blue dog Democrat era. But there were also people like Tom Perriello and others.

36:30They had no business who were winning and becoming Democrats. Now, also in 2010, there were a lot of Republicans who had no business winning either but were lifted because of the tide of a lot of the anti-Obama sentiment. So that's what it really looks like in a landslide. Like there will be wins in places that we can't even predict here on the show. That's where everything really is on the table. And I think if we put, what is it, B3 up here on the screen, just to reiterate what you were talking about, is I think that this minus 31 on the economy is the central story. Like at the end of the day, that is the number one thing that people will be thinking about on top of cost of living.

37:11Now, last time, the only counter to what I say is that this was similar to some of the numbers that Biden had. It's actually lower. Look at that cost of living minus 42. The thing is, is that it was similar to a Biden. Remember, people were not happy with Biden over the economy. But Biden got saved by the Supreme Court in 2022 on Roe versus Wade. So that is the last that like there it's possible to have some sort of black swan style event. We can't predict it. I don't really know what it would be. Maybe like a great victory, quote unquote, in Iran celebration and gas goes down by two dollars a gallon.

37:48I mean, I don't think this is possible at all. I'm just - Even I don't think it's going to rescue him at this point. I'm not sure. I mean, I think it would be better, obviously, if it were all the way down. I don't personally see a way out of it. And it's proven now that stock markets can be at all-time highs. That's irrelevant. It doesn't matter. What needs to matter is on inflation and on gas. And so outside of a serious, like, major cultural flashpoint, which goes right and really saves them, I don't see a way out of this. Yeah. Economy and cost of living. Because think about Biden would have sunk if it wasn't for Roe versus Wade.

38:20It actually would have been a complete shellacking. The only reason they held on was because of all of the fury around abortion. Even that dissipated by 2024. It was a real flash in the pan kind of style moment. The other thing that Democrats have going for them is they have gained so much with the type of voters that always show up in midterms. And I think that was the other piece that really saved them in that midterm election. And then it ended up, you know, being kind of disastrous because that was what solidified Biden's position and everybody rallied around him. And then there wasn't a primary and then he couldn't talk.

38:51And you guys all know what happens from there. We end up with Kamala with no democratic process and the whole thing ends up being a disaster. So it probably would have been good for the Democrats, ultimately, if they had taken some beating in the midterms. It would have been a bit of a reality check. But in any case, it's neither here nor there at this point. CNN's Harry Anton was weighing in on just putting in context how historically bad these poll numbers are for Trump. Because even though, yes, Biden's numbers at this point were also pretty grim, ever after he withdrew from Afghanistan, and that's when his poll numbers really took a dive.

39:20And then, you know, the economic concerns mounted and it became increasingly apparent just how feeble he was at that point. And he never recovered from there. These numbers are worse than anything that Biden saw during his term, including on the issues. You know, the cost of living minus 42, you have only it was what, 20 some percent who said that Trump was doing a good job on cost of living. That means that the Janets of the world, you know, some people who are in not just that voted for him, but at the core of his coalition are saying this cost of living. No, he's not doing a good job. That is quite extraordinary.

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41:20Dip into hot springs and dive into deserts. Climb a mountain or make your best effort. See thousands of stars in some of The darkest skies. Stake out haunted hotels. Can you make it to sunrise? There's always something new to see, because we've got plenty of space to just be. Plan your trip at TravelNevada.com. Let's go ahead and take a listen to Harry Enten putting this in some historical context. Majority of Americans are against this war. And regardless of what exactly he did mean, the context matters. Context matters, but also here's what also matters. Democrats love that comment. They're going to cut it and put it in so many ads before the midterm elections.

42:02My goodness gracious. It's a dopey comment from that perspective. And more than that, we're talking about 79 % of Americans disapprove of Donald Trump on gas prices. That is the highest percentage that any president has had disapproving them on gas prices. And any question I could possibly find. We're talking about when we're talking about inflation, right? We're talking about the worst polls ever for any president. belong to Donald John Trump. He's doing worse than Carter. He's doing worse than Joe Biden did in his last term. When you put it all together, you just go, man alive, man. What are you doing?

42:40And he makes a good point there, too, about that comment that Trump made and doubled down on about, I don't think about America's financial situation at all. The fact he said that out loud is insane. I mean, he's right. That is going to be repeated over and over again, as it should, as it should, because I think he's telling the truth. I don't think that factors in for him. I think he's worried about some of the pots. I think he's looking at the markets. I think he's feeling some pressure. But at the end of the day, is he thinking about, like, you going to the gas pump and looking at the bill and going, oh, my God, I don't know if I can keep doing it?

43:14No, he's not thinking about that. He's right. He's not thinking about that at all. No, it's not even about thinking about. It's in the totality of where the position has been taken on Iran, which is that it's all about him saving face. It's also – I keep thinking this is really important. Biden and Carter didn't suffer as badly because objectively it wasn't 100 percent their fault. Carter did not cause the Iranian revolution. Now, they didn't know it was going to happen, and that's a failure. It's a scandal for sure, like with the CIA. But they did not cause the Iranian revolution. Like they did not cause the Arab countries to boycott the United States, right?

43:52Like they were not directly involved in doing that. Biden, for all of his faults, did not say, yeah, go ahead, Putin, invade Ukraine. Like Putin invaded Ukraine, not Biden. Now, I don't think we should add any of those sanctions BS in the first place. That's on Biden, in my opinion. But Putin's price hike was enough for a lot of brain-dead Americans to say, okay, it's not our fault or it's not his fault, right? This one, it's literally your fault. It's your fault. You did this. It was here and now it's here. You decided to invade and created this entire mess. That's part of the reason why it's nearly as bad as Iraq.

44:26And I remember reading a lot of the post-analyses of Iraq, and one of my favorite biographers, I actually got to talk to him before he died, Gene Edward Smith. And he said, Iraq is the worst foreign policy mistake in the history of the United States at the time. This was prior Iran. And I was like, how could you say that? And he's like, look, with Vietnam, we got dragged in, but it was never as much of an explicit war of choice. Wars of choice, he told me, are always in a completely different category than being dragged in or morasses of international situations, which get you pull in. And so for Trump, like to choose this war and then to have such an explicit signpost that we've now all seen for, I mean, it's almost three months.

45:07We're 10 days away from a three-month anniversary of this entire thing. That's, what, a quarter of a year. It gone, evaporated, all of this oil. I mean, we're going to get into the catastrophe. I just read a post this morning of a guy who just went to Somalia. He was like, I've never seen anything like it in terms of the food shortage and what it will mean in terms of purchasing. He's like, we were going to have a full-blown mass famine in Africa. Right. Well, and also because we pulled all the aid for the Doge. It's both, but it's the World Food Program. Yeah, it's the combination of those two things.

45:36And there's also, because of the climate crisis, there have been, you know, droughts and extreme weather that is also, you know, cause problems for crops around the world, including here. That's why we covered the other day that wheat yields here are going to be the lowest since the, like, early 70s because of this extreme weather that we've had here as well. And that's before you even get into the effects of how expensive fertilizer is now and how much that is going to reverberate throughout. So, yeah, the World Food Program is saying somewhere around 43 million people could be pushed into acute hunger because of this confluence of horrible events, you know, the leading edge of which now is this war of choice with Iran.

46:11And people know, like, it's no one is out there like, gee, I wonder why gas prices are going so high. Everyone knows why they are paying what they're paying at the pump. It is no mystery. There's not some confluence of it. No, it's because Trump decided to do this really dumb thing that we did not want. That's why prices are high, and everyone knows that. We also want to take a quick look at—actually put B6 up on the screen because this, again, connects to what I was just saying about the Iran war. 58 % in this poll for the Institute for Global Affairs, the Eurasia Group. 58 % of Americans disapprove of Trump's handling of the war with Iran.

46:48I think that's actually a little bit better than the numbers were for The New York Times, but still quite bad. But look at this one. 79 % of Americans say the war has affected their cost of living, at least some. More than half, 62%, say it's become harder to pay the bills in the past six months. 80 % of Americans know that they are seeing the way that this war has affected their cost of living. 80 % of Americans. And everyone knows that Trump and Trump alone made this decision. Maybe they're telling us, oh, Israel dragged him into it, whatever. But at the end of the day, he's the big boy that made the decision and the blame lies at his feet.

47:25Last piece here, which is just interesting to take note of the way that public opinion has shifted so extraordinarily on our dynamic with Israel. Let's put B5 up on the screen. This is also from that New York Times Sienna poll. So they asked this question, in the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians, which side do you sympathize with more, Israel or the Palestinians? Palestinians actually narrowly, but still very significant, beat out Israel 37 % to 35%. And the rest say they don't know or they, you know, both equally effectively. That is such a sea change. I cannot even tell you. I mean, it has never, Palestinians have never come anywhere close to the sympathy Americans have had for Israel because of the overwhelming propaganda that we have been fed here.

48:10And just the assumption, oh, Israel's our ally. They're the good guys, period, end of story. Now, dig in here by party. Democrats, forget about it. It's overwhelming. 57 % say Palestinians, only 17 % say Israel. Independence, it's also quite significant edge for Palestinians, 44 % versus Israel, 29%. For Republicans, though, and this is what we were talking about yesterday and our concerns about Thomas Massey and whether he'll be able to pull off his primary victory today, it is still quite overwhelmingly in favor of Israel. And so I think this important reality check in terms of how much the shift has really occurred within the Republican Party.

48:47You've got 66 percent of Republicans saying that they sympathize more with Israel and only nine percent saying they sympathize more with Palestinians. So still overwhelmingly, the Republican Party is a pro-Israel party. That doesn't mean there hasn't been significant splintering and some factions, especially I would say online factions, that have taken a very different view of things, the Tucker Carlson's of the world, the Marjorie Taylor Greene's of the world, etc. But still, if you look at the party as a whole, a party that is dominated by older voters, they still have the traditional view of Israel and still stand with our alliance and want to send them weapons and all those sorts of things.

49:28It is purely generational. And that is the most important thing. On Republicans, the 66 percent support of Israel is almost entirely backstopped by overwhelming support amongst older voters. For everybody who's younger, sub 40 or 50, it's either 50-50, and once you get to the 18 to 35, it's basically non-existent, especially whenever it comes to Palestine and Israel. Remember, it's always going to be a bit different. For a lot of liberals, this is a humanitarian issue. For a lot of Americans, like, okay, sorry. For a lot of Republicans, younger Republicans, it is a nationalism. It's a nationalism issue.

50:04Like, it's intolerable to have people like Miriam Adelson and Paul Singer, and these people just try to come in and bomb Thomas Massey with hundreds of millions of dollars and all these super PACs and all these other things, which it's basically like taking away your autonomy. So it's always going to be different about who do you sympathize with or not. But the net effect is actually going to be very similar in terms of cutting Israel off from foreign aid or treating them like any other country. That's a nightmare for them. It's literally a nightmare. But I do think it's an important distinction just to explain for why that number, because there are people who I know who support or sympathize with Israel, but are like, listen, even if I sympathize, like I can't be having you.

50:44People write my laws in Georgia on BDS like that's intolerable. Yeah, that's fair. But I would say, look, unfortunately, I think Laura Loomer is closer to the average Republican voter than like Marjorie Taylor Greene. No, no, no question. In terms of her views, in terms of her Islamophobia, in terms of her, you know, lockstep, we got to support Israel no matter what. I think that is, you know, more reflective of where the Republican basis at this point, because it is a party that's dominated by like Boomer, Fox News, Facebook. I'm not denying the truth. It's true. I'm more talking about it to the extent that there's a generational split and you were to ask a younger Republican why they don't support Israel, you will get a very different answer actually than necessarily if you were to go to some Gaza pink hair protester.

51:25Like they're living in a totally different universe from where they are. And that's fine. I don't care. I'm just explaining for what that, how that would manifest itself in on polling and what the future of that may look like. Yes. I completely agree that it comes from a very different place.

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