During Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s contentious appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee, one of the many issues that led to partisan clashes was the question of public support for the war in Iran. For much of the hearing, that meant watching him accuse Democratic officials of “clouding the mind” of Americans by saying things he disagrees with.
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But in one especially memorable exchange with Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, the Pentagon chief stopped making excuses for the war’s unpopularity and started claiming that the war actually enjoys broad public backing.
“I believe we do have the support of the American people,” he told the senator, adding, “The American people are quite smart. They understand and see through spin.”
As it turns out, the second part of that quote was a lot more accurate than the first.
Over the last several decades, there’s been a relatively consistent trend in U.S. public opinion: Americans tend to broadly support military conflicts at the outset, but attitudes turn negative as wars drag on. The war in Iran is unusual in that it was unpopular at the outset and, two months later, it enjoys even less support, Hegseth’s claims to the contrary notwithstanding. The Washington Post reported on its latest national survey:
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