What the polls say about the Iran war ahead of Trump's speech: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to From the Politics Desk, a daily newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail. Welcome to April! In today’s edition, Bridget Bowman breaks down the latest polling on the Iran war as President Donald Trump prepares to address the nation tonight.

Plus, Andrea Mitchell digs into Trump’s recent rhetoric on “regime change” in Iran. Sign up to receive this newsletter in your inbox every weekday here. — Adam Wollner Polls show consistent majorities opposing military action in Iran after a month of war By Bridget Bowman When President Donald Trump provides an “important update” on the Iran war tonight, he’ll be addressing a nation that has been deeply skeptical of the military operation since it began. Polls conducted over the last month found majorities of Americans oppose U.S. military action in Iran, although Republicans remain broadly supportive of Trump’s actions.

And even larger majorities remain opposed to sending U.S. ground troops to the conflict. As the war first began, NBC News polling conducted from Feb. 27 to March 3 found 52% of registered voters said the U.S. should not have taken military action against the country, while 41% supported the action and 7% were not sure. That was a stark departure from other recent conflicts, including wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when majorities in NBC News polling voiced support for the military actions at the outset.

Even as voters broadly opposed the strikes, 77% of Republicans — and 90% of voters who said they aligned with the Make America Great Again movement — supported the strikes against Iran in the NBC News poll. Since then, polls have found persistent majorities opposing the military operation in Iran, with Republicans remaining steadfast in their support. A survey from CBS News/YouGov conducted March 17-20 found 60% disapproving of the U.S. taking military action against Iran, with 40% approving, including 84% of Republicans.

A Fox News poll conducted March 20-23 found 58% of registered voters opposing the military action and 42% supporting it.

Meanwhile, 77% of Republicans supported the action and 23% opposed. A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted March 27-29 showed 60% of Americans disapproving of strikes against Iran, while 35% approve. But Republicans were still supportive, with 74% approving of the war and 22% disapproving.

Majorities of Americans have also disapproved of Trump’s handling of Iran, with his approval ratings on the issue ranging from the low 40s to mid-30s. That’s slightly below his overall job approval rating, which is hovering around 40% in recent surveys. Read more → Trump's shift on 'regime change' in Iran Analysis by Andrea Mitchell President Donald Trump has been taking credit for what he is calling “regime change” in Iran, seeming to suggest that with the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the failure (so far) of his son, Mujtaba, to surface publicly, the country is now in its “third regime” since the war started.

Trump is calling this different group “very reasonable.” To veteran Iran watchers, it sounds reminiscent of the “Iranian moderates” President Ronald Reagan’s first-term national security team imagined would free American hostages in exchange for Israeli missiles in 1984. Later known as the Iran-Contra scandal, history recorded how well that turned out.

As Trump and his negotiators cite progress in talks while the government in Tehran issues routine denials, it is hard to know what to believe. The president seems to be referring to Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf as the more “reasonable” leader, though he joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps at age 18 and spent most of his career in that military wing of the government. In an interview with the Financial Times, Trump credited Ghalibaf with having authorized a goodwill gift to him of letting 10 Pakistani tankers sail through the Strait of Hormuz last week.

Iran’s state-owned media denied that claim. If negotiations are underway as the administration claims, do they involve indirect or direct messages with Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff? Are they trading proposals?

With mixed messages from both capitals, a safe bet is that neither is wholly accurate. What seems most likely is that Iran’s surviving political leaders are radical, hardened ideologues, embittered by the war and more determined than before to re-arm themselves against future attacks. They are also unlikely to trust American envoys again after being ambushed twice by U.S. airstrikes in the middle of negotiations.

And with Khamenei dead, so is the fatwah, or religious edict, he issued decades ago against taking the final steps toward building a nuclear weapon from its enriched uranium. Whether or not it was observed in recent years, it is no longer binding on his heirs. A more fundamental question is why Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thought they could collapse Iran’s regime by assassinating the country’s aging supreme leader, the head of its National Security Council, Ali Larijani, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards, and the leader of Iran’s navy.

Their successors are viewed as more radical than the men they replaced. Inured by Israel’s vaunted intelligence and success at targeted assassinations, Iran was also known to have created layers of leaders to step up and fill sudden vacancies. Least powerful in their theocratic and military system are those most accessible to the West: the country’s political leaders, notably, the president and the foreign minister.

Another incorrect assessment was Israel’s reported assurance to the White House that assassinating Tehran’s top leaders on day one of the war would spark an uprising by Iranians to overthrow their government. That was unlikely with the brutal Revolutionary Guard Corps more empowered than ever, along with the Basij internal paramilitary militia that killed an estimated 32,000 Iranian protesters in January, according to outside human rights groups, while jailing thousands more. At the time, Trump promised “help is on the way.”

None came. Although regime change was not one of Trump’s original objectives in the war, he is now claiming it as a metric of the war’s success.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told ABC News he doubted if anything had changed in Iran.

“The people who lead them, this clerical regime, that is the problem,” Rubio said. While he said it would be a good thing if they are more reasonable, he concluded, “We have to be prepared for the possibility, maybe even the probability, that that is not the case.” Follow live Iran war updates → That’s all From the Politics Desk for now.

Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner. If you have feedback — likes or dislikes — email us at politicsnewsletter@nbcuni.com And if you’re a fan, please share with everyone and anyone. They can sign up here.