George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt were wartime presidents revered by their fellow citizens and honored through history. Faced with the trial of war, they rose to the challenge and communicated to their fellow citizens the moral, strategic, and existential stakes of the struggle before them, offering a compelling narrative of purpose and resilience, and rallying their nation to victory.
When he decides to bring to a conclusion the conflict in Iran, we will have to add to that list President Donald Trump.
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A new poll makes clear the vital importance of Trump’s communications efforts in this war with Iran: the data reveal that those who get their information directly from Trump view the war significantly differently than those who get their information from other sources.
TWO WEEKS TO STOP THE WAR: TRUMP’S TREPIDATIOUS IRAN TIMELINE
The poll, fielded by McLaughlin & Associates to 1,000 likely voters from April 8-15, shows that Trump belongs in the pantheon of great wartime communicators.
Roosevelt had his fireside chats. Trump has his Truth Social account and his prime-time Oval Office television address.
And what a difference Trump’s communications efforts make. Spoiler alert: The difference is about 20 points.
For example, among those who watched Trump’s April 1 prime-time Oval Office address on the war, 67% approve of the president “using the military to eliminate [Iran’s] nuclear missile program and their support for terrorism,” while just 29% disapprove. By contrast, among those who did not watch the address, but read or heard about it elsewhere, 47% approve, while 46% disapprove, a virtual wash.
Further, asked to agree or disagree with the statement, “The United States military actions against Iran and the leadership of the Iranian regime were necessary and warranted to protect American lives today and in the future,” the same split appears — among those who watched the prime-time address, 73% agree, while 24% disagree, while among those who read or heard about the address elsewhere, 55% agree, and 39% disagree.
And asked to agree or disagree with the statement, “The United States must finish the job once and for all to protect the United States and our allies,” among those who watched the prime-time address, 74% agree, while 21% disagree; among those who read or heard about the address elsewhere, 56% agree, while 35% disagree.
This difference shows itself again in the question of the audience’s beliefs about Trump’s war aims. Asked “From what you have seen or read, why do you think Trump went to war with Iran?” and given the options “stop a nuclear Iran,” “regime change,” take their oil,” “other reason,” or “don’t know/refused,” among those who watched the prime-time address for themselves, 59% said “stop a nuclear Iran,” with just 12% answering, “to take their oil”; among those who read or heard about the speech elsewhere, just 38% said, “stop a nuclear Iran,” while 20% answered, “to take their oil.”
Consistently, then, we see a differential of 18% to 20% between those who watched the prime-time address for themselves as opposed to those who relied on news or social media accounts of the speech. That’s about 1 in 5 likely voters, and any pollster will tell you that’s a huge number — if 1 in 5 voters were to move in the same direction in a head-to-head ballot test, for example, that would take a 50-50 tie contest and turn it into a 70-30 landslide.
There is no surprise here to anyone who actually watched Trump’s prime-time Oval Office address. He laid out the case for war against the mullahs and reminded his fellow citizens that “From the very first day I announced my campaign for president in 2015, I vowed that I would never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon,” before declaring that, “For these terrorists to have nuclear weapons would be an intolerable threat. The most violent and thuggish regime on Earth would be free to carry out their campaigns of terror, coercion, conquest and mass murder from behind a nuclear shield. I will never let that happen.”
Consistency in messaging is one of the keys to successful communications. In a nation of 342 million people, consistency and repetition of simple messages are crucial to breaking through.
IRAN WAR SETTLES INTO TEST OF WILLS, AS TRUMP INSISTS, ‘I HAVE ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD’
Trump has been entirely consistent in his views on the threat posed by a nuclear Iran. As he reminded viewers in his prime-time address, he was saying he was opposed to a nuclear Iran even before he was elected president: for instance, at a September 2015 rally against former President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal at the Capitol, hosted by Tea Party Patriots, then-candidate Trump excoriated the Obama administration’s Iran deal: “I’ve been making lots of wonderful deals, great deals, that’s what I do. Never ever, ever in my life have I seen any transaction so incompetently negotiated as our deal with Iran. And I mean never.”
The McLaughlin survey shows that the White House communications team has in its arsenal one of the most powerful weapons ever seen in American politics: Trump himself.
Jenny Beth Martin is chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action.
