B (2:25)

Hey, Galen, how are you doing?

A (2:26)

You know, I'm doing pretty well, maybe. As you can tell from that intro, I'm wired today. We got a lot to talk about.

B (2:33)

I mean, we, a whole civilization didn't die yesterday. So that's good.

A (2:39)

Good. And also here with us is senior data scientist at the Washington Post, Lenny Brauner. Welcome to the podcast, Lenny. Was that you trying out your Hungarian on the GD Politics podcast?

C (2:53)

It's been a long time, but yeah. Is it a first? I think it, it must be a first.

A (2:57)

I'm sure that this is the first time someone has spoken Hungarian on the GD Politics podcast. But that is a preview of what else is on the docket for today. There is an upcoming election this Sunday in Hungary, and MAGA has taken a particular interest in it. The establishment in Europe has taken a particular interest in it, people, because it is an important test of strongman politics in Europe. And also, if we have time, it's been a minute, but we have a good data, bad data or not data question on polling showing Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger floundering in approval polls after a 15 point victory last fall. All right, are you ready for our tour of the world today? I guess we're gonna, I guess, start in Iran, then go to Wisconsin, then Georgia, then Hungary, then maybe back to Virginia. Yes, Georgia, the state, not the country. Although, I'm sure, you know, maybe, maybe someday I'll, like, find myself on vacation in the caucuses and we'll do a Georgian politics podcast and we won't be talking about Jon Ossoff and Brian Kemp and Raphael Warnock.

C (3:58)

Or maybe for some reason we will.

A (4:01)

Or maybe for some, or maybe for some reason we will. Okay, I'll start off by saying that none of us are flies on the wall in the White House, nor are we sourced the way that Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan are at the New York Times. But I will say there seems to be enough leaking lately in the White House that you might even be able to get a clear picture of what is going on behind the scenes. Nonetheless, we have some insight into the political situation that Trump has been facing here at home. So, Mary, let's start with you. What do you make of the motivations behind Trump's escalation and then ceasefire agreement?

B (4:38)

Oh, we'll start off with a really easy one, huh?

A (4:41)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you please tell me what was going on in the Oval Office yesterday? Or we're recording this on Wednesday, Tuesday, as the world watched.

B (4:51)

Yeah. Far be it for me to, like, understand fully the motivations of the President of the United States. I don't know that anyone can claim to do that. I mean, I think when you look at what was going on with the escalation and the ceasefire agreement, it seems to me that Trump was attempting to escalate this conflict, hoping that higher pressure would push Iran into making a deal, which ultimately is sort of what happened here. I don't love being in a position where I'm like, oh, it's all bluster, because I think the things that the President was saying were pretty dire and bleak, but to some degree, I think it was a little bit all bluster. I think that you can see that in the fact that the deadline moved over and over and over again. Just keep pushing forward that deadline until you have a moment where you can declare some sort of victory.

A (5:39)

But it seemed like Trump got it in his head that whatever this was, it needed to end soon, because it seemed like on Sunday he decided that Tuesday was the day, and then Tuesday morning he decided that Tuesday really was the day. And then there was some sort of tentative ceasefire by the end of the day, which makes me believe that they were feeling the political pressure in the White House.

B (6:02)

Oh, yeah. I mean, the polling on this for the President is dire. So we published an article at 50 plus one a couple of days ago looking at Donald Trump's approval rating on various foreign policy related issues. So we sort of wanted to get a sense of, like, where was his approval rating on Venezuela around the time of the Maduro capture? Where was his approval rating on Iran last summer during Operation Midnight Hammer? And you can clearly see that the current conflict stands out as uniquely bad for the President. So during, like, Operation Midnight Hammer, for example, his approval rating was underwater by a couple of points, like around minus six on that. But it stayed there at minus six the whole time, which is well above his overall job approval rating, which was around minus 12 at that time. This time, though, if you look at what happened, you know, the pollsters started asking about Iran again in around January, when it started to be discussed more in the news. There's sort of a gap of time where no one was talking about Iran, so pollsters weren't asking about it. And at that time, his approval started off at around minus 12 or so in February, again, about five points better on net than his overall job approval rating from the day the strikes began, which was February 28, up until yesterday Tuesday, which is when we published the Article that net approval rating just smashed down. It fell 14 points in a month. I don't think I've ever seen that quick of movement maybe since 9, 11 on any particular issue for any president. It's really stunning to look at that chart. So, yeah, he's feeling the pressure here at home.

A (7:43)

Do we have any early polling on this ceasefire? Which I acknowledge would be extremely early, and if we have it, it's only because, I don't know, YouGov was in. In their cyberpanel throughout the night or something like that.

B (7:59)

Yeah, I checked YouGov, but they didn't have anything up on this. They were polling about going to the moon.

A (8:05)

Okay. How do Americans feel about going to the moon?

B (8:07)

Oh, they love it.

A (8:08)

Oh, yeah. I mean, something that if we weren't, you know, in the middle of a war, we could all maybe get behind.

B (8:14)

Yeah, yeah. A majority of Americans said that they personally would go to the moon if they're. If they would be able to guarantee safe travel to and from.

A (8:23)

I think I'm a no. I'm so sorry. I think I'm a no. But God bless all the Americans who want to go. I support them. Lenny. I described a situation where Iran is claiming victory. The White House is claiming victory. The political opposition here in the United States is saying that it's bs. Are Americans liable to believe the White House when it declares victory?

C (8:48)

That seems pretty unlikely. I mean, given both the facts that sort of are coming out of what the ceasefire agreement will look like, and also, you know, the points that they're starting negotiation arounds for a more permanent ceasefire, it seems pretty clear that, you know, the White House claiming victory will seem pretty weak to a lot of Americans. But, you know, a lot of Americans are also sort of take their views on this kind of thing from like partisan cues. And Donald Trump, like Mary just said, is generally pretty unpopular. He's particularly unpopular on this issue. And that's changed a lot. And so I think people will interpret what they are seeing and their interpretations of what is happening on the ground will be skewed by how they believe the administration is handling this problem or this, this situation more generally. And so I think they are less likely to sort of accept the White House's narrative that they have, you know, fulfilled the mission that they went into here.

A (9:36)

Yeah, I watched that press conference on Wednesday morning with Pete Hegseth and General Kane, and it was written for maximum, like mission accomplished vibes. You had the general talking about how much food and coffee they had consumed during the duration of the mission and how much nicotine. And it was a little almost like a commencement speech. I was like, oh, it wasn't really about getting the nuclear material. It was about like the nicotine powder. The friends we made along the way. Yeah. I was like, wait, what is going on here? But eventually the White House will have to account for the fact that the regime is still in place. Iran still has control over its enriched uranium, but now even apparently has a say over who goes through the Strait of Hormuz, which I imagine. I mean, a lot of the political reaction to all of this has been a political reaction based on gas prices and therefore the cost of living. I think there are some people who are upset about the war on its own merits. But like, I think the, the dearest political vulnerability is that. But if that's not resolved, if Iran still has control over the Strait of Hormuz and at the moment is charging a dollar per barrel of oil, which is up to $2 million for supertankers, and at the moment also is saying that maybe they'll let about a dozen ships go through the strait a day like that doesn't seem to me a non oil markets expert to resolve the issue that brought us to this ceasefire in the first place.

B (11:10)

Yeah, and I just want to throw in some polling data on this, like, idea of declaring victory too, because, like, one of the things that's been tricky about this conflict is I think it's been difficult for Americans to really understand what the goals and motives are here. And I don't usually do this, but because this is such a, like, evolving situation, I'm going to timestamp whatever polls I'm referencing here of like when they were actually conducted, so you could put them in the timeline if you're trying to figure out what's going on. So in a YouGov economist poll that was conducted from April 3rd through 6th, so. So this is in the period of time where we were in our two week window up to the alleged Bridge Day. It includes that tweet about Bridge Day and Power Plant Day all rolled into one that went out on Easter. That's the fielding period for this poll. The pollsters asked people what they thought should be the US objectives, what we should accomplish before ending the war, and respondents could select as many of these options as they wanted to. Right. So there's a bunch of different possible outcomes here. The top outcome that people want the US to accomplish at 54% was preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. And I think we can check that off unless Anyone believes that Iran currently has a nuclear weapon, we're doing that. We've been doing that for decades. The next highest priority, though, at 45%, is to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. So in the current situation, under the current ceasefire, as you're describing it there, Galen, where Iran is still controlling the Strait, they're letting a limited number of ships through, potentially might be tolling ships coming through the Strait. I think it's hard to argue that we've achieved that strategic objective of reopening the Strait of Hormuz, which 45% of Americans say would be necessary to achieve our goals in this war. And I'll. I'll flag just the next highest outcome. There's a bunch of other things on here, but the next highest priority is at 40% to eliminate. Eliminate Iran's ability to launch missiles and drones. I don't think that that's a strategic objective we've achieved at this point. I mean, Iran was launching missiles and drones up until that ceasefire. And as you mentioned, Galen, there is still some activity, extracurricular activity going on in the Middle east now. So, like, if those are two of the highest priorities that Americans have, it's hard for me to swallow that Americans are going to buy the administration's claims of victory here.

A (13:35)

Yeah, of course. We will get more data and we will talk about it as it comes. Before we move on, I want to talk a little bit, though, about the reaction from lawmakers, which is maybe a poll of a different kind, a straw poll, maybe you can call it. I saw, according to Gabe Fleischer over at Wake up to Politics, at least 80 Democrats had responded to Trump on Tuesday saying that they wanted to see the invocation of the 25th Amendment or impeachment. They. They were joined by people like Marjorie Taylor Greene on the right or, you know, the MAGA. X MAGA 2 MAGA for MAGA, part of the Republican Party.

B (14:14)

America First.

A (14:15)

America First.

B (14:16)

Because I think we've discussed before that MAGA just really means, like, Trump.

A (14:19)

Yeah, yeah.

B (14:20)

I think America first is the, the label for where Marjorie Taylor Greene is. She's. She's not maga.

A (14:26)

So I'm curious how, and maybe ironically, during all of this, Congress hasn't actually even been in session. They're on vacation. So we haven't seen reporters chasing them down hallways to get a reaction to all of this. Whatever we've seen is because in large part, lawmakers have volunteered it on Twitter or in interviews or what have you. So, I mean, how would you describe the landscape in terms of actual politicians

B (14:51)

at the moment, the characterization you have given about how Democratic elected leaders have been reacting is pretty spot on. I think a lot of Democrats were fairly outraged both by the tone and content of, of Trump's recent tweets and statements with respect to the gop. I think you see a lot of GOP ers sort of doing a version of, of the thing that I did sort of at the beginning of this podcast where they're like, oh, this is a negotiating tactic. It's hyperbole, right? He's not really going to do a genocide of the Iranian people, et cetera. There's a handful, I think, of Republicans that are reacting a little bit differently and, and some from some surprising corners. I saw Ron Johnson, for example, Senator from Wisconsin, speaking out sort of against what the President was discussing. But I, I haven't seen a ton of reaction from elected Republicans in, like, positions of actual authority. So, like, I tried really hard to find a reaction from Mike Johnson, for example, and I'm like, Googling, I'm like cross referencing, I'm requiring phrases. And the best I found was a quote from a Time magazine piece on this, which was quote, johnson's office did not return a request for comment, end of quote.

A (16:01)

There you go. There we go. I love the reporting, though, Mary, I

C (16:06)

will say, I mean, like, obviously, if there's been many scandals, issues where people have waited with bated breath for the Republican establishment to split from Donald Trump. To Mary's point earlier about the polling, this one seems maybe a little different because we've had a very strong impact in the polling very quickly. Mary was talking earlier about sort of the issue polling, where things look pretty bad for Donald Trump on this. But also his net approval rating has changed by like four or five percentage points in the last four weeks, which is a lot faster of a change than we are used to. I mean, his net approval rating has been sort of on a slow dripping decline since he took, since the second term started. But this quick change that we've seen over the last month, that's a lot quicker than what we usually see. That's a lot harder, stronger impact to the degree that we often say that, like, quote, unquote, nothing matters. Like, this does seem to matter a little bit. And Galen, to your point earlier, it's a little unclear whether this is simply gas prices, chaos, all that, or whether it's actually sort of a division within the Republican Party that is maybe more fundamental that might be causing this. I mean, this is something, a point that you often raise, Galen, that the Iran war actually sort of speaks to, like a fundamental divide within the current Republican coalition, which is something that we might be seeing here. And if that is the case, maybe that's actually more permanent than simply if it's an impact to oil prices, because eventually, hopefully, those will normalize again.

A (17:24)

And if we do stick by the analysis that when it comes to foreign policy questions, again, this isn't just a foreign policy question, it became a cost of living question. But on foreign policy questions, if voters are liable to take their cues from elites, they're actually hearing a lot of different things from different elites within the Republican Party. I mean, elites includes media figures. It always has. And the at least conservative talk radio has historically played a pretty big role in reacting to marshaling public opinion on things like, for example, immigration. In this case, I'm thinking back to, like, comprehensive immigration reform when Rush Limbaugh basically rejected the idea from, you know, Republican Senate leadership that there would be some sort of big compromise on immigration or something like that. In this instance, we're hearing from, we've talked about it before, but we're hearing from folks like Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens. I don't know how far afield we want to go, but people who are paying attention to the new age of conservative talk radio, which is like the MAGA influencer or America First Influencer on podcasts and YouTube and whatnot, aren't hearing one single message, or if they are hearing one single message, it's a negative one.

B (18:39)

Yeah, yeah, I agree. And I actually think you can even look at Fox News here, which has been more critical. I don't want to say they are super critical, but they've been more critical or at least asking harder questions of Trump officials on their programs on this issue than they have on other issues. And I think that may be reflective of the fact that because this is so unpopular and the president is so unpopular on this, in order to maintain some amount of credibility, they have to reflect some of that skepticism back when they are talking to officials now, I don't mean to say that they're going, like, as hard as Megyn Kelly. They're obviously not.

A (19:15)

Yeah, no, it's interesting that you say that, Mary, because I was watching the press conference Wednesday morning with Pete Hegseth, and he throws the first question to one American news network, which is in the vein of these new media companies that came up during the Trump era that were given spots in press conferences like that specifically because the Trump administration wanted to get more friendly media into those rooms and then went to like the Daily Wire and some other quote unquote friendly media outlets that aren't even trying to do the mainstream media, like we're balanced type thing are squarely on the side of the president. And they were asking still challenging questions of Pete Hegseth about what is going on with the Strait of Hormuz, like what about those military objectives that we had when it came to the enriched uranium and whatnot. So I think, yes, I think that this, there's something different here. And I do wonder that, you know, we've talked about in the past with Operation Midnight Hammer and Venezuela that with some hindsight and some time between when the original event happened and things being settled in some way, I do wonder, say this ceasefire holds. Is there something broken that just this ceasefire now and sort of moving on to the next scandal can't quite put back together? Well, we'll find that out in data, but that's kind of my question right now.

B (20:40)

Yeah, it will be interesting to find out.

C (20:43)

I think in particular, it's interesting to find out because we're about to head into primary season for the next Republican presidential candidate. And I think the division that you just outlined, Galen, is going to play a big role or might play a big role in, you know, how candidates position themselves for this upcoming primary.

A (21:00)

Yeah. Well, speaking of elections, as promised, we should move on to we'd actually thought of this whole episode as, oh, we're going to talk about all these elections that are happening in Wisconsin and Georgia and Hungary and whatever. And of course, the news cycle enters as it does. I'm glad that we, we were talking about Iran and that we were able to cover that. But Tuesday night in Wisconsin, liberal Supreme Court candidate Chris Taylor beat conservative candidate Maria Lazer by 20 percentage points, with more than 95% of the expected vote tallied. In my mind, this was something of a test of our priors for how low versus high turnout elections work in the Trump era. Our prior being that in low turnout elections, highly engaged and enraged Democrats and Democrat leaners have a significant advantage. Republicans do better when they nationalize an election and drive up turnout. Now, Wisconsin had a Supreme Court election last year. In 2025, we all covered it. Turnout was nearly two and a half million votes in 2025, which was about 50% of eligible voters turning out. This year, it fell dramatically. It was about one and a half million votes, which is turnout in the again, this isn't these aren't final numbers here, but is sort of in the low 30s in terms of turnout of eligible voters, which is a very steep drop off. We saw in 2025 the Liberal candidate was a big victory, won by 10 percentage points. But now a year later or so, the liberal candidate wins by 20 percentage points in a very purple state. So I guess, should I ask, were our priors proven correct? That's the end of today's preview. Head over to GDPolitics.com to become a paid subscriber and catch the full episode. We chatted for an hour and got to lots of election news. We talked about trends behind the big over performances for Democrats in Wisconsin and Georgia, for example, some trends amongst rural voters and Latino voters. We also looked ahead to a high stakes election in Hungary this weekend and why MAGA feels a kinship with Viktor Orban. And we did get to that Good data, bad data or not data question on Abigail Spanberger. Like I said, head over to GDPolitics.com to become a paid subscriber and catch the whole thing. It's 8 bucks a month or 80 bucks a year. Paid subscribers get about twice the number of episodes, can join in the paid subscriber chat, and most importantly, make sure we can continue an independent podcast that prioritizes curiosity, rigor and a sense of humor. When you become a subscriber, you can connect your account to wherever you listen to podcasts so you'll never miss an episode. There's a link in the show notes explaining how. Again, head over to GDPolitics.com, see you there.