DON GONYEA, HOST:
As the war in Iran enters its second month, thousands more U.S. troops are arriving in the Middle East. U.S. Central Command says it has struck more than 11,000 targets, including ballistic missile sites and Revolutionary Guard headquarters buildings. President Trump continues to both declare victory and threaten escalation.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You know, you never like to say too early you won. We won. We won the - in the first hour, it was over.
We could go further, and we're going to go further.
We're doing a five-day period. We'll see how that goes. And if it goes well, we're going to end up with settling this. Otherwise, we'll just keep bombing our little hearts out.
GONYEA: On Thursday, Trump said talks with Iran are, quote, "going very well." Today, diplomats from around the region are meeting in Pakistan. More than 300 U.S. service members have been injured. Thirteen Americans have been killed. Meanwhile, across the U.S., there were No Kings protests yesterday. More than 3,000 separate events drawing millions of people, according to organizers. We are joined now by NPR senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Good morning, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Good morning, Don.
GONYEA: Organizers say the protests yesterday were the largest yet during the president's second term, but a White House spokesperson dismissed them as, quote, "Trump derangement therapy sessions." Do you think they'll have any impact in such a divided moment?
LIASSON: I do. You know, solidarity is therapeutic, and it can motivate people to organize. There was no single focus to these protests, except for an opposition to Donald Trump and his authoritarian approach to the presidency, but people were protesting the Iran war, the way immigrants are being treated, the cost of living, voting restrictions. And I think these big crowds were a sign of Democratic energy for the midterm elections. You know, so far this year, even though the Democratic Party is very unpopular, Democratic candidates keep on winning, including just last week in Florida for two state legislative seats, Democrats flipped those seats, and one of them was where Donald Trump himself lives, where Mar-a-Lago is. So I think these big protests are a reflection of what we're already seeing at the voting booth and in polling, and they could be a prediction of more of the same.
GONYEA: Another topic - those long - hourslong airport security lines, due to the ongoing Department of Homeland Security shutdown. It seemed maybe for a moment last week like that pain was finally going to force Congress to act, but apparently not. Any other pressure point in the coming weeks that might force some sort of a deal?
LIASSON: Well, it's hard to see what it would be because the biggest pressure point so far has been at the airports with those long lines. And now, Donald Trump has signed an executive action, a memo saying that there's a national emergency that should allow him to authorize payment to the TSA agents who've been going without paychecks because of the mini shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. So if these agents get paid and they come back to work and the lines go away, that could take away the biggest pain point of this mini shutdown, even though Congress and the president have not been able to find a compromise to reopen the agency.
GONYEA: So let's turn to the war in Iran. Like that shutdown, it's unclear how or when it might end. And like the shutdown, it's causing pain at home. Talk us through some of the fallout so far.
LIASSON: Well, lots of different kinds of fallout. First, economically. Oil prices are climbing. They're going to continue to climb as long as oil can't get through the Strait of Hormuz. You have military fallout. The U.S. is moving military assets away from Asia. There's geopolitical fallout. Russia is getting a big gift because Donald Trump has lifted sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil.
And, of course, the most important fallout is domestic politics. The war is getting less popular. Looks like President Trump polls numbers are dropping. Some polls have him under 40% approval rating. He's looking for an off-ramp, trying to convince the country that the war will be over in just a few weeks.
Even inside his own coalition, even though MAGA voters are very, very loyal to him, there are cracks. A recent AP poll just last week showed a quarter of Republicans say that the war has gone on too far. And these are voters who believed him when he campaigned on a platform of no more foreign wars.
GONYEA: Last thing, I need to ask you about NATO. The president had some harsh words, maybe his harshest yet, about the alliance on Friday. How serious is this?
LIASSON: Well, it's hard to know how serious it is with Donald Trump, but certainly he's talked many times over the last 10 years that he might not honor Article 5, which says an attack on one is an attack on all. But now he said, quote, "we spent hundreds of billions of dollars a year on NATO. We've always been there for them. Now I guess we don't have to be because they weren't there for us." And he called that breaking news. So these certainly were the harshest words yet Donald Trump has used for the Western alliance.
GONYEA: That is NPR's Mara Liasson. Mara, thank you.
LIASSON: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
