SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
The war in Iran is not popular with the American public. That is, according to various public opinion polls. But what are voters saying about why they feel that way? For that, we turn to NPR senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Hey, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Hi there, Scott.
DETROW: So you observed two focus groups this week. Tell us about them and why they matter.
LIASSON: Well, as you said, polling gets at the what. Focus groups get at the why. These results are not statistically significant, but focus groups let us hear from voters in their own words. And this focus group is part of NPR's monthly swing voter project. It's conducted by the research firms Engagious and Sago. All these voters voted for Joe Biden in 2020, and then they all voted for Donald Trump in 2024. We do a different battleground state each month. This month, it was 12 swing voters from Michigan.
DETROW: All right, so let's have the big reveal, then. I'm curious what these 12 voters had to say about Trump's decision to go to war.
LIASSON: They do not approve. I've been thinking about this group as the Marjorie Taylor Greene focus group because they all believed him, and these voters sound very America First when they criticize the war and the president. They sound a lot like Trump himself when he was running for president. So let's hear from some of them. The first one is Linzi, who's a self-described independent. I should note, these voters agreed to be in the group on the condition they be identified by first names only. But here's why Linzi doesn't approve of Trump's war in Iran.
LINZI: The enormous cost of war in terms of what it does to our economy, what it does to the world economy, when we have enormous need within our own societies, in Michigan. We need to help our own citizens first before we go to Iran, Iraq - I don't know, anywhere else - to fight their wars for them.
LIASSON: So Linzi illustrates one of my biggest takeaways - the war in Iran just melds together in her mind with the war in Iraq. Some of these voters could have been in a Trump ad. This is what he ran on - no foreign wars. Stop spending money overseas. Put American citizens first, asLinzi said. Stop fighting other countries' wars for them. Some of our voters thought Trump was putting Israel's interests first, not the U.S. And there's no separating military action abroad with domestic problems at home for these voters. They believe the war is causing prices to go up at home. Here's Brandon, another independent.
BRANDON: The cost of gas has gone up 20 cents in my neighborhood. So I feel like we always have money for bombs, but no money for infrastructure.
DETROW: Mara, given how much gas prices have gone up so quickly, I imagine he was not the only one who talked about that.
LIASSON: No, he wasn't. And what's interesting is this is the third of these focus groups we've done. We've done them in Georgia and Arizona before this. Gas prices in the earlier focus groups had been a positive for President Trump. They were coming down. That and the closure of the southern border were his two most popular achievements. So Trump has tried to say this is just a short-term blip in oil prices, and if the war doesn't drag on, gas prices could come down and voters may feel better. But right now, the voters, in our focus group, at least, are skeptical and they're cynical and they're - especially after years of conflicts overseas and politicians who promised them they wouldn't get involved in conflicts overseas.
DETROW: And a reminder, these are all people who voted for Trump in 2024. Did they have a message that they would send the president?
LIASSON: Yes. They were asked to give the president advice. I want to play some of that. Here's Brandon, Jasmin and then Mark.
BRANDON: He should consult Congress first.
JASMIN: It seems like he makes decisions, like, very quickly without thinking a lot about it. So maybe just take time to think about it first.
MARK: I would just say, lay out a strategic vision. Like, what are we doing? It just seems very random.
LIASSON: So slow down, be more coherent. These voters had trouble understanding why the U.S. is at war because there have been shifting rationales. It makes them feel uneasy, creates a sense of chaos. And chaos and high prices combined are bad things for incumbents in a midterm election.
DETROW: NPR's Mara Liasson, thank you so much.
LIASSON: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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