The war President Donald Trump launched against Iran has reached a level of public disapproval once reserved for Vietnam, according to a new ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll that places 61 percent of Americans against the military operation. Only 36 percent now believe the use of force was justified – a figure that mirrors Gallup’s measurement of public sentiment toward Vietnam in 1971, when the conflict had already become a national trauma. This collapse in support, recorded during a fragile ceasefire in its fourth week, has not been matched by any shift in White House messaging. Speaking before the Forum Club of Palm Beach in Florida, Trump dismissed the polling as “bullshit,” insisting that all Americans agree Iran must not obtain nuclear weapons and declaring he would order the same operation again, whether it was “stupid” or “brave.”

Viewed from Washington, the political consequences are already cascading. Gasoline prices have soared to a four-year high, with the national average surpassing $4.39 per gallon, up 47 percent from pre-war levels. In California, drivers are paying over $6; in Florida, where Republican Senator Rick Scott acknowledged the shortages are “terrible,” he still argued the sacrifice was “worth it” for national security. The broader American public is less convinced. Half of those surveyed expect prices to rise further in the coming year, and four in ten say they are worse off financially than when Trump returned to the White House. Annual inflation has jumped to a near three-year peak, eroding what little economic optimism remained from the early months of his second term.

On Capitol Hill, the administration’s defensive posture has become increasingly strained. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, during a contentious appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee, insisted that “the American people are quite smart” and that they support the war – a claim flatly contradicted by every major poll. Among Republican officials, the public bravado masks a private reckoning. One White House aide, granted anonymity to speak candidly, admitted to MSNBC: “We know we are already cooked in the midterms.” That assessment appears borne out by a parallel drop in Trump’s approval ratings and a growing sense among voters that the party is offering backward-looking defenses of its record rather than answers about grocery bills, fuel costs, and a conflict with no clear exit. Analysts in London note that the administration has resorted to three rhetorical tactics: rewriting the recent past, blaming media spin, and insisting that any short-term pain is justified by long-term security. Yet as the Vietnam parallel suggests, public patience with a costly foreign war, absent a visible endgame, erodes faster than any White House narrative can repair. The midterm elections, now less than a year away, may well serve as the first definitive verdict on whether that calculation holds.