The Republican Identity Crisis Over the Iran War

The war in Iran has created strong divisions among President Trump’s supporters. An anti-interventionist wing of the Republican coalition and some senior administration officials partial to Mr. Trump’s criticism of long overseas conflicts have quickly become uneasy about the war, which has shown no immediate signs of ending. Robert Draper, a domestic politics journalist for The New York Times based in Washington, discusses Mr. Trump’s justification for the war and whether he is explicitly violating a pact he made with his base not to start another. Guest: Robert Draper (https://www.nytimes.com/by/robert-draper) is a journalist based in Washington, D.C., who writes about domestic politics for The New York Times. Background reading: Joe Kent, a top U.S. counterterrorism official, resigns over the Iran war. (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/17/us...) High gas prices, driven up by the war, loom over the midterms. (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/21/us...) Photo: Eric Lee for The New York Times For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily (http://nytimes.com/thedaily?smid=pc-t...) . Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.  Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts (http://nytimes.com/podcasts) or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-acce.... For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.