Why has Trump's popularity reached its lowest level?

What he says

An English translation of the talk, which is in Persian. It was made with AI from YouTube's automatic captions and may contain errors; the Persian transcript is authoritative. Click a timestamp to jump to that part of the video.

0:01 Hello. Monday, 9 Shahrivar 1405, August 31, 2026. The IRGC Navy has announced that it will use Fajr-5 rockets, with a caliber of 333 millimeters, in such a way that instead of conventional warheads they will carry naval mines. They will be fired from the coast into sea areas, and in this way hundreds of mines can be deployed in the water within one hour. It was also stated that two mines striking a

0:54 Saudi oil tanker caused a fire and disabled it. CENTCOM, the US military's command in the Middle East, has of course denied this and said no mine has struck any oil tanker. On the other hand, last night, Sunday night, the US attacked Larak, Larak Island, and apparently it attacked precisely the launch station for these very mines. According to Tasnim, three people have been killed in that attack so far, and the number of wounded has not been announced. Iran, for its part, retaliated by attacking the UAE, where it says there is an air base,

1:55 a US base, and by attacking two US bases in Jordan. The UAE has said it shot down Iran's drone in the air, and Jordan also maintains that it intercepted all of them, the missiles, and did not let them hit, whereas Mr. Trump himself said that because we knew one missile would hit a place of no value, we ourselves let it get through the defenses, and it struck. In any case, Mr. Trump also said today in an interview with Fox News that tonight he will retaliate for this Iranian attack on the UAE and Jordan.

2:51 He also emphasized that we will retaliate with great force. These very clashes in the Strait of Hormuz pushed the oil price back into the 90-dollar range. North Sea oil rose about three percent, to over 90 dollars, and for some hours it even reached 93 dollars. In Iran, the price of the dollar on the open market reached 209,000 tomans today, and at certain hours it even hit 212,000 tomans. So it can be seen that once again the conflict and tension

3:45 may escalate, and this state of "no war, no peace," which has practically overshadowed everything, especially in Iran, has repeated itself once again. We must wait and see where the US will attack tonight, according to Mr. Trump, and then what Iran, which will presumably want to retaliate, will do, and in short, how far this tension-for-tension will go. What is certain is that at the Shanghai summit, which is underway in Kyrgyzstan with the heads of 15 countries attending, Mr. Pezeshkian of Iran, who has held meetings with the presidents

4:40 of Azerbaijan and with the prime ministers of India and Pakistan, emphasized that this state of no war, no peace, and the war itself, was not wanted by Iran, not wanted by the countries of the region. Mediators such as Qatar, Pakistan and others are also making great efforts to put out this fire again and not let it intensify. But the Islamic Republic's execution machine once again wants to claim victims. In Isfahan, death sentences were issued today for 10 defendants in the case known as the Isfahan Shohada Square case, and

5:38 six others were sentenced to heavy prison terms of up to 30 years. What happened in Isfahan's Shohada Square is that two people were killed, one of whom, according to government officials, was an IRGC member and the other an ordinary, homeless person. In connection with this case, which Mahdieh Mahmoudian has covered on the Telegram channel Khabarane, a woman among the defendants said she was raped at the start of her arrest, and one of the defendants also exposed in court the torture and the confessions extracted under torture. In the same Isfahan, in the Alikhani Square case, as many as five people have been executed, and a number of

6:37 others are also facing death sentences. So far in 2026, 980 executions have been reported in Iran, and in 2025 Amnesty International recorded at least 2,159 executions in Iran. Interestingly, it stated that in that same year the total number of executions in the world was 2,707, including Iran. Of course, this figure excludes China, because China treats its execution figures as classified and they are not published. That is,

7:26 if we subtract Iran's number from the world's, 548 people were executed in the entire world in 2025, while in Iran alone 2,159 people were executed. That is, just under four times the number of executions in the rest of the world, excluding China of course, took place in Iran alone. This execution machine, which never stops and which also includes prisoners of conscience and political prisoners, though it also claims victims among drug offenders, murderers and the like, is an issue that has drawn the world's attention. 30

8:19 countries recently signed a joint statement expressing concern about Iran and calling on Iran to stop these executions. Mr. Mohseni-Ejei, the head of the judiciary, at today's meeting of the Supreme Judicial Council, once again, perhaps for the second or third time, resorted to threats, saying that protesters will be dealt with harshly and violently. Mr. Mohseni-Ejei, like some other officials of the country, or like the statement issued by the IRGC Intelligence Organization, is in fact engaging in a preemptive escape forward. The economic problems that are pushing people

9:12 to the brink, and the deep stagflation that has engulfed the country and is getting worse day by day and may be followed by protests and public discontent, they are preemptively blaming on being an American plot, an Israeli plot, a conspiracy of enemies. And they are baring their teeth and claws, so that if people protest because of poverty, hunger, unemployment, economic hardship and helplessness in meeting the simplest needs, for their own survival and that of their families, they will crush them on the pretext that these are, say, the Americans' plot or Israel's plot, the enemies' plot. And in this way, this escape forward is laying the groundwork for baring their teeth and claws

10:12 at the people. Whereas instead of seeking solutions and instead of solving the country's problems, first and foremost this pointless and absurd war that has embroiled the country for six months, and putting an end to it, and then dealing with the country's corrupt, the oligarchy that has not returned more than 100 billion dollars from smuggled oil sales, and the enormous wealth that the Leader and the IRGC organizations and others have stolen from the people's table, with more than seventy or eighty percent of the country's economy circulating through institutions that belong to them, instead of addressing the problems, which requires going down these paths,

11:13 they constantly threaten the people with killing, execution, repression, prison, torture and so on. Mr. Trump's approval rating, in the third consecutive Reuters/Ipsos poll, which they conduct from time to time, has stayed at 33 percent for three consecutive rounds. That is the lowest approval rating, lower even than Mr. Biden's lowest approval, which had reached 35 percent, and it is not budging from there. As for the reason for this decline in Mr. Trump's approval, which was above 47 percent at the beginning of his term, down to 33 and not budging from there,

12:11 the economy is said to be at the top of the problems: inflation in America, high prices, the problems caused by the games Mr. Trump has played with tariffs, the problem of jobs and unemployment, and so on and so forth. And after that, dissatisfaction with his management of the Persian Gulf war with Iran, and the issue of this war being fruitless and of Mr. Trump's unjustified entry into this war. 71 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the management of this war and considered it unnecessary. With hope for the victory of Iran and Iranians.