CBS News97%
Americans on Iran war's economic impact: "We're trying to stay afloat" 86%
4/17/2026, 1:19:19 AM
BS Summary: This video contains 30 faulty reasoning types, including Anecdotal, Availability Heuristic, and Biased Writer Voice, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 23.2% saturation with 180 hits. Analysis detected 1,158 faulty-reasoning hits from 775 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 78.6% and a BS Rank of 86% (2,499 of 16,813 videos). This video is worse (more manipulative) than 85.10% of the video peer group.
Everyone that I speak with is seeing a change.
It's People are struggling.
I just just had a half tank of gas and it was over $60.
And normally a full tank is about $60.
So you're getting half as much?
>> Getting half as much.
My check is getting smaller and smaller by the day.
Um yeah, it's just these diesel prices are out of control.
It's raising the prices fraudulently and it's not a war.
So I'm not sure what we're hoping to accomplish, but boy, something's happening.
Some of what Americans think about the conflict and its impact on the economy.
Although President Trump has said the war is close to being over and the operation has been a success.
Recent data finds Americans aren't completely convinced.
A CBS News poll conducted last week found the percentage of Americans who think the conflict is going well has fallen from March down to 41%.
The percentage of people who think it's going badly has risen to 59%.
CBS News national correspondent Lana Zak is in Davenport, Iowa where she's been talking to people.
Um you did those interviews.
What stuck out to you?
Hi there, Lindsey.
People are really tired of the uncertainty of all of it.
I hear over and over again from the people and I've been crisscrossing the state of Iowa talking to folks in small towns.
Many of those people were traveling all along I-80.
That's that major artery that connects the East and the West Coast.
So people who really have been struggling with the price of gas, they were telling me that they just feel like they continue to work as hard as ever and the economy and all these other factors just seem like they are set against them.
I'm going to play you a little bit of sound from a waitress in DeWitt, Iowa, Christiana Casaberry.
Here's what she had to say.
I have a little ones at home, so definitely um groceries very, very expensive.
We're trying to stay afloat.
She says that her advice to lawmakers is that they're trying to survive.
She just wants them to put things back to normal.
You know, she says she has the best, most loyal customers there in DeWitt, Iowa, but there are less people who are coming into the restaurant.
And even though they're continuing to provide good tips and she has she has good owners of that restaurant.
She says looking out for her that it just feels like they've been trying to get back to where they were before COVID.
And now it just seems like everything keeps pushing them back again and again.
And we're hearing that from people across the Midwest and in the middle class.
It's a real challenge.
I mean, that's one of the first things to go, right?
Is your your spending on eating out and those other things that are sort of ancillary.
Um I do wonder what people make of the messaging from the White House because we keep hearing long-term costs for short-term costs for long-term gains.
Are you finding, Lana, if we still have you that that people agree with that or is the messaging an issue?
And they don't really see how that works out for them.
They're they're seeing people in Washington who are talking about the importance of this, but it's much more pressing.
Their ability to fill up their gas tank to get to work.
It's particularly true in farming communities.
It's particularly true for truckers as you heard that truck driver tell me.
And I want to play a little bit of sound from Jolene Medic.
She was at that I-80 truck stop with me today and she volunteered how she felt about the war.
Nobody has said this is what we're trying to accomplish.
This is our goal.
We're trying to whatever it is, fig com defeat the bad guys.
It's fine.
Nobody said that.
And we don't even know what we're fighting about.
Why?
It wasn't declared.
It wasn't stated out in a sentence.
Nobody knows.
And that really that matches up with what we are hearing from our latest ABC News poll.
The question, have Americans had the mission, the objectives clearly explained to them?
34% of Americans say yes, but 66% agree with Jolene saying that they haven't really heard the reason why we're fighting this war, but they are seeing that the implications for them are higher prices and they're frustrated about that, Lindsey.
Lana Zak, we really appreciate your reporting.
Thank you.
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