WSJ What’s News - The Iran War Threatens to Split Trump’s Base

Episode Date: March 19, 2026

P.M. Edition for Mar. 19. Earlier this week, Joe Kent resigned as the White House's chief counterterrorism officer because he opposes the Iran war. WSJ White House correspondent Natalie Andrews discusses how that’s exposing a fault line within President Trump’s base. Plus, new proposals introduced today by the Federal Reserve would let America’s biggest banks hold billions of dollars less in capital on their books, a win for the banks. And we hear from Journal tech reporter Rolfe Winkler about how Apple, which is behind in AI, still earned hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue last year from it. Alex Ossola hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a victory for big banks, Trump regulators have proposed allowing them to reduce the capital buffers they hold for times of stress. Plus, some in Trump's base are against the war in Iran, a fault line that could have implications for future elections. These folks will have a role in choosing the candidate in 2028. And so if these folks get dissatisfied with Trump, it is something worth watching. And a new survey suggests that millions of Americans are going without health insurance after expired subsidies sent premiums soaring. It's Thursday, March 19th. I'm Alex O'SAlef for the Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today.

The Federal Reserve today introduced proposals that would let Americans. America's biggest banks hold billions of dollars less in capital on their books. The plan eases rules put in place after the 2008 financial crisis that were meant to help shield against meltdowns. Officials say the changes would make it easier for banks to lend and help the economy. The proposals, if they're enacted, would be a big victory for banks. Wall Street has embraced the second Trump administration largely out of hope that it would scrap stricter requirements that were proposed under President Biden. In tech news, we're exclusively reporting that Jeff Bezos is in early talks to raise $100 billion for a new fund. It aims to buy manufacturing companies and use AI to accelerate their path to automation.

The Amazon founder is meeting with some of the world's largest asset managers to raise money for the project. It would be one of the biggest buyout funds in the world and rival SoftBank's $100 billion tech-focused vision fund. And Apple looks like it could top $1 billion in AI revenue this year. If you're an Apple user, that might be surprising because the company's Siri chatbot is considered weak by modern AI standards. WSJ reporter Rolf Winkler told our tech news briefing podcast that the company's clear AI advantage is the iPhone. Companies in order to sell subscriptions in order to reach consumers, they have to go through the iPhone. Really, that's a primary way to reach people who want to use chat GPT, who want to use GROC, who want to use Gemini. These tools are all being distributed on the iPhone.

And the reason Apple makes money is because of the Apple tax, the fee. You pay Apple to sell subscriptions when you're on an iPhone, right? If I buy a subscription into an app, that company is paying typically roughly 30% of what I'm paying to them. They kick back to Apple. So for all of last year, Apple itself, the fee they raked in from these apps was around $900 million, according to App Magic. Rolf says Apple does have plans to boost its own AI. The conventional wisdom, which is not wrong, is Apple is way behind an AI. The main thing they're doing is they're going to bring out a better Siri this year.

And if they can do that, if they have a smart personal assistant that really uses the data you have on your phone, then that could be the first time a lot of, you know, civilians, non-techies, are using AI in a real way. To hear more from Rolfe, listen to tomorrow's episode of Tech News. briefing. U.S.S. indexes ended the day slightly lower, with the Dow leading the losses and closing down 0.4%. Stocks recovered from deeper declines after President Trump said he wouldn't, quote, put troops anywhere when asked about moving forces toward Iran. He also said that he told Israel not to attack oil and gas fields in Iran. Attacks on Middle East energy facilities have raised fears of a full-blown energy crisis. That sent Brent crude futures above $119 a barrel today. They later paired some gains and settled below $109. Average U.S. costs for gasoline

surged to $3.88 a gallon, their highest since 2022. And gold sank for the sixth time in the past seven trading days, losing nearly 6% today alone, while silver dropped more than 8%. The Trump administration is planning to ask Congress for hundreds of billions of dollars in funding to pay for its military campaign against Iran. A senior administration officials said that the Pentagon has asked the White House to seek an additional $200 billion. The request is expected to face a rocky path in Congress. Lawmakers in both parties said today that they wanted to see more details of the proposal. Trump administration officials have refused to put a timeline on the war. From the conflict itself to how it's going over on the right. We told you earlier this week about

Joe Kent resigning as the White House's chief counterterrorism officer because he's opposes the Iran war. Most of Trump's base has backed the president and his operation in Iran, but Kent resigning and in such a public way has exposed a fault line among the right. Journal White House correspondent Natalie Andrews joins me now to talk about the divide in Maga World and what it could mean for the midterms. Natalie, who are those on the right who opposed the Trump administration's operation in Iran and what is their argument? This is a growing group. It's a loud group. They are podcasters, Tucker Carlson, who has visited the White House just a few weeks ago, has a podcast hosted Kent for his first big public interview on Wednesday night.

These are folks who are saying Donald Trump didn't run on getting into foreign conflicts and here we are engaged in a foreign conflict. And who is pushing back against this anti-war contingent? The White House, for one, says that they are not engaging in some sort of long-term conflict. They often talk about this in weeks and they say that this is a matter of national. security. Donald Trump over the weekend praised Mark Levin, a Fox commentator who's been defending Trump and calling for strikes in Iran. Donald Trump weighed in to the back and forth that he was having with a former Fox News host and now podcaster Megan Kelly, who herself has been skeptical of the war. She said, this is not our war. This is Israel's war. This shouldn't be a U.S. war. This has been

something that's been bubbling among the MAGA base for a while. Because when you run, on being America first. Part of the MAGA platform is why are we giving away so much foreign aid? Why are we doing this for other countries? So then when folks start looking at how the U.S. and Israel relationship is close, it has raised questions among the MAGA base on, you know, why is the U.S. listening so much to Israel? Why do they help Israel? And these are folks who have platforms and they are asking those questions. Beyond this sort of vocal group, as you're saying, How widespread is this anti-war view among the right sort of broadly? Right now, conservatives are really sticking with Donald Trump.

Polls show that people who identify as Republicans are supportive of the conflict in Iran. Now, when you mix in Democrats, the support for the conflict goes down and you can see how, say, swing voters, who can be instrumental in the midterms, won't love a long conflict. survey respondents really don't want to see boots on the ground. They don't want to see Congress spend a lot of money. They don't want to see the U.S. engage in something that's going to be deemed long term. The right has been pretty unified behind Trump for some time now. Does this foreshadow a bigger split among his base? These podcasters have been credited by Trump himself for helping him in 2024.

He talks about going on podcasters that aren't necessarily partisan like Theo Vaughn and Rogan. And those folks gave him a wider audience. A lot of men who may not come out to vote that they like to call low propensity voters. These folks will have a role in choosing the candidate in 28. And so if these folks get dissatisfied with Trump, it is something worth watching. That was WSJ White House correspondent, Natalie Andrews. Coming up, the U.S. intelligence community has a new view on China invading Taiwan, and what a lack of electricity in Cuba could mean for the country's communist government. That's after the break. The U.S. intelligence community has concluded that China isn't likely to invade Taiwan by next year,

and then instead Beijing would prefer to take control of the island without resorting to force. The finding is a shift from past U.S. warnings that an invasion could happen by 27, a deadline that has fueled a sense of urgency in Washington and Taiwan to sharpen their strategies and invest in their arsenals. Earlier this week, Cuba's electric grid collapsed, and the country's government is struggling to restore power. Authorities didn't know when the full grid would come back online. Most of Cuba's electricity generation system relies on oil, and the Trump administration's blockade on oil shipments to Cuba has led to unrest on the island and pressure on its

communist regime. WSJ National Security reporter, Vera Bergen-Gruin, joins us now. Vera, what is the situation on the ground in Cuba? Cuba has been struggling for years with these periodic blackouts, but what we're seeing now, there is no electricity. Most of the island is completely dark. And for people who are living with this, I mean, they just don't know when they're going to get even a little bit of power to get water,

to be able to go by food. Public transportation is ground to a halt. People can't really go to their jobs. they're living on reduced salaries. Kids aren't going to school. So daily life, as they knew it, is really completely ground to a halt there now. Protests on the island have been going on for some time

and are now intensifying. What kinds of concessions is the government looking to make to appease its citizens or at least relieve some of this pressure? We've seen the government signal that they're open to some economic reforms and they're partly doing this to show that they are willing to negotiate with the United States.

They're willing to give some economic concessions allowing Cuban Americans outside of the island to invest there, to open businesses there. None of that's really possible under the current U.S. sanctions. So they're offering things that would force the United States to remove some of its own current legal restrictions in order to inject some money into this economy. But all of that for now is basically a fantasy. What they don't want to give is what the Trump administration is asking for, which is obviously political change.

But the Cuban government is talking to the country. the Trump administration, right? The Cuban government has confirmed that they're negotiating with the United States. It sounds quite different from the U.S. side and the Cuban side. The Cuban side is coming at it from a place of reassuring their people that they are still in full control, that they're not being pushed around or bullied by the United States. Of course, the United States is basically saying, we are going to get our way there. And we saw President Trump talk about taking Cuba. That is language that makes it very difficult for the Cuban government to be seen as working with the United States. I'm glad you brought up President Trump's comments because that rhetoric has really ramped up recently.

How does the Trump administration see what's going on in the island now? U.S. officials, they repeat one point over and over again, which is the Cuban government is at the weakest point it's ever been, which is why they want to take this opportunity to basically topple it or squeeze it of all of its resources and hope that they capitulate. But it's important to remember who the main drivers are here, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who of course is Cuban-American. other Cuban Americans in Congress and other positions of power. And for them, they want the entire repressive structure to be dismantled. They want the entire economy to be redone. Quite maximalist demands. Whereas Trump himself just seems to want to add this to his legacy. And he wants to be the person that, you know, gets rid of this regime and replaces it with something. But that something is what we really

don't know. There doesn't seem to be a defined plan for what would come after. That was WSJ reporter, Vera Bergen-Gruin. Thanks, Vera. Thank you. Closer to home, nearly one in ten people who had Affordable Care Act plans last year have dropped health insurance altogether after premium costs rose sharply when federal subsidies expired. Most of those who still had ACA plans said they were paying bigger out-of-pocket health care expenses. That's according to a new survey of more than 1,100 people pulled by Health Research Nonprofit KFF. The survey is the broadest look yet at the fallout from the end of enhanced ACA subsidies, which lapsed at the start of this year.

And that's what's news for this Thursday afternoon. Today's show is produced by Pierre Biennamee with supervising producer Tali Arbell. I'm Alex O'Sullough for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back by the new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.