Today's Poll Question: Is Continuing the War With Iran Worse Than Cutting Off Funding For It?

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Get ready to vote on today's daily poll question at smerconish.com.

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But first, Michael explains it for you right here.

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Welcome to The Smerconish Podcast from SiriusXM for Independent Minds.

**Michael Smerconish** (0:14)
Hello, hello, hi gang. Today is Wednesday, it's the 22nd of July, 2026 I'm surprised by yesterday's poll result. The margin, 29,673, just a tick under 30,000 voted. Should media outlets air live what an American president says will be a major address to the nation? 50.42 to 49.58 hardly matters, which was which, but I'll tell you, the yeses carried it by a razor's edge. Yes, media outlets should carry live what an American president says will be a major address to the nation. This, of course, a reflection of last Thursday night with President Trump.
You had broadcast outlets, ABC, NBC, not taking it CNN, not taking it live, CNN then commenting on it in real time.
I think you take it and then you comment. And I said that not only on POTUS, but I said it on CNN, and CNN posted my commentary on their website, which I thought was great, just showed an openness to disagreement and dialogue. The surprise of mine is that the votes don't reflect the calls and the vehement social media reaction, which was overwhelmingly negative to me for suggesting that you carry it live. In the poll question wording, I left out Donald Trump. Of course, I did that deliberately, because then it would have been a referendum on Trump, and I was trying to get people to think about the bigger picture issue here. Today's poll question, which is worse, continuing this war with Iran or cutting off the funding for it? Continue it or cutting off the funding? Which puts us in a worse position? More on that in a moment.

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This is The Smerconish Podcast from SiriusXM.

**Michael Smerconish** (2:03)
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The Daily Poll Question at smerconish.com.

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A non-scientific, social political question designed to spark broader discussions about current issues.

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Get ready to cast your ballot. And leave a rating and review of this podcast on your favorite podcast app.

**Michael Smerconish** (4:00)
So poll question, as I said, which is worse, continuing the war with Iran or cutting off the funding for it? Now, yesterday, Admiral Stavridis was my guest, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. We talked about Pickaxe Mountain because the Wall Street Journal had a story that said that Israeli intelligence believe Iran has moved thousands of uranium enrichment centrifuges into tunnels deep inside a mountain. They did it last fall. Israel has passed on this intel to the US. Interestingly, the strike that we initially made against Iran and the strike that began on February 28th avoided Pickaxe Mountain.
But in the last 10, 11 days where we've had continuous bombing, the president has repeatedly said that he's prepared to attack Pickaxe Mountain.

**James Stavridis** (4:49)
If these reports are true and Iran has, quote, thousands, unquote, of centrifuges inside Pickaxe, that's bad news in three different ways. Number one, Pickaxe is very, very hard granite. It is the most secure site that we know of, that the Iranians have. So it'll be very difficult to get at those centrifuges. Number two, we talk all the time, and we should, about the highly enriched thousand pounds of uranium that Iran possesses.