Is Donald Trump still the “no new wars” president? A good chunk of MAGAworld seems to think otherwise.
As Iran and Israel trade missile salvos and analysts repeatedly raise the prospect of direct U.S. involvement in the burgeoning conflict, the isolationist wing of Donald Trump’s coalition increasingly seems to be feeling left in the dust.
They’re beginning to voice their displeasure at that new reality.
On Monday, two of Trump’s biggest populist conservative backers — Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson — were in Washington. They sat down for a chat on the issue of Israel and Iran, during which Carlson laid out a view he has enunciated before, though with less urgency. Marjorie Taylor Greene, another vocal Trump ally in Congress, dumped on the prospect of U.S. intervention last week, and again on Monday.
“A full-scale war with Iran, would end, I believe, Trump’s presidency, effectively end it,” warned the former Fox host.
He urged that Trump embrace the kind of tough talk that even the Biden administration, with its much frostier relationship with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, would not say publicly.
“I think this can be stopped,” said Carlson. “But it’s going to require a really tough step which is to say to our client state which is to say, ‘We love you, we want to help you, we don’t think you’re acting in your own interest.”
“We’re not going to … imperil American national security, the American economy, or America itself on your behalf,” he continued.
The president did not take kindly to Carlson making his point known publicly.
“I don’t know what Tucker Carlson is saying. Let him go get a television network and say it so that people listen,” the president remarked to reporters on the sidelines of the G7 in Canada.
He followed up in a Truth Social post Monday evening: “Somebody please expain to kooky Tucker Carlson that, “IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON.”
Carlson’s ideological and personal differences with Trump aside, from a strategic point of view he’s likely correct that the direct involvement of U.S. armed forces in a war with Iran would sap a great deal of whatever political capital the administration can spend before the midterms — a worrying prospect for Republicans who are still trying to pass a major package of tax cut extensions and border security funding through the congressional budget reconciliation process. Combined with a possible Democratic takeover of Congress at the end of 2026, the Iran conflict could end up impeding Trump’s domestic agenda.
The president surprised many in his coalition last week when he announced that the U.S. was supporting the Israeli military operation aimed at targeting key officials and facilities related to Iran’s nuclear weapons program and military command structure. Trump had previously confirmed that he urged Israel not to take such action to avoid blowing up negotiations taking place between Washington and Tehran.
Reports suggested that the president’s shift in posture came after the administration concluded that the Iranian nuclear weapons program was active.
But Fox News and other journalists have pushed for evidence to back up that assertion, given that Trump’s intelligence director testified to Congress earlier this year that the program was not active. Israeli officials and their U.S. counterparts have not released any evidence to support the claim that the program was resumed or remained active over the past two decades.
An Iranian dissident group, the NCRI/MEK, claimed at a news briefing last week to have determined otherwise and laid out what the group said its sources inside Iran identified as facilities key to weapons development programs.
Meanwhile, there are signs that the administration’s sudden shift towards an interventionist foreign policy is isolating more than just the hardcore MAGA populists aligned with the president.
Opposition to U.S. involvement seems to be quickly seeping through other parts of the 2024 Trump coalition. Dave Smith, a comic with a cult following among America’s capital-L Libertarians, apologized on camera for his support of the president in the last election during an interview Monday on Breaking Points, a favorite political podcast/newscast for left and right anti-establishment types.
And Tim Dillon, another comic who, like Smith, has appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience, unleashed a rant of his own this weekend in response to Kemi Badenoch’s statement of support for Israel’s “proxy war” against Tehran and other targets.
“This is the craziest sh*t I’ve ever heard,” Dillon said on his own podcast. “What is she talking about?”
“Is Iran the reason that no one can afford a house? Is Iran the reason that there’s fentanyl everywhere?” Dillon asked.
It remains to be seen if U.S. support for the Israeli war effort will evolve further. A U.S. carrier group, the USS Nimitz strike group, was headed to the Middle East “ahead of schedule”, Fox News reported on Monday.
It seems almost implausible, given Trump’s record with his subordinates and various allies, that the U.S. president would allow Israel’s prime minister to endanger his second-term agenda in such a way. But the dissolution of U.S. negotiations with Iran could also force him into a corner if de-escalation isn’t achieved and Iran begins targeting U.S. forces in retaliation.
