Ahead of his decision to bomb three of Iran’s nuclear facilities, President Donald Trump watched Fox News as guests on the network urged him to join the Israeli bombing campaign of the country, according to The New York Times.
Trump’s inner circle was monitoring how the president’s top supporters were reacting on social media to the possibility that the United States would enter the conflict. Aides were following former Fox News host and podcaster Tucker Carlson, who is strongly opposed to striking Iran. Trump has publicly and privately raged at Carlson’s remarks.
The president’s advisers reportedly shared notes on public and private polling on the popularity of strikes against Iran, noting that support among Americans partly depends on how pollsters posed the question. Most Americans didn’t want Iran to get a nuclear weapon, but a significant majority were also against the country going to war.
Trump was closely watching the comments made by hosts and guests on Fox News, which was broadcasting nothing but support for the Israeli strikes against Iran and included guests pushing for Trump to get involved. A number of presidential advisers reportedly complained that Carlson was no longer appearing on Fox, meaning that the television-obsessed Trump wasn’t hearing one of the most prominent right-wing voices arguing against attacking Iran.
A top military official said Trump and his public statements were the “biggest threat” to operational security as the president appeared to be telegraphing what was coming, according to The Times.
“Everyone should evacuate Tehran!” he wrote on Truth Social on Monday last week. The next day, he said he wasn’t departing a G7 meeting in Canada to work on a ceasefire between Iran and Israel but instead to work on something “much bigger.”
“Stay tuned!” he added.
Such public announcements caused consternation at the Pentagon and at U.S. Central Command, with military planners concerned that Trump was giving Iran too much notice that an attack was imminent.
They created their own feint as part of the attack plan, with a second group of B-2 bombers heading west over the Pacific Ocean on Saturday in a manner that would allow flight trackers to document their journey, creating a mistaken impression among some about the timing and direction from which the attack would come.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the paper that the administration “successfully accomplished one of the most complex and historic military operations of all time” and that “many presidents have talked about this, but only President Trump had the guts to do it.”
The strikes against Iran have fractured the MAGA coalition, with some of Trump’s staunchest supporters calling out the president for doing what he said on the campaign trail he would not.
Carlson slammed Texas Senator Ted Cruz in an interview ahead of the U.S. strikes, criticizing him for his lack of knowledge about the country he was advocating for attacking.
“How many people live in Iran, by the way?” Carlson asked.
“I don’t know the population at all,” said Cruz.
“You don’t know the population of the country you seek to topple?” Carlson pressed.
Carlson quizzed Cruz on everything from Iran’s ethnic makeup to his interpretations of the Bible.
“You don’t know anything about Iran,” said Carlson.
Meanwhile, Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said on Real America’s Voice that she “didn’t sleep better after neo-cons and war mongers talked this administration into entering a hot war that Israel started.”
“I spent millions of my own money and TRAVELED THE ENTIRE COUNTRY campaigning for President Trump and his MAGA agenda and his promises,” she wrote on X.
“And Trump’s MAGA agenda included these key promises: NO MORE FOREIGN WARS. NO MORE REGIME CHANGE. WORLD PEACE. And THIS is what the people voted for,” she added.
“Only 6 months in and we are back into foreign wars, regime change, and world war 3,” Greene said.
“When two countries are bombing each other daily in a hot war, and a third country joins the bombing, that’s an act of war,” wrote Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie. “I’m amazed at the mental gymnastics being undertaken by neocons in DC (and their social media bots) to say we aren’t at war… so they can make war.”
On Monday, Iran launched its first retaliatory strike in response to Trump’s bombings, targeting a U.S. military installation in Qatar. No casualties or injuries were reported.
Trump called the “expected” missile strikes a “very weak response.”
“Most importantly, they’ve gotten it all out of their ‘system,’ and there will, hopefully, be no further HATE,” he added. “Perhaps Iran can now proceed to Peace and Harmony in the Region, and I will enthusiastically encourage Israel to do the same.”