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The MAGA movement usually displays remarkable unity in attacking the left. But Israel’s military assault on Iran has splintered President Donald Trump’s coalition, as rival factions fight over the true meaning of an “America First” foreign policy.
Right-wing figures have descended into vicious debate over whether the White House should take a more active role in Israel’s bombardment of Iran—one that, with American help, could dismantle Tehran’s nuclear program or even lead to regime change. Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, and other isolationist voices are demanding that Trump stay out of another Middle Eastern war. Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and other more hawkish conservatives are making the case that there has never been—and may never again be—a better time to take on Iran. That same split has surfaced among Republicans on Capitol Hill. Senator Lindsey Graham and others are pushing Trump to help Israel destroy Tehran’s nuclear program, a goal of American presidents dating back decades. Meanwhile, MAGA luminaries such as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene have declared that further U.S. involvement would betray the president’s “America First” ideals.
Both sides in MAGA world have furiously lobbied Trump in recent days, and the president is very aware of the competing interests in his base, a White House official and an outside adviser told us. Trump initially opposed Israel’s plan to strike Iran last week. But after briefings from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as Trump’s own staff, the president came around to staying out of Israel’s way while helping it defend itself from Tehran’s counterattack. Now that Israel’s initial wave of strikes has proved a remarkable success, Trump has embraced the attacks, offering more support. He cut short his time at the G7 summit in Canada to return to Washington last night and ominously suggested that Tehran, a city of 10 million people, be evacuated immediately, sparking rumors that the U.S. was about to decisively enter the conflict.
The White House denied those reports and said that the U.S. military was remaining in a defensive posture. But part of Trump’s thinking is that such threats may scare Iran back to the negotiating table, the White House official and two other administration officials told us. (We granted them and others interviewed for this story anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.) The president now believes that Israel’s bombardment could push the Iranian regime, fearful for its survival, to re-engage with a U.S. proposal to abandon its nuclear-enrichment program, the officials said.
Trump will have to decide whether to fully join the conflict by authorizing the use of massive American bunker-buster bombs, of the sort needed to destroy Iran’s underground facilities. One of the officials told us that the weapons are “leverage” for Trump, who hopes to revive talks in the days ahead. Another person familiar with the discussions surrounding Trump’s hasty return from the G7 said defense officials were preparing options for the president.
“I’m not looking for a cease-fire. We’re looking at better than a cease-fire,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on the flight back to Washington last night, adding that he wanted “a real end” to the conflict between Iran and Israel and a “complete give-up” by Iran of its nuclear ambitions. Trump has grown frustrated that the Iranians did not accept his administration’s most recent offer for a deal. “But remember, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. “It’s very simple. We don’t have to go too deep into it.”
[Read: What Trump knew about the attack against Iran]
Vice President J. D. Vance, part of the GOP’s isolationist wing, published a long post on X today that praised Trump’s reluctance to commit American troops to combat and said, “People are right to be worried about foreign entanglement after the last 25 years of idiotic foreign policy.” But the post read like a justification for potential military involvement, noting that Trump “may decide he needs to take further action to end Iranian enrichment. That decision ultimately belongs to the president.”
Trump has pulled back from striking Iran before. In June 2019, after Iran’s military shot down an American surveillance drone over the Strait of Hormuz, Trump authorized a retaliatory attack. But military officials were blindsided when, just minutes before the attack was to begin, the president called it off, citing potential Iranian casualties.
A few months later, after Trump ordered a drone strike that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, the MAGA movement’s fracture over Iran began to show. When Carlson hosted the 8 p.m. hour on Fox News, he advocated restraint in dealing with Iran and warned about the dangers of escalation. An hour later on the same network, Hannity struck a wildly different tone, reveling in Trump’s strike and suggesting that Tehran could be hit with the full power of the American military.
Trump was close to both men, who each knew that often the best way to deliver a message to the commander in chief was through the televisions that he faithfully watched in the White House residence or in the private dining area off the Oval Office. That time around, in January 2020, Carlson’s messaging on Fox over several days—and a private phone call with the president—won out: Trump decided not to ratchet up the standoff with Iran.
Just before Israel’s attack last week, Carlson, who was terminated from Fox in 2023, went on social media and blamed conservative voices—including former colleagues and employers—for trying to stoke a war. “Who are the warmongers? They would include anyone who’s calling Donald Trump today to demand air strikes and other direct US military involvement in a war with Iran,” Carlson wrote in a post on X. “On that list: Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Rupert Murdoch, Ike Perlmutter and Miriam Adelson. At some point they will all have to answer for this, but you should know their names now.”
Carlson then appeared yesterday on Bannon’s podcast to urge Trump to stay away from the conflict and “drop” Netanyahu. Carlson also suggested that the president was “complicit” in Israel’s attacks, a charge that did not sit well with Trump when he was asked about it yesterday at the G7 summit. “I don’t know what Tucker Carlson is saying,” Trump said in response to a reporter’s question. “Let him go get a television network and say it so people listen.”
Carlson in particular has targeted Levin, who met with Trump last week and made the case that Iran was close to developing a nuclear weapon, one of the administration officials told us. After Carlson accused Levin on X of agitating for Trump to bomb Iran, the radio host hit back on his Friday show, saying, “You’re a reckless and deceitful propagandist, and that’s the best I can say. You promote anti-Semitism and conspiracy nuts. You slobber all over some of the most evil people on earth.” (Levin also responded to Carlson on social media: “Hey thug. I never said to the President that American forces should bomb Iran. The leaker who is feeding you is a liar.”)
[Read: Iran’s stunning incompetence]
In Congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene used similar language to attack those pushing for U.S. involvement: “Anyone slobbering for the U.S. to become fully involved in the Israel/Iran war is not America First/MAGA,” she wrote on X, adding that staying out of foreign entanglements is “what many Americans voted for in 2024.” Trump, in an interview with The Atlantic last week, made clear he believes that he “decides” what “America First” means.
Some in Trump’s orbit have pushed him to take advantage of Tehran’s weakness at the moment; Tehran proxies Hamas and Hezbollah are badly diminished, and Israel managed to wipe out much of Iran’s senior military leadership in its attacks over the past several days. Lindsey Graham, a longtime Iran hawk, has called on the president to aid Israel in recent days, and made a similar pitch on television last night. “Be all in, President Trump, in helping Israel eliminate the nuclear threat. If we need to provide bombs to Israel, provide bombs. If we need to fly planes with Israel, do joint operations,” Graham said during an appearance—where else?—on Hannity’s show. “But here’s the bigger question: Wouldn’t the world be better off if the Ayatollahs went away and were replaced by something better?”
Other members of the MAGA movement have taken sides, and not always predictably. Laura Loomer, the conspiracy theorist who has advised Trump on national security in the past, backed Levin. Charlie Kirk and Jack Posobiec have pushed diplomacy. A former U.S. official close to members of the current administration played down the war of words: “This is the battle of the podcast hosts.” This person predicted that the competing influence efforts would ultimately have little sway on the president. “What Trump said is, ‘It’s my decision,’” the former official said. “I think that’s right.”
In a social-media post yesterday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that he had ordered additional military assets sent to the Middle East, a move he said was intended to strengthen America’s “defensive posture” and protect U.S. troops in the region. In recent days, the U.S. has moved guided missile destroyers closer to Israel and accelerated the previously planned movement of the aircraft carrier Nimitz from Asia to the Middle East. The Air Force has also dispatched a fleet of refueling aircraft to Europe, positioning them closer to the region. Trump posted on social media today, “We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran”—the word we seemingly claiming partial ownership of an operation conducted by Israeli forces using some American-made equipment.
For months, Trump has been pushing for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear-enrichment crisis—a problem his critics believe he caused when, in 2018, he backed out of the agreement that had been brokered by Barack Obama. Trump’s diplomatic envoy, Steve Witkoff, told confidants this spring he believed that a deal was possible; the administration’s latest proposal would allow Iran to procure enriched nuclear fuel from outside the country but not to enrich it on Iranian soil. And Trump blocked Netanyahu from a strike on Iran in April. But the president’s top advisers, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Dan Caine, briefed him last week that Israel believed Iran was on the brink of developing a weapon and was determined to strike. Netanyahu delivered the same message in a call with Trump early last week, and Trump grew resigned to the strike, offering Israel limited military support—intelligence sharing, as well as American air-defense systems and a Navy destroyer to help shoot down incoming ballistic missiles—even as he still hoped for a diplomatic solution.
The U.S. intelligence community has assessed that Iran is not trying to build a nuclear weapon, and that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has not lifted the suspension he placed on the weapons program in 2003. But pressure from hard-line elements in the regime has built on him to change course so that Iran is better able to deter Israel and the United States. Khamenei has the final say on whether Iran builds a weapon. In congressional testimony in March, Trump’s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, shared the intelligence community’s analysis, which has remained essentially the same for years. Experts have debated how quickly Iran could construct a nuclear device able to be delivered to a target of its choice. This morning, CNN reported that Iran is up to three years away from achieving that goal, according to U.S. intelligence analysis, a stark contrast with Israeli estimates.
[Read: Israel’s bold, risky attack]
In his remarks aboard Air Force One after leaving the G7 meeting, Trump dismissed Gabbard’s position altogether: “I don’t care what she said. I think they were very close to having them,” he said.
Instead, Trump has suggested that he might look elsewhere for guidance. This morning he posted a lengthy text he’d received from U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who said that God had spared Trump from last summer’s assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, so he could become the “most consequential President in a century—maybe ever.” Huckabee wrote that no president in his lifetime “has been in a position like yours. Not since Truman in 1945,” an apparent reference to Harry Truman’s decision to drop a pair of atomic bombs on Japan to end World War II.
“You did not seek this moment,” Huckabee wrote. “This moment sought YOU!”
Shane Harris and Missy Ryan contributed reporting.
Article originally published at The Atlantic
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