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<\/a><\/p>\nTucker Carlson, U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), U.S. President Donald Trump, then Sen. J.D. Vance R-OH) appear at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 15, 2024. (Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
That\u2019s the question upending the MAGA movement this week as several of its most prominent figures \u2014 including Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene \u2014 have raised varying levels of alarm over U.S. support for Israel\u2019s attacks on Iran and the potential of direct U.S. involvement.<\/p>\n
That potential seemed to be increasing on Tuesday as Trump held a lengthy Situation Room meeting with top advisors about the Israel-Iran conflict. Ahead of the meeting, multiple people close to the situation told Axios they believed Trump was leaning toward entering the conflict, and in a series of Truth Social posts before going into the meeting, Trump himself signaled that he now saw the conflict, which he public discouraged before its start, as his own.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran,\u201d he wrote, adding, \u201cNobody does it better than the good ol\u2019 USA.\u201d He ended the messages with two words: \u201cUNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier this week Trump had already swung back against the isolationists with a social media post urging \u201csomebody please explain to kooky Tucker Carlson that, \u2018IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Greene quickly came to Carlson\u2019s defense. \u201cForeign wars\/intervention\/regime change put America last, kill innocent people, are making us broke, and will ultimately lead to our destruction,\u201d she posted to X. \u201cThat\u2019s not kooky. That\u2019s what millions of Americans voted for. It\u2019s what we believe is America First.\u201d<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t matter what anyone thinks, Trump told The Atlantic\u2019s Michael Scherer: Only he gets a say in what qualifies as \u201cAmerica First.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, considering that I\u2019m the one that developed \u2018America First,\u2019 and considering that the term wasn\u2019t used until I came along, I think I\u2019m the one that decides that,\u201d Trump reportedly said. \u201cFor those people who say they want peace \u2014 you can\u2019t have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon. So for all of those wonderful people who don\u2019t want to do anything about Iran having a nuclear weapon \u2014 that\u2019s not peace.\u201d<\/p>\n
However ahistorical Trump\u2019s claims of authorship, the president unquestionably reinvigorated the term and brought it back into the political mainstream. But that isn\u2019t dissuading or deterring the likes of Carlson, a fan of Henry Ford, the most prominent early leader of the America First Committee that staunchly opposed the entry of the United States into World War II. (Ford was later joined on the committee by Charles Lindbergh.)<\/p>\n
Shortly after Israel launched its first wave of attacks on Iran, Carlson took to X to frame the battle between the \u201cwarmongers and peacemakers.\u201d \u201cWho are the warmongers?\u201d Carlson posted. \u201cThey would include anyone who\u2019s calling Donald Trump today to demand air strikes and other direct US military involvement in a war with Iran. 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his newsletter on Friday he accused Trump of being \u201ccomplicit\u201d in Israel\u2019s \u201cact of war.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then this week he kept up his criticisms on Bannon\u2019s podcast, saying: \u201cThe point is, if you think that saying, \u2018Hey, let\u2019s focus on my country, where I was born, where my family\u2019s been for hundreds of years, that was the promise of the last election, please do it,\u2019 if you think that\u2019s hate, you know, you\u2019ve really lost perspective, I guess, is what I would say.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyway,\u201d Carlson added, I think it\u2019s going to happen. Who cares what I think.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou think we\u2019re going to join in the offensive combat [operation]?\u201d Bannon asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, I do,\u201d Carlson replied. \u201cI do.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, we have to \u2013 we can\u2019t \u2013 we have to stop that,\u201d Bannon said.<\/p>\n
Far-right Trump supporter Laura Loomer was having none of it. She urged followers to \u201ctake screenshots of every single right winger who is shit talking Trump right now.\u201d In a separate post Monday, she asked: \u201cCan we stop pretending like @TuckerCarlson is a true Trump supporter?\u201d she wrote on X Monday.<\/p>\n
Loomer had seemingly previously found herself on the opposite side of the Trump World foreign policy debate, when she reportedly convinced the president to order then-National Security Adviser Michael Waltz to fire a half-dozen aides. While Loomer\u2019s motives were unclear, and her stated priority tends to be loyalty, the firings were seen as a blow to those favoring a more hawkish Trump administration foreign policy, including on Iran. Waltz himself later found himself pushed out of his White House job, with some reports suggesting that one factor was Trump\u2019s discomfort at learning of coordination between Waltz and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netayahu on potential military options to destroy Iran\u2019s nuclear program.<\/p>\n
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, a loud and long critic of U.S. wars in the Middle East, found herself dragged into the fight, as reporters peppered Trump aboard Air Force Once about her opening remarks at a House Intelligence Committee hearing in late March. Gabbard testified that the intelligence community \u201ccontinues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme leader Khomeini has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t care what she said,\u201d Trump said. \u201cI think they were very close to having.\u201d<\/p>\n
For her part, Gabbard \u2014 a darling of the anti-war MAGA crowd \u2014 was quoted this week as saying that she and Trump are \u201con the same page\u201d on the topic of Iran\u2019s nuclear weapons timeline. \u201cPresident Trump was saying the same thing that I said in my annual threat assessment back in March. Unfortunately too many people in the media don\u2019t care to actually read what I said.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the same opening statement in March, Gabbard said U.S. intelligence agencies would continue to monitor the situation, while noting the \u201cerosion of a decades-long taboo in Iran of discussing nuclear weapons in public, likely emboldening nuclear-weapons advocates within Iran\u2019s decision-making apparatus.\u201d She also testified that Iran\u2019s enriched uranium was \u201cat its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the possibility of U.S. intervention appeared to grow on Tuesday, some sought to consider how U.S. intervention in Iran could be squared with an America First outlook after all.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you imagine the basic Benjamin Netanyahu pitch to the White House \u2014 in effect, Let us have a go at the Iranians, and you can decide whether to explicitly support us once you see the outcome \u2014 it\u2019s easy to see how Trump might decide that an \u2018America First,\u2019 national interest-based foreign policy is compatible with letting the Israelis try to settle all accounts,\u201d wrote the New York Times columnist Ross Douthat.<\/p>\n
And Vice President J.D. Vance \u2014 an avatar of the isolationist wing \u2014 directly addressed burgeoning criticism of Trump in a lengthy post about \u201cthe Iran issue\u201d on X. Without mentioning Israel at all, Vance argued that Iran\u2019s nuclear ambitions and unwillingness to negotiate represented a pressing foreign policy priority.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe president has shown remarkable restraint in keeping our military\u2019s focus on protecting our troops and protecting our citizens,\u201d Vance wrote. \u201cHe may decide he needs to take further action to end Iranian enrichment. That decision ultimately belongs to the president.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added, \u201cOf course, people are right to be worried about foreign entanglement after the last 25 years of idiotic foreign policy. But I believe the president has earned some trust on this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n