An Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities is creating a deep rift within Donald Trump’s political base, with prominent supporters fearing he is being drawn into the kind of Middle East war he campaigned on ending, according to a report by Politico.
Trump built his political movement on a promise to end what his supporters call ‘American foreign adventures’ and adopted a stance against Washington’s ‘war hawks’. The Israeli strike on Friday, however, now threatens to pull the US into a new conflict, creating a potential schism within the ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA) base that was instrumental to his return to the White House.
While administration officials have affirmed the US did not participate in the attack, its ability to remain outside the circle of escalation is in question, particularly after it intervened to intercept Iran’s retaliatory strike against Israel. The escalation occurred as Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, were scheduled to meet for a new round of nuclear talks on Sunday.
Trump himself renewed his support for Israel and praised the strike on Friday, less than 24 hours after he had emphasised his support for dialogue with Iran. The situation has left Trump, who has prided himself on his deal-making skills, facing one of the most critical moments of his presidency: either let Israel face the consequences of its actions alone or risk involving the US in a direct confrontation with Iran.
A Division in the MAGA Movement
The current escalation has sparked widespread discontent within Trump’s base. In the days leading up to the attack, its leaders had been pressuring the president to intervene and stop Israel. According to Politico, Trump either tried and failed, highlighting his limited influence over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, or he gave his tacit approval despite his supporters’ objections.
Tucker Carlson, a media personality close to Trump, framed the debate in stark terms. ‘The real division is not between those who support Israel and those who support Iran or the Palestinians’, Carlson wrote on the platform X. ‘The real division is between those who recklessly encourage violence and those who seek to prevent it, between the warmongers and the peacemakers’.
Carlson identified the ‘warmongers’ as those calling Trump to demand ‘airstrikes and direct American military intervention in a war with Iran’, naming figures such as Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Rupert Murdoch, Ike Perlmutter, and Miriam Adelson. ‘At some point, they will all be held accountable for this, but you should know their names now’, he wrote.
Others in MAGA circles were more direct. ‘What the president decides now could determine the future of his presidency’, said Matt Boyle, a prominent writer for Breitbart and a figure close to the MAGA movement. ‘He has to balance protecting America’s most important ally in the region, which is Israel, with avoiding getting the United States bogged down in a new war’.
Saagar Enjeti, host of the show Breaking Points, directed sharp criticism at Trump after calling the Israeli attack an ‘insult to the United States’ and ‘a deliberate act of sabotage designed to drag us into war’.
‘Trump has now praised the Israeli strike and affirmed Washington’s support for it, while reports in Israeli media suggest that his public opposition to the attack was nothing more than a disinformation campaign to deceive Iran’, Enjeti wrote. ‘In other words, Trump, not Israel, is the one who has insulted everyone who sought to avoid this war’.
Shortly after the strike, prominent Trump ally Charlie Kirk went live with his supporters, describing the situation as a ‘total mess that is going to have big-time domestic US blowback’.
Kirk noted that the American public would soon return to debating the funding and arming of Israel. ‘As you know, I’m a very strong supporter of Israel on this programme, but I’m just explaining the political dynamics that are at play’, he said. ‘And I can tell you right now the public, you… you’re not comfortable at all with what’s going on’. He added, ‘The fundamental question here is: how does the America First foreign policy doctrine hold together with these developments?’.
An ‘Unforgivable Betrayal’
The Israeli attack came as pleas from the MAGA base to Trump reached a fever pitch on Thursday. Prominent figures urged him to intervene and prevent the strike, convinced he had the power to do so.
Charlie Kirk, leader of the pro-Trump organisation Turning Point USA, had warned that a strike on Iran ‘will lead to a deep division within the MAGA movement’. He said that Trump’s ‘younger supporters do not support America’s involvement in Israel’s war with Iran’, adding, ‘They want Israel to fight its own war… We do not want a potential endless quagmire in the Middle East, and I am confident President Trump will ensure that does not happen’.
Mollie Hemingway, editor-in-chief of the right-wing website The Federalist, who often praises Trump on Fox News, said that involvement in a war with Iran ‘would be seen as an unforgivable betrayal by millions of American voters’. Right-wing activist Jack Posobiec warned of the upcoming midterm elections, asking, ‘What happens to petrol prices in the summer if a new conflict breaks out in the Middle East with Iran?’.
The White House appears to be aware of the political sensitivity of the situation. On Friday, administration officials were closely monitoring the reactions of the MAGA base. Enjeti drew attention to a CBS report stating that Trump was ‘evaluating options to support Israeli military action without leading it, including aerial refuelling and intelligence sharing’.
‘So, the idea that this was an independent Israeli strike is complete nonsense’, Enjeti commented. ‘This would be an American operation, and we should reject it’. An hour later, Enjeti told his followers he had received ‘some pushback from a White House official’ that the US would not participate in the strike, ‘at least for now’.
Speaking to Politico, Enjeti pointed to a 2011 video of Trump attacking then-President Barack Obama, claiming he ‘will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate’. At the time, Trump said of Obama, ‘He’s weak and he’s ineffective. So we have a real problem in the White House’.
Enjeti said the clip was circulating widely in MAGA circles on Thursday. ‘It’s being passed around precisely because it was one of the core tenets of Trump’s attack on the George W. Bush/neocon wing of the Republican Party’, he said. ‘What is happening now is so antithetical to how he originally started, during his campaign, it is the opposite of the way he talks about stupid leaders who fight disastrous foreign wars’.
