President Donald Trump appears to be downplaying talk that some of his long-loyal MAGA supporters are breaking with him over the possibility that the president will order a military strike on Iran.
This amid the nearly week-long daily trading of fire between the Islamic State and Israel, America’s top ally in the Middle East.
‘My supporters are more in love with me today, and I’m more in love with them, more than they even were at election time,’ the president said when asked about a GOP rift between some of his most vocal supporters of his America First agenda, and more traditional national security conservatives.
The president, speaking to reporters on Wednesday on the South Lawn of the White House, added: ‘I may have some people that are a little bit unhappy now, but I have some people that are very happy, and I have people outside of the base that can’t believe that this is happening. They’re so happy.’
Asked if he would order an attack on Iran to prevent Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons, the president said, ‘I may do it, I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do. I can tell you this, that Iran’s got a lot of trouble.’
The prospect of Trump jumping into the incredibly volatile situation in the Middle East is causing plenty of consternation among some of his top political and ideological allies, and creating divisions within MAGA – a rare moment for a movement that’s been firmly supportive of Trump since his 2016 White House campaign.
Some top MAGA voices over the past week have argued against any kind of U.S. military involvement with Israel against Iran, arguing it would contradict Trump’s America First policy to keep the nation out of foreign wars. And they say it would repeat the move more than two decades ago by then-President George W. Bush to attack Iraq, which Trump had long criticized on the campaign trail.
Among those speaking out have been conservative commentator Tucker Carlson and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a top Trump House ally.
Also voicing concerns while remaining firmly supportive of the president are Charlie Kirk — the conservative host and MAGA-world figurehead who leads the influential Turning Point USA — and Steve Bannon, a prominent MAGA ally and former top adviser to Trump’s 2016 campaign.
But there’s been plenty of support for Trump, and for attacking Iran, by other top MAGA world voices.
Also defending Trump this week was Vice President JD Vance, who is a top voice in the America First, isolationist wing of the party.
Vance, speaking to both sides, highlighted Tuesday in a social media post that ‘people are right to be worried about foreign entanglement after the last 25 years of idiotic foreign policy.’
But Vance stressed that Trump ‘has earned some trust on this issue.’
And the vice president added that ‘having seen this up close and personal, I can assure you that he is only interested in using American military to accomplish the American people’s goals. Whatever he does, that is his focus.’
Trump, speaking with reporters on Wednesday afternoon, said: ‘I don’t want to get involved either, but I’ve been saying for 20 years, maybe longer, that Iran can not have a nuclear weapon.’
‘My supporters are for me. My supporters are America First and Make America Great Again. My supporters don’t want to see Iran have a nuclear weapon,’ the president added.
The current debate within the Republican Party wouldn’t have happened before Trump shook up and remade the GOP over the past decade.
Wayne Lesperance, a veteran political scientist and the president of New England College, highlighted that ‘the divide in the GOP can be traced to Trump’s promises to pull America back from its entanglements in the world.’
And Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist who served at the State Department during Trump’s first term, noted that ‘Donald Trump changed the direction of the Republican Party’ when it comes to American military engagements around the world.
‘That gave him a new coalition and new political power. This new war in the Middle East is certainly threatening that coalition. While we are not yet involved in a war, chances of escalation are dramatically increased and that certainly has ramifications with the MAGA coalition,’ Bartlett warned.