MAGA Factions Breaking Apart Over Israel Strike Trump is Cheerleading
Most people didn’t catch it at the time, but at a Thursday afternoon press conference, President Donald Trump all but greenlit Israel’s looming strike on Iran. “I wouldn’t call it imminent,” he said — the kind of caveated warning that lands like a punchline: “I’m not saying you’ve gained weight… but.”
The implication was unmistakable: something big was about to happen. Hours later, it did.
News broke late Thursday of a massive Israeli strike that killed several top Iranian military leaders and targeted key facilities. Secretary of State Marco Rubio scrambled to clarify the U.S. position, insisting the attack was a unilateral move by Israel and that America had no direct involvement.
But Trump was already on the phone with a handpicked group of journalists, offering a very different message. He praised the strikes as “excellent,” made clear the U.S. had foreknowledge, and didn’t bother with diplomatic ambiguity. The U.S. didn’t pull the trigger — but Trump was riding shotgun, playing the eager sidekick without grasping the route.
Then came the fallout, not from Tehran — or even the president’s domestic political rivals — but from Trump’s own base.
What unfolded over the following 24 hours was the most serious fracture yet in the coalition that carried Trump to a second term. The MAGA movement, once a monolithic bloc, revealed a profound split between interventionist pro-Israel conservatives and a resurgent isolationist wing that wants no part of another Middle East conflict.
The most striking voice of dissent came from Tucker Carlson. The former Fox News host, now a high-profile independent media figure, sounded the alarm in his newsletter, warning of “impending war,” blaming Trump for being complicit and ridiculing the idea that the U.S. wasn’t involved in the strikes. He didn’t stop there.
Carlson torched his former employer and several old colleagues, calling out Rupert Murdoch, Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin by name, branding them “warmongers.” In a blistering post, he wrote:
“The real divide isn’t between people who support Israel and those who support Iran or the Palestinians. The real divide is between those who casually encourage violence, and those who seek to prevent it — between warmongers and peacemakers.”
“At some point, they will all have to answer for this,” Carlson warned. That did not go unanswered.
Levin, the fiery weekend Fox host, came out swinging. In a scorched-earth quote-tweet, Levin called Carlson a “reckless and deceitful propagandist,” accusing him of promoting anti-Semitism and undermining Trump. He mockingly dubbed his former colleague “Chatsworth Qatarlson” for siding, as he saw it, with enemies of Israel.
But this wasn’t just a feud between two loud voices. The split was echoed across the right-wing media ecosystem.
Mollie Hemingway warned that Trump “knows in his gut” the strike was a strategic mistake and that it would be viewed as a betrayal by many voters. Douglas MacGregor — a Carlson favorite and one-time Trump appointee — warned that Americans should now expect terror attacks on soft targets at home. He didn’t hedge:
“The talks with Iran were a ruse. Witkoff, like much of Trump’s team, was acting in Israel’s interest. This is the start of a regional war.”
That’s not criticism. That’s an indictment.
The harshest takes have accused Trump of being manipulated — “dog-walked” — by Benjamin Netanyahu. And these aren’t marginal voices. This is a faction of the conservative base that helped deliver Trump his presidency and once swore allegiance to his “America First” doctrine. Now they’re openly questioning whether he’s abandoned it.
That should worry Trump. The MAGA base alone isn’t big enough to keep him in power. Add the disillusioned isolationist right and the Elon Musk–adjacent tech-libertarian crowd, who were already squirming, and suddenly, Trump’s flagging poll numbers make a lot more sense.
It also explains why Trump worked the phones early Friday morning, calling journalists and friendly voices in media, trying to contain the fallout and stave off a MAGA mutiny. But even he may not be able to keep this one from breaking out.
The coalition that looked bulletproof just a month ago now appears brittle and deeply divided. And not even a $45 million North Korean–style military parade will fix that.