WASHINGTON — Establishment Republicans have backed Israel’s strikes on Iran, but the crisis is forcing US President Donald Trump to walk a political tightrope between the hawks in his base and the isolationists who helped sweep him to power.
Trump ran for reelection as a peacemaker who disdained the foreign adventures of his predecessors, boasting that he would have little difficulty ending conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine.
Many Trump followers see Israel’s offensive as the sternest test yet of his “America First” credentials, fearing that he will allow the United States to get dragged into the hostilities.
The announcement of strikes was applauded by Mark Levin, a rightwing political analyst and longstanding Trump loyalist, who crowed: “The Iranians are about to get their asses kicked.”
“They think this is Joe Biden’s administration, that they would get away…. Thank God we have Donald Trump as president of the United States,” he thundered on Fox News.
Beyond the government buildings and TV studios of Washington, however, Trump’s Make America Great Again, or MAGA, activists oppose US boots on the ground abroad and warn against shows of support for Israel.
“This is a sticky one for Trump, who has long pledged to end ‘forever wars’ and keep the US away from dangerous foreign entanglements,” Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political scientist, told AFP.
“Trump’s America First base is divided. There’s a strong strain of isolationism there, and yet Israel and efforts to tamp down antisemitism pull Trump in the other direction.”
Levin received blowback from Tucker Carlson, a leading voice on the American far right, who posted on X that his former Fox News colleague was “hyperventilating” to distract from the real goal — regime change in Iran.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, normally a foreign policy hawk, was quick to distance the United States from Israel’s “unilateral” strikes, which hit uranium-enrichment facilities and killed top Iranian military officials.
Trump himself had repeatedly insisted that Iran could not be allowed to have nuclear weapons — but said before the strikes that he was against military action.
He appeared to have changed tack by Friday, with ABC quoting the president describing the attack as “excellent.”
That won’t sit well with many of his supporters.
Saagar Enjeti, a populist right-wing anchor on the Breaking Points YouTube show, accused Trump of letting down the “America First” isolationists in his base.
“Trump has now praised Israel’s strike, affirmed US material support, and Israeli media is reporting his public opposition was a disinformation campaign to mislead Iran,” he said.
“So in other words, Trump, not Israel, has made a mockery of all of us who wanted to avoid this war.”
Charlie Kirk, a pro-Israel online MAGA star and one of Trump’s staunchest allies, went live on his podcast to find out how his pro-Trump audience was reacting to events.
“The emails are so largely overwhelmingly against Israel doing this, I’d say it’s probably a 99 to one,” Kirk said.
Kirk went on to ask how the “America First” foreign policy doctrine can “stay consistent with this,” before concluding: “This, right now, is going to cause, I think, a major schism in the MAGA online community.”
Kirk asked his 5 million X followers if America should “get involved in Israel’s war against Iran,” and almost 90 percent of the 300,000+ people who had responded by Friday morning said no.
Fellow MAGA activist Jack Posobiec warned before the strikes that they would “disastrously split” Trump’s coalition.
“Trump smartly ran against starting new wars; this is what the swing states voted for,” he said.
“The midterms are not far off, and Congress’s majority is already razor-thin. America First!”