TOAs a presidential candidate, Donald Trump repeatedly promised to pull the United States out of “endless wars,” put “America first,” and focus on domestic politics. After his first term, he liked to boast, somewhat misleadingly, that “there were no wars” during his presidency.
Now, the Trump administration’s decision to join Israel in attacking Iran has shocked the United States and the world. It has also divided conservative media in the United States: many right-wing journalists and pundits celebrated Trump’s decision to confront an old American enemy, but others expressed dismay or confusion at the resurgence of a Bush-style interventionism that they thought the Maga movement had repudiated.
“There’s a generational Maga divide on this. Older voters support him, younger voters don’t,” right-wing pro-Maga podcaster Jack Posobiec told Politico. “Generation Z Maga wants Epstein arrests, deportations and economic aid, not more war.”
However, that would seem to be a minority opinion among many of the main conservative media actors. Rupert Murdoch’s news empire has taken a largely encouraging stance toward the ongoing military operation, with Fox News contributors describing the attack on Iran as “just and imperative” and “a successful, coordinated effort to promote fundamental and lasting change in Iran.” In an editorial, the New York Post praised Trump’s “decisive move to destroy Iran’s war machine and eliminate the regime’s leadership.”
The editorial board of Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, arguably the last major avatar of the Bush-era right, described the attacks as “necessary” and argued that “the biggest mistake President Trump could make now would be to end the war too soon, before Iran’s military and its domestic terrorist forces have been completely destroyed.”
National Review, a magazine that for decades was the voice of the conservative establishment but has occupied a more uncertain position in the era of Trump-style populism, also appeared to mostly endorse the attacks: One contributor urged the United States to supply arms to the Iranian opposition, and another claimed that comparisons to the Iraq war are fallacious and that the Iran war will likely end “in a few weeks.”
Conservative media positions on the Iran war generally conform to long-held positions on Israel and tough foreign policy. The most ardently pro-Israel publications, such as the Washington Free Beacon, the Daily Wire and Tablet magazine, have fiercely defended the need for the attacks, although Daily Wire contributor Matt Walsh mocked the administration’s rationale for the war on social media, saying: “The messaging on this matter is, to put it mildly, confusing.”
He added in another post: “It’s silly to think you can just come, take out the boss and leave without a problem.”
The Free Press, the publication Bari Weiss founded before becoming editor-in-chief of CBS News, appeared to split the difference, with several articles sympathetic to the desire to overthrow the Iranian regime but cautious or pessimistic about the chances of success. In an article titled The Case Against the War, writer and military veteran Elliot Ackerman noted that “the Arab Spring offers several horrific examples of popular protests for democracy mutating into deadly civil wars, chief among them the decade-long civil war in Syria. A civil war in Iran on the scale of Syria would be catastrophic.” Weiss herself reportedly angered some CBS employees when she pushed for criticism of Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York City, for speaking out against the strikes.
However, parts of the isolationist-leaning far-right of the Maga movement appear furious at the Trump administration for what Curt Mills, executive director of the American Conservative, said on Steve Bannon’s podcast was an “open betrayal” of the Maga base.
Tucker Carlson told ABC News that Iran’s attack is “absolutely disgusting and evil” and argued that Trump’s decision would further disrupt an already fragile conservative political coalition. Carson said, “This is going to change things in a profound way.”
Trump’s decision to join Israel in attacking Iran is likely to strengthen a right-wing Christian nationalist movement, which has often turned legitimate criticism of the US alliance with Israel into overt anti-Semitism.
On the far right, conspiracy theorist Candace Owens and white nationalist pundit Nick Fuentes condemned the war, with Fuentes mocking the gullibility of people who voted for Trump thinking he represented a radical break with American foreign policy. In
Most of the “podcast bros” (the influential group of podcasters, such as Joe Rogan, Andrew Schulz, and Theo Von) have so far not weighed in, although if past indications are to be believed, they will likely be ambivalent or openly critical of Trump’s decision to attack Iran.
The American Conservative, a magazine co-founded by Pat Buchanan in 2002, is the standard-bearer for a “paleoconservative” wing of the American right that has been skeptical of foreign wars, free trade, and free-market absolutism, and was predictably scathing of attacks on Iran. In
