Lock step no more: Iran war shows cracks in Trump's conservative media support

NEW YORK (AP) — For President Donald Trump, some of the sharpest criticism he's faced in the early days of the Iran war has come from once-loyal media figures far more accustomed to singing his praises.

Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and Matt Walsh are among those to express discontent. It's been noticed in the White House, which has been playing defense on social media and in interviews.

To be sure, these critics are the minority of the media MAGAsphere, where Fox News' biggest stars remain cheerleaders. But their words illustrate conservative media's influence and how valuable it is to Trump when all runs as a well-oiled machine — and, by contrast, how much of a problem it can be if it fractures.

Much of the criticism has centered on Israel's influence on Trump's decision to go to war. Carlson, the former Fox News star who has built his own independent operation, told ABC News over the weekend that the attack was “absolutely disgusting and evil.”

“It's hard to say this, but the United States didn't make the decision here,” Carlson said on his podcast, citing the Israeli prime minister. “Benjamin Netanyahu did.”

‘No one should have to die for a foreign country’

Kelly, another former Fox anchor gone indie, said about American casualties on her show that “no one should have to die for a foreign country. I don't think those service members died for the United States. I think they died for Iran or Israel.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio's remarks prior to a Capitol Hill briefing were a flashpoint. Rubio said that Trump had given the go-ahead for the operation knowing that Israel was prepared to strike and he feared retaliation from Iran against U.S. bases in the region.

“We knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them, before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,” Rubio said. House Speaker Mike Johnson said that if the administration had not acted, lawmakers would have wondered why.

Walsh, a Daily Wire host, wrote on X that Rubio was “flat out telling us that we're in a war with Iran because Israel forced our hand. This is basically the worst possible thing he could have said.”

Trump told journalist Rachael Bade in an interview that he did not believe that the opinions of Carlson and Kelly are shared by his base of supporters. “I think that MAGA is Trump,” he said. “MAGA's not the other two.”

Former U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has fashioned herself as an influencer and media figure since bitterly breaking with Trump, said on Kelly's podcast that she was furious over the U.S. military action. “Make America Great Again," Greene says, “was supposed to be America first, not Israel first.”

Will Trump supporters return to the fold?

Trump is probably right to think that most of his supporters will return to the fold if they're unhappy with the Iran attack, said Jason Zengerle, author of “Hated By All the Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind.” Given the consistency of his views on the topic, Carlson is probably the most important of Trump's conservative critics, Zengerle said.

“If the war does go badly, I think it strengthens the hand of someone like Tucker,” he said. “All of this is a debate about what happens after Trump is gone anyway.”

There have been cracks in Trump's conservative media support prior to Iran, notably with the vast and sprawling narratives around the Epstein report. But this week's criticism unleashed some startling internal vitriol. Ben Shapiro of “The Daily Wire” called Kelly “wildly inconsistent” and a coward. Elisabeth Hasselbeck denounced Kelly for her suggestion that American servicemen died for Israel. “How dare you?” Hasselbeck said Tuesday on “The View."

Fox News' Sean Hannity said that Carlson was “not the person I knew when he was at Fox.” Kelly denounced Hannity as a supplicant who “would never say anything other than to puff Donald Trump up.”

It's worth remembering that most of what readers and viewers are seeing in conservative media supports Trump. Howard Polskin, publisher of The Righting newsletter, estimated Tuesday that about 95% of what he's monitored on websites is behind the president. “Trump Stands Tall on Iran,” headlined The American Spectator.

The most popular personalities on Fox News — still the top dog among conservatives — continue to be supportive. Hannity, Brian Kilmeade and Mark Levin were among the most vociferous leading up to the attack and after. “The president has shown more courage and this Pentagon, Pete Hegseth's Pentagon, has executed brilliantly once again,” said Kilmeade, the “Fox & Friends” co-host.

“I think that MAGA gives him the benefit of the doubt, no question about it,” Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary during the early part of Trump’s first term, said on his podcast Tuesday. “I think he’s built up a ton of credibility with the base. ... Look, you’ve got PTSD from a lot of our former leaders between Iraq and Afghanistan in particular, who only know forever wars, and so I get it. But this president has proven now twice that he knows what he’s doing.”

Criticism of war rollout draws specific White House rebuke

The podcast influencers who helped to drive many young men into Trump's camp during the 2024 campaign have been largely quiet so far.

Some of Walsh's criticism this week appeared to sting so much that it drew a specific rebuke from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

“So far we’ve heard that although we killed the whole Iranian regime, this was not a regime change war,” Walsh wrote on Monday. “And although we obliterated their nuclear program, we had to do this because of their nuclear program. And although Iran was not planning any attacks on the U.S., they also might have been, depending on who you ask. And although we are not fighting this war to free the Iranian people, they are now free, or might be, depending on who seizes power, and we have no idea who that will be. The messaging on this thing is, to put it mildly, confused.”

Leavitt posted a lengthy response on X explaining Trump's rationale. “Simply put," she wrote, “the terrorist Iranian regime would not say yes to peace.”

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Bauder and Swenson reported from New York, Kinnard from Washington.