Iran war creates growing cracks within Trump's MAGA movement

0:00As we just heard, more than half of Americans do not support U.S. military action in Iran, despite the Trump administration's efforts. For more on that, we're joined by Kurt Mills, executive director of American Conservative magazine. He's been outspoken against U.S. involvement in Iran. Kurt, thank you for joining the program. Thank you for having me. Let's start with President Trump ran on this notion of no more forever wars. We just heard from Rick Scott earlier in this program, the senator from Florida saying that Trump has said that he doesn't like them and he acknowledges that Americans don't like these long, protracted wars. Is this conflict with Iran America first? No. No. It's transparently a betrayal and the Republican rhetoric is increasingly becoming our well-being. This is a war. Iran feels a war. The late Supreme Leader of Iran knows a war. Did the Nile of this, did the Nile that this is not a complete, frankly, about-face revolt from what Trump was saying in 2016 and 2024, particularly, you know, it just defies

1:01credulity. It's the equivalent of George H.W. Bush breaking is no new taxes pledge. It's a campaign portrayal for the ages. What are you hearing from inside the administration from people reacting to this conflict? You know, the administration thing is very curious. I think the president drove this decision and I don't think there was a long series of consultations. And I think that's why you see the Helter-Skelter nature of the rationales that they're citing. They don't know why they went to war because there wasn't in all of the administration discussion, frankly. And I think also, especially because you saw the counterterrorism chief, Joe Kent resigned. I think it would not be surprising if more members of the administration resigned in the coming weeks, if the conflict continues. I wanted to ask you about that. So we heard that the National Counterterrorism Center Director, Joe Kent, he resigned on Tuesday, and he cited in his resignation letter a lack of an imminent threat from Iran. This is the first major ideological departure from this second term, second Trump administration.

2:02You think this may open the door to more of these? For sure. And look, and I don't think we should just brush kind of aside. It's already the biggest, a bigger resignation in this administration for Iran than there were for the Democrats under Gaza in two years. Do you see a generational divide right now among MAGA and conservatives over this Iran war? For sure. And respectfully to the older viewers, but this is a war that is driven by baby boomer conservatives. It is planned as day. What are you hearing from the younger MAGA set about why they don't support this? I think it's demoralizing. And I think, well, first of all, they reject the causes belly, such as it is. There was not an imminent threat. The messaging from Speaker Johnson and others that there was an imminent threat to the Iranians getting some form of nuclear enrichment is just twisting the wards. This is, there was not an imminent threat. The Iranians could, did not have nuclear weapons that could hit the homeland, did not have missiles that could hit the homeland. The Iranians were at the negotiating table. It's not to say that we should trust everything they wanted to do.

3:04But if Trump wanted a better deal than even Obama's JCOPOA that was on offer last spring, he rejected it and went to war. The magazine that you work for was founded in response to the Iraq war and U.S. involvement in that conflict. How does foreign policy rank now for conservatives? Yeah, the magazine was founded in 2002 by Pat Buchanan and others very much to the Tucker Carlson of his day against the Iraq war. I think foreign policy is of a piece of what Trump ran on in 2016 and 2024. Foreign policy is part of a, I would say, Troika of issues with immigration and trade. The idea that the country has been sold out, de-industrialized and flooded with unassuminated immigration, that the average man has been forgotten, their job has been shipped overseas and their sons and daughters have been shipped off into wars that nobody voted for. I think it's all of a piece. We were talking earlier about Joe Kent and some of the reaction to his resignation.

4:07There were Jewish organizations like the anti-definition league that criticized him and his resignation letter saying that some of the language in that echoed anti-Semitic tropes. We looked at a poll, the Manhattan Institute did last year, 25 percent of Republicans under 50 years old say that they hold anti-Semitic views. Do you think that this conflict is going to magnify or amplify those kinds of voices within the party? Well, the Manhattan Institute has an agenda. So I distrust that data, frankly. They want to equate principal criticism of the Israeli government with anti-Semitism. And I think that should be rejected on both left and right as the most cynical type of politics. It's the type of politics that, frankly, Republicans were put back into power to reject. People were tired of speech policing and woke mind games, frankly. And the Republicans are doing the exact same thing with anti-Semitism and the Israel debate. That's not to say that there's no anti-Semitism in the country, but I believe it is being

5:10willfully conflated with principal criticism of this war for the war's aims. How do you see this Iran conflict impacting the midterm elections later this year in November and also looking ahead influencing the Republican presidential primaries, which will really start within the next year or so? First of all, the president can declare victory now and come home. He doesn't seem like he's going to do that, but if he doesn't do that, I think they're going to lose Congress and they're going to lose both houses of Congress. And I think that's going to be pretty dramatic. As to the primary, I think it is going to be the leading issue. I mean, the reality is that whoever's in power now has the Israel back, the solid and democratic primary. Everyone forgot because Joe Biden's disastrous performance in June of 2024 into debate. What was going on weeks and months before? There were campus protests roiling the country over Israel. The reality is that both parties, the bases are fed up with this relationship that is driving us into war. Kurt Mills, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you.