{"id":303228,"date":"2026-02-21T18:19:31","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T18:19:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/303228\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T18:19:31","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T18:19:31","slug":"are-maga-restrainers-pulling-their-punches-this-time-on-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/303228\/","title":{"rendered":"Are MAGA restrainers pulling their punches this time on Iran?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Trump administration<\/a> appears to be moving closer<\/a> to a U.S. war with Iran<\/a>, and there are plenty on the right, including inside MAGA, rallying against it. Unfortunately, they seem much more drowned out this time around.<\/p>\n

Marjorie Taylor Greene certainly does her bit. \u201cAmericans do not want to go to war with Iran!!!\u201d the former Republican congresswoman shared<\/a> on X Wednesday. \u201cAnd they voted for NO MORE FOREIGN WARS AND NO MORE REGIME CHANGE.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senator Rand Paul declares<\/a>, \u201cWe have every right to defend our troops and shoot down threats. But you cannot bomb a regime into freedom.\u201d Congressman Thomas Massie says<\/a> no war with Iran, and is demanding<\/a> a congressional vote. <\/p>\n

Curt Mills, Executive Director of the American Conservative, has also pushed back on Washington hawks, recently telling<\/a> Trump ally and former adviser Steve Bannon that the neoconservative think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies is \u201cdriving the push for war” with Iran and that “they have been instrumental in writing a lot of Trump’s Iran policy. They are blowing the horn for war.”<\/p>\n

MAGA-adjacent figures like libertarian comedian and frequent Joe Rogan guest<\/a> Dave Smith are clanging the warning bells too. \u201cIf they start talking to you about fighting a war with Iran, treat them like the enemy that they are,\u201d Smith has said<\/a> about war promoters on the right.<\/p>\n

The Cato Institute\u2019s Justin Logan<\/a>, Jon Hoffman<\/a>, and Brandan P. Buck<\/a> are speaking out about the military build up, as have Judge Andrew Napolitano<\/a>, Doug Macgregor<\/a>, and Danny Davis<\/a>, and last but certainly not least, former congressman, presidential candidate and libertarian icon, Ron Paul.<\/a><\/p>\n

But the relative silence from other quarters is disconcerting.<\/p>\n

Bannon said<\/a> the U.S. bombing Tehran would be \u201cinsane\u201d \u2014 but that was nearly a month ago. Sure, Tucker Carlson, a longtime opponent<\/a> of war with Iran, said<\/a> that if Trump launched a war with Iran it would be, \u201ca middle finger in the faces of the millions of voters who cast their ballots in hopes of creating a government that would finally put the United States first.\u201d But that was eight months ago, before Trump bombed Iran the first time in \u201cOperation Midnight Hammer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tucker is not as vocal about the immense firepower amassing in the region<\/a> today, which dwarfs Washington\u2019s regional military posture in June. Though to his credit, Carlson pressed U.S. Ambassador to Israel<\/a> Mike Huckabee on the issue of Iran during his nearly 90-minute long interview with him, released Friday<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never met an American that thinks, other than the people with ideological reasons to pretend they think it, that the imminent threat to America is having anything to do with Iran,” he told Huckabee during a lengthy exchange about whether the U.S. should still be giving $3.8 billion in aid to Israel. He criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for pressuring President Trump to attack Iran.<\/p>\n

“I don\u2019t care about Iran. At all,” Carlson said. “I care about America. And if blowing up Iran makes my country richer then let\u2019s say that I\u2019m for it. And if it doesn\u2019t I\u2019m totally opposed. It\u2019s that simple. I think most Americans feel that way, no?”<\/p>\n

One could point out that it has not been easy crossing the president on war or any other issue. Greene and Massie are so loathed by Trump at this point that he vowed to primary Greene, who retired instead. Meanwhile, Trump is currently backing a primary opponent against Massie. He regularly uses Massie and Paul as punch lines in his speeches, calling them<\/a> names like \u201cmoron\u201d and \u201closer.\u201d <\/p>\n

So who is the president listening to?<\/p>\n

Lifelong Republican hawk, Sen. Lindsey Graham has spent a lot of time with the president. He has even cavalierly discussed the possibility that a war will kill Americans, saying<\/a> things like, \u201ccould our soldiers be hit in the region? Absolutely, they could. Can Iran respond if we have an all-out attack? Absolutely, they can.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the risk associated with that is far less than the risk associated with blinking, pulling the plug, and not helping the people as you promised.\u201d <\/p>\n

Sen. Graham appears to be arguing that U.S. servicemembers dying on behalf of a war that cannot be properly explained to the American public is an acceptable tradeoff. That\u2019s not surprising from a man who once said<\/a> we needed to go to war with North Korea over its nuclear program because \u201cif thousands die, they’re going to die over there. They’re not going to die here\u201d and has casually advocated<\/a> for blowing Iran \u201coff the map.\u201d<\/p>\n

Right-wing talk host Mark Levin, who has a Sunday show on Fox News, has been a relentless one-man propaganda machine<\/a> for Iranian regime change. Fellow Fox host Sean Hannity does the same<\/a>, using the recent protests in Iran as an excuse for intervention. \u201cIf (the Iranian regime is) foolish enough to doubt President Trump\u2019s resolve, just give Nicolas Maduro a call,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Then there are the military \u201cexperts.\u201d Brett McGurk, a Middle East<\/a> security adviser in both the Biden and first Trump administrations, has been making the case for war<\/a> on cable news. Perennial guest Gen. Jack Keane, whose pro-war analysis on Fox dates back to the Afghanistan conflict, is saying<\/a> in interviews that the \u201cpreferred option\u201d is for a \u201ccombined U.S. and Israel attack\u201d on Iran to collapse the regime and destroy its ballistic missile capability.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, RS reported<\/a> in October that Israel\u2019s government was paying social media<\/a> influencers top dollar to promote its preferred messaging on Gaza and its military position in the region. Israel also wants to manipulate Chat GPT<\/a> for optimum search results. Today, Americans across the country are getting text messages<\/a> from Israeli-paid sources who want to chat about their feelings about Israel. <\/p>\n

Israel even had U.S. pastors trained<\/a> as “ambassadors” to preach the good word to their flocks. <\/p>\n

When Massie posted that he would push for a constitutionally required congressional vote for any war with Iran, he added<\/a>, \u201cI\u2019m just here enjoying that peace and quiet in the comments in the moments just before the paid influencers and bots get their message on how to respond to my latest move.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. has amassed more air power in the region<\/a> than at any time since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Trump said<\/a> Thursday at his inaugural \u201cBoard of Peace<\/a>\u201d meeting, that Iran \u201cmust make a deal. If that doesn\u2019t happen\u2026 bad things will happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

If that \u201cbad thing\u201d is an Iraq-style regime change war with Iran, there has been <\/a>no public debate about the wisdom of such a move. With the possible exception of Carlson, most of the original MAGA restrainers who once hoisted Trump\u2019s \u201cAmerica First\u201d flag as their own are either now marginalized or actively hated by the president.<\/p>\n

Nor does Trump seem to be listening to regular Americans, who overwhelmingly say they don\u2019t want<\/a> this war. <\/p>\n

Before he was assassinated in September of last year, Charlie Kirk was outspoken<\/a> about the U.S. not going to war with Iran. He used his podcast to broadcast this message to his vast conservative audience. At the dawn of the new year, however, it seemed that the interventionists had taken over Trump foreign policy, beginning with the invasion of Venezuela that has been largely written off by MAGA as \u201cAmerica First.\u201d<\/p>\n

Georgetown University\u2019s Arta Moeni shared<\/a> an old Charlie Kirk X post on Thursday, adding, \u201cCharlie was a friend & we were in regular contact during the 12-day war as he was working tirelessly behind the scenes to avoid US entanglement in Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moeni continued, \u201cMy sense was he thought that (President Trump), whom he loved so dearly, was being led on a primrose path to ruin by some bad advisors in the inner circle who were obscuring the truth and shutting out America First voices in the admin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former congressman Matt Gaetz, who was much louder over the summer about his wariness of bombing Iran, also appeared to see a Kirk connection in the administration\u2019s current foreign policy direction.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Gaetz shared an old clip of Kirk warning against<\/a> a U.S. war with Iran at the behest of Israel, to which Gaetz simply said,<\/a> \u201cI miss Charlie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why are these voices, once so integral to Trump\u2019s original MAGA movement in 2016 and his 2024 presidential campaign, now muted? Trump isn\u2019t very ideological. But he does value loyalty. Perhaps the treatment of MTG, Massie, and Paul have been warnings to others, and it\u2019s just been easier for them to join the rest who say Venezuela is not \u201cregime change\u201d and that it did not touch off a \u201cforever war.\u201d Polling like this<\/a> suggests that MAGA has largely bought that line, and that they don’t mind war as long as it’s Trump waging it.<\/p>\n

The president once listened to OG MAGA restrainers, at least some of the time. We might now experience what happens when he talks to none of them, none of the time.<\/p>\n

From Your Site Articles<\/p>\n

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