{"id":322759,"date":"2026-03-05T07:17:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T07:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/322759\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T07:17:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T07:17:11","slug":"iran-war-shows-cracks-in-trumps-conservative-media-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/322759\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran war shows cracks in Trump’s conservative media support"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 For President Donald Trump, some of the sharpest criticism he\u2019s faced in the early days of the Iran war<\/a> has come from once-loyal media figures far more accustomed to singing his praises.<\/p>\n

Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and Matt Walsh are among those to express discontent. It\u2019s been noticed in the White House, which has been playing defense on social media and in interviews. <\/p>\n

To be sure, these critics are the minority of the media MAGAsphere, where Fox News\u2019 biggest stars remain cheerleaders. But their words illustrate conservative media\u2019s influence and how valuable it is to Trump when all runs as a well-oiled machine \u2014 and, by contrast, how much of a problem it can be if it fractures.<\/p>\n

Much of the criticism has centered on Israel\u2019s influence on Trump\u2019s decision to go to war. Carlson, the former Fox News star<\/a> who has built his own independent operation, told ABC News over the weekend that the attack was \u201cabsolutely disgusting and evil.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to say this, but the United States didn\u2019t make the decision here. Benjamin Netanyahu did,\u201d Carlson said on his podcast, referring to the Israeli prime minister.<\/p>\n

\u2018No one should have to die for a foreign country\u2019<\/p>\n

Kelly, another former Fox anchor gone indie<\/a>, said about American casualties on her show that \u201cno one should have to die for a foreign country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think those service members died for the United States,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cI think they died for Iran or Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Secretary of State Marco Rubio\u2019s remarks prior to a Capitol Hill briefing<\/a> 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. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew that if we didn\u2019t preemptively go after them, before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties,\u201d Rubio said. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said that if the Trump administration had not acted, lawmakers would have wondered why.<\/p>\n

Walsh, a Daily Wire host, wrote on X that Rubio was \u201cflat out telling us that we\u2019re in a war with Iran because Israel forced our hand. This is basically the worst possible thing he could have said.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Republican president 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. \u201cI think that MAGA is Trump,\u201d he said. \u201cMAGA\u2019s not the other two.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republican former U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who has fashioned herself as an influencer and media figure since bitterly breaking<\/a> with Trump, said on Kelly\u2019s podcast that she was furious over the U.S. military action. \u201cMake America Great Again,\u201d Greene says, \u201cwas supposed to be America first, not Israel first.\u201d<\/p>\n

Will Trump supporters return to the fold?<\/p>\n

Trump is probably right to think that most of his supporters will return to the fold if they\u2019re unhappy with the Iran attack, said Jason Zengerle, author of \u201cHated By All the Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind.\u201d Given the consistency of his views on the topic, Carlson is probably the most important of Trump\u2019s conservative critics, Zengerle said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the war does go badly, I think it strengthens the hand of someone like Tucker,\u201d he said. \u201cAll of this is a debate about what happens after Trump is gone anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carlson was at the center of a controversy last fall over antisemitism in conservative media for giving attention to polarizing influencer Nick Fuentes with an interview on Carlson\u2019s podcast. Fuentes has called Adolf Hitler \u201ccool,\u201d suggested there is a genocide against white people and said his young followers are \u201ctired of hearing about slavery and the Holocaust.\u201d<\/p>\n

There have been cracks in Trump\u2019s conservative media support prior to Iran, notably with the vast and sprawling narratives around the Jeffrey Epstein report<\/a>. But this week\u2019s criticism unleashed some startling internal vitriol. Ben Shapiro, of \u201cThe Daily Wire,\u201d called Kelly \u201cwildly inconsistent\u201d and a coward. Elisabeth Hasselbeck denounced Kelly for her suggestion that American servicemen died for Israel. \u201cHow dare you?\u201d Hasselbeck said Tuesday on \u201cThe View.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fox News\u2019 Sean Hannity said that Carlson was \u201cnot the person I knew when he was at Fox.\u201d Kelly denounced Hannity as a supplicant who \u201cwould never say anything other than to puff Donald Trump up.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 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\u2019s monitored on websites is behind the president. \u201cTrump Stands Tall on Iran,\u201d headlined The American Spectator.<\/p>\n

The most popular personalities on Fox News \u2014 still the top dog among conservatives \u2014 continue to be supportive. Hannity, Brian Kilmeade and Mark Levin were among the most vociferous leading up to the attack and after. \u201cThe president has shown more courage, and this Pentagon, Pete Hegseth\u2019s Pentagon, has executed brilliantly once again,\u201d said Kilmeade, the \u201cFox & Friends\u201d co-host.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that MAGA gives him the benefit of the doubt, no question about it,\u201d Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary during the early part of Trump\u2019s first term, said on his podcast Tuesday. \u201cI think he\u2019s built up a ton of credibility with the base. … Look, you\u2019ve 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\u2019s doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Criticism of war rollout draws specific White House rebuke<\/p>\n

The podcast influencers<\/a> who helped to drive many young men into Trump\u2019s camp during the 2024 campaign have been largely quiet.<\/p>\n

Some of Walsh\u2019s criticism this week appeared to sting so much that it drew a specific rebuke from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo far we\u2019ve heard that although we killed the whole Iranian regime, this was not a regime change war,\u201d Walsh wrote on Monday. \u201cAnd 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leavitt posted a lengthy response on X explaining Trump\u2019s rationale. \u201cSimply put,\u201d she wrote, \u201cthe terrorist Iranian regime would not say yes to peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Kinnard reported from Washington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 For President Donald Trump, some of the sharpest criticism he\u2019s faced in the early…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[19869,24669,49,160152,114,14142,54,44930,15039,146,122,160156,85,87,20889,117780,46,1984,160157,7393,7315,11741,43740,160158,160153,46805,38364,43,60001,31348,238,160155,76408,160154,11916,17022,1032,12526],"class_list":{"0":"post-322759","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-adolf-hitler","9":"tag-ben-shapiro","10":"tag-benjamin-netanyahu","11":"tag-brian-kilmeade","12":"tag-business","13":"tag-conservatism","14":"tag-donald-trump","15":"tag-elisabeth-hasselbeck","16":"tag-email-and-messaging","17":"tag-entertainment","18":"tag-general-news","19":"tag-howard-polskin","20":"tag-il","21":"tag-iran","22":"tag-iran-government","23":"tag-iran-war","24":"tag-israel","25":"tag-israel-government","26":"tag-jason-zengerle","27":"tag-jeffrey-epstein","28":"tag-karoline-leavitt","29":"tag-marco-rubio","30":"tag-marjorie-taylor-greene","31":"tag-mark-levin","32":"tag-matt-walsh","33":"tag-megyn-kelly","34":"tag-mike-johnson","35":"tag-news","36":"tag-nick-fuentes","37":"tag-pete-hegseth","38":"tag-politics","39":"tag-rachael-bade","40":"tag-sean-hannity","41":"tag-sean-spicer","42":"tag-tucker-carlson","43":"tag-u-s-department-of-defense","44":"tag-united-states","45":"tag-washington-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}