Earlier this morning at 2:57 a.m. ET, when most Americans were asleep, the White House posted a video to social media announcing a sweeping military assault on Iran. In the video, Donald Trump said the United States had launched a “massive and ongoing” campaign to destroy Tehran’s nuclear program. He warned American lives could be lost and framed the mission as both necessary and historic.
“The Iranian regime seeks to kill. The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost and we may have casualties,” Trump said. “That often happens in war, but we’re doing this not for now. We’re doing this for the future, and it is a noble mission.”
Satellite images later showed plumes of smoke rising from sites across Iran, including a compound tied to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
For years, Trump insisted he wanted nothing to do with foreign interventions. Gone, he said, would be the era of endless wars and American blood spilled to reshape distant nations. But in the days leading up to the strike, many of his loudest allies in MAGA Media were openly agitating for military action.
On Trump’s favorite morning show Friday, “Fox and Friends” host Brian Kilmeade egged on Trump to launch an attack. "I hope the president chooses to go at it,” he said. “We have been looking at these headlines for 47 years, and we have an opportunity to end it. And this president likes to make history.”
Later in the day, as the likelihood of a military operation increased, right-wing radio host Mark Levin appeared alongside Sean Hannity on Fox News, urging Trump to abandon negotiations and begin bombing. “There’s a time for negotiation, there is a time for diplomacy, and I think the president has demonstrated he’s bent over backwards that that time does not last forever, that that time is up!” Levin declared. Hannity responded by comparing the Iranian regime to that of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis: “How can people be so ignorant?” he asked. “If you knew after what Hitler did, you could stop it ahead of time, wouldn’t you want to do it?"
On Levin’s radio show that day, he trashed “traitors among us” who have pushed Trump to focus on domestic issues and steer clear of foreign interventions. “Traitors inside the government and outside, like Megyn Kelly, in my humble opinion. Like Tucker Carlson, in my humble opinion. Like bloated [Steve] Bannon, in my humble opinion,” he scolded.
And over at Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, the editorial board published an opinion piece firmly placing blame on Tehran under the headline “The Ayatollah Is Choosing War.”
But Trump's attack Saturday was largely built on a mountain of false and unsupported claims. In the days leading up to the strikes, Trump and his aides claimed Iran had restarted its nuclear program and the president told millions in his State of the Union address it was "working on missiles that will soon reach” American shores.
And not everyone on the right has been on board.
In the lead-up to the assault, Carlson warned on his podcast that Iran’s size and population far exceed those of Iraq, cautioning that a conflict could spiral beyond Washington’s control. He accused right-wing outlets of cheering on war. "The Wall Street Journal, owned by the Murdoch family, has been by far the most egregious and the most stealthy," Carlson said. "Because starting new regime change wars on behalf of Israel is like the whole reason to have The Wall Street Journal now, apparently."
In the immediate hours after the attack Saturday, Carlson denounced the operation in a text message to ABC News' Jonathan Karl, calling it "absolutely disgusting and evil” and said the attack would “shuffle the deck” of his MAGA movement “in a profound way."
But many of Trump's MAGA Media boosters were celebrating the strikes as a win for America.
“Tucker’s one-man diplomacy on behalf of the Iranian regime appears to have failed,” far-right conspiracy theorist Dinesh D’Souza wrote.
"Trump will go down in history as a protector of humanity. I hope this is the beginning of his crackdown on Islam in the West," the notorious Islamophobe Laura Loomer wrote. "Congratulations to the people of Iran. May you be free for eternity."
And Dave Rubin posted a video purportedly showing Iranians dancing in the streets, writing that “all the worst people in the West are upset.”
Meanwhile, the assault, in coordination with Israel, risked spiraling into a widening regional conflict, with explosions and missile interceptions reported Saturday across the Middle East in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan.
The flurry of missiles made clear that the U.S. has now entered a war that Trump long promised to avoid. But it wasn’t only Trump. Many of his media boosters used their large platforms during the 2024 election to portray him as the “peace president” who would not only end conflicts abroad, but also not entangle the U.S. in risky wars seeking regime change. Now those very voices are proving—yet again—that they have no allegiance to bedrock principles. Their only allegiance is to Trump and cheering on his every move.
