MAGA Thinks Netanyahu Played Trump on Iran

A curious thing happened the day after Donald Trump ordered the U.S. military to attack Iran: None of the administration’s most senior officials appeared on any Sunday talk shows to defend the joint offensive with Israel, or make the case for why Americans should support the campaign. It was especially surprising given how much Trump — who campaigned against “endless” wars — seemed to be struggling to justify the extraordinary decision to authorize dozens of airstrikes across Iran, including the one that wiped out the country’s longtime leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

By Monday afternoon, it was clear why no one had raised their hand for the job: There isn’t a convincing rationale for why the United States needed to go to war with Iran right now.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking to reporters that afternoon, was the first Cabinet official to shed light on the timing and motivation for the attacks: “We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action [against Iran]. … We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t pre-emptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”

In other words: The U.S. went to war with Iran — a war that has cost the lives of more than a hundred school innocent children and at least six U.S. service members in its first few days — because Israel forced its hand.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did little to dispel that idea while speaking to Sean Hannity on Monday night.

“There are people who say you dragged Trump into this,” Hannity told Netanyahu.

The Israeli premier laughed. “That’s ridiculous,” he said.

The fact that Donald Trump appears to have unilaterally volunteered America’s service members to go to war on Israel’s behalf has not gone over well with the president’s base. MAGA is in open revolt over the administration’s decision to attack Iran, and the internet is awash in memes depicting Trump as Netanyahu’s dog, among more graphic visual metaphors.

Criticism of the decision has been sharp and widespread — coming from both mainstream conservative commentators like Megyn Kelly, once steadfast MAGA warriors like Marjorie Taylor Greene, as well as from once-fringe alt-right figures like Nick Fuentes and Candace Owens, whose support Trump welcomed even as the broader Republican establishment shunned them over accusations of antisemitism.

“My own feeling is: no one should have to die for a foreign country. I don’t think those four service members died for the United States. I think they died for Iran or for Israel,” Kelly said on her show on Monday. “Our government’s job is not to look out for Iran or for Israel. It’s to look out for us. And this feels very much to me like it is clearly Israel’s war.”

She was later joined by former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who raised questions about Trump’s mental fitness and said: “We need to have a serious conversation about what the fuck is happening to this country and who in the hell are these decisions being made for, and who is making these decisons.”

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) who has tangled with Trump in recent months over the president’s reluctance to release the Epstein files reached a similar conclusion, posting on X: “The administration admits [Israel] dragged us into the [Iran] war that’s already cost too many American lives and billions of dollars. Before it’s over, the price of gas, groceries, and virtually everything else is going to go up. The only winners in [the U.S.] are defense company shareholders.”

Massie’s post quoted The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh, who wrote of Rubio: “He’s 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.”

Sean Davis, co-founder of conservative website The Federalist, wondered: “Is the goal to eliminate the Iranian regime or free the Iranian people or degrade their nuclear capability or degrade the conventional weapons capability or eliminate their regional hegemony or to cut off their oil supply to China or to help Israel or what? The lack of any coherent message seems to suggest the lack of any coherent objective.”

The Holocaust-denying white nationalist Nick Fuentes, whose influence in right-wing circles has grown in recent months, torched Trump on his livestream. “This is the breaking point for the GOP coalition. You bury the Epstein files. There is no border wall. You didn’t deliver on mass deportations. You cut corporate tax rates for the rich by cutting Medicaid again, no infrastructure bill, no middle class tax cuts. You got to refund the tariffs, and now we’re in a regime change war with Iran? That’s the breaking point. I’m out. I’m done. I am off the Trump train. I am not voting in ‘26, [and] if Rubio or Vance are on the ticket in any form in ‘28, I’m voting for a Democrat.”

Fuentes added: “All of these Plan-Trusters, Trump supporters, worshipers, Republicans — say whatever you want. You are a fucking cuck.. You are voting for a candidate that is screwing you. They break every promise, they lie to your face, they betray you, and our lives aren’t getting any better. How does a regime change war with Iran make us safer? How does that make our lives better?”

Owens had a similar view: “What does he think, we’re stupid? And the people online are trying to pretend like we’re the ones betraying Trump for holding him accountable for his promises he made to use when we voted for him and encouraged others to vote for him?”

Owens added: “The reason America wants a regime change in Iran is because Bibi Netenyhu is demanding it. … There was no imminent threat to the United States when Trump made this decision to do what Bibi wanted. I want to be clear here: This was not Trump’s decision, it was Bibi Netanyahu’s decision and that is the reason that he did it. We’re very aware that Israel is dictating our foreign policy and we would like that to stop.” Tucker Carlson struck a similar note on Monday, calling it “Israel’s war,” and claiming Mossad agents were planning false flag bombings in Gulf States.

Even Blackwater-founder Erik Prince — whose mercenaries famously massacred more than a dozen unarmed civilians at Baghdad’s Nisour Square during the Iraq war, and who has worked tirelessly to cultivate ties with Donald Trump — criticized the decision. “Subjecting our foreign policy to Israeli foreign policy, I have a real issue with that. I said it before. This should not be the path forward. And the president chose to do it. I just wonder who pressured him that much to do it,” Prince said.

Trump on Tuesday denied the idea that Israel was in charge. “No,” he told a reporter who asked point-blank whether Israel forced his hand. “I might’ve forced their hand. It was my opinion that these lunatics were gonna attack first.”