Trump Starts Process Of Bringing MAGA Team Back Together

grow­ing civ­il war with­in the MAGA move­ment is brew­ing as Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump weighs whether to strike Iran in sup­port of Israel’s mil­i­tary cam­paign. At the cen­ter of the con­flict is Trump’s open­ness to using U.S. force against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure—an idea that has caused con­cern among key fig­ures aligned with the “Amer­i­ca First” doc­trine. High-pro­file allies like Tuck­er Carl­son and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mar­jorie Tay­lor Greene have crit­i­cized this poten­tial shift, warn­ing that it con­tra­dicts Trump’s long­stand­ing promise to avoid new for­eign wars. Carl­son, in par­tic­u­lar, was vocal in a newslet­ter and on Steve Bannon’s pod­cast, accus­ing Trump of com­plic­i­ty in an act of war.

In response to the back­lash, Trump’s team report­ed­ly ini­ti­at­ed pri­vate out­reach to ease ten­sions with­in his base. That effort seems to be hav­ing an effect, with Ban­non stat­ing that most MAGA sup­port­ers will like­ly back Trump if he choos­es to move for­ward. Trump him­self revealed that Carl­son pri­vate­ly apol­o­gized to him for what he described as over­ly harsh crit­i­cism. Carl­son had pre­vi­ous­ly invest­ed heav­i­ly in Trump’s 2024 cam­paign, pro­mot­ing his anti-inter­ven­tion­ist plat­form, but now finds him­self at odds with hawk­ish con­ser­v­a­tives like Sen­a­tor Ted Cruz and Fox News host Mark Levin.

This inter­nal divide has reached Trump’s admin­is­tra­tion. Direc­tor of Nation­al Intel­li­gence Tul­si Gab­bard, known for her anti-war stance, was pub­licly side­lined after releas­ing a video warn­ing of the nuclear dan­gers tied to esca­lat­ing ten­sions with Iran. How­ev­er, Vice Pres­i­dent J.D. Vance defend­ed Gab­bard in a social media post, empha­siz­ing her loy­al­ty and key role in nation­al secu­ri­ty. Still, Vance was crit­i­cal of Iran, assert­ing the coun­try had ample time to nego­ti­ate and made a “mis­take” by delay­ing.

The U.S. is under pres­sure from Israel, which con­tin­ues to tar­get Iran­ian mil­i­tary and nuclear sites and has request­ed Amer­i­can assis­tance to strike Iran’s For­dow Nuclear Enrich­ment Cen­ter. This facil­i­ty, buried deep inside a moun­tain, requires bunker-buster bombs that Israel does not pos­sess. Trump has not yet approved the request. White House Press Sec­re­tary Karo­line Leav­itt con­firmed that no final deci­sion has been made and that Trump will wait rough­ly two weeks to leave room for diplo­mat­ic engage­ment.

Dur­ing a press brief­ing, Leav­itt relayed a mes­sage from Trump, indi­cat­ing that Iran has request­ed direct nego­ti­a­tions and may send a del­e­ga­tion to the White House. The sit­u­a­tion remains flu­id, with ten­sions ris­ing both abroad and with­in Trump’s own polit­i­cal ranks. The pres­i­dent is nav­i­gat­ing a tightrope between main­tain­ing his anti-war cam­paign nar­ra­tive and respond­ing to geopo­lit­i­cal real­i­ties that demand a deci­sive stance. As both his base and inter­na­tion­al allies await a deci­sion, the next two weeks will be piv­otal.