Trump has made perfectly clear he'll decide what ‘America First' means, even if MAGA don't like it
Its capture of the Republican Party also means old-school Republicans now float in the MAGA midst, singing from the same song sheet when it comes to the deification of Trump, but harbouring more traditional party views on policy, including geopolitics and foreign affairs.
So, someone like the long-serving South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, who believes fervently in defending Ukraine and disarming Iran, has to perform the awkward dance of praising the leader while gently cajoling him to take stronger action against Moscow and Tehran.
Likewise for Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who has suddenly become the poster boy for US-led regime change in Tehran after appearing on Carlson's program on Thursday (AEST). It was an ideal encapsulation of the wider MAGA debate, pitting the hawk's hawk, Cruz, against hardline isolationist and Putin sympathiser, Carlson.
A teaser clip of the appearance went viral, with Cruz unable to answer when asked for the population of Iran. 'You don't know the population of the country you seek to topple?' Carlson asked, incredulous.
It was a gotcha question, as Cruz later said, and irrelevant to the substance of the issue: Iran's ambitions for a nuclear weapon, and, in Cruz's telling, its plans to assassinate Trump. But in the MAGA universe, Carlson had landed a hit. And their broader conversation – about whether the Bible compelled them to defend Benjamin Netanyahu's Israel – also struck a MAGA fault line.
The relevance of the former Fox host may be questionable (Trump mocked him by saying he should get a TV show so that people might hear what he says), but Carlson remains a significant player in the ecosystem of MAGA activists and commentators like Jack Posobiec, Candace Owens, Laura Loomer and countless others.
If you don't follow US politics closely, you may not fully appreciate the extent of the MAGA media world, which runs the gamut from mainstream conservative outlets (Fox) to a far-right fringe of YouTube streamers, podcasters and their guests. It's in these echo chambers that a lot of MAGA thought percolates.
When Trump called Carlson 'kooky' on Truth Social, Owens said the president had 'completely fractured his base'. She added that he was appeasing the same neocons who had opposed his nomination in the first place. 'Truly unbelievable,' she said.
Not everyone is so strident. Appearing on Bannon's War Room on Thursday, Posobiec – a former navy intelligence officer – pushed the commonly held theory that Trump is simply playing four dimensional chess, beyond the grasp of mere mortals.
'It seems to me that Trump could be pursuing a grand strategy whereby he secures peace in Ukraine and an end to the Iranian nuclear program in one fell swoop by making a deal through Iran to get to Russia,' Posobiec said. Interviewer Dave Brat concurred: 'That sounds right to me, and it sounds like President Trump to me.'
Conservative activist Charlie Kirk, co-founder of political action group Turning Point USA, pleaded with the MAGA flock to keep the faith – including by turning off their phones, reading scripture and seeing friends.
'President Trump knows his base. Have some faith in his ability to handle this. His whole life has led to this moment,' Kirk said on X. 'We must trust Trump in this situation.'
Indeed, we soon heard from Trump that Carlson had called him to apologise for his remarks, which were 'too strong'. Sound familiar? Last week, Elon Musk phoned Trump to make amends for his many online outbursts amid the pair's spectacular falling out, and then began a grovelling public apology tour.
When you're the president – especially when you're this president, who rules his cult as a religious leader, and has compared himself to Jesus and the Pope – that is the kind of loyalty you can command. At least publicly, at least while you're still early in your term.
Remember, Trump's own vice-president, J.D. Vance, thought Trump was either a 'cynical asshole' or 'America's Hitler' in 2016. They all come around eventually.
'My supporters are for me,' Trump said on Thursday. 'I don't want to fight either, but if it's a choice between fighting and them having a nuclear weapon, you have to do what you have to do.
'Don't forget, we [the US] haven't been fighting. We add a certain amount of genius to everything, but we haven't been fighting.'
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If Trump does decide to conduct a strike against Iran, it will shock the MAGA movement deeply, but they will almost certainly get over it. Likewise, if he opts not to, and keeps pursuing the 'deal' he has always preferred, it won't necessarily be because the base said so.
'America First' is whatever Trump says it is. He told us so himself.
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Like the teenage pop fan who spends the entire concert filming their idol because without "likes" on social media you weren't really there, these gushing American supplicants betray a flimsy sense of Australia - one that requires validation through repeated external (read: American) recognition. Their reasoning goes like this: No meeting, no respect, we must not deserve respect. The more obvious explanation - that of a flawed, ego-maniacal president ignorant of history, dismissive of alliances and being skilfully played by Bibi Netanyahu - scores only the vaguest of references in some of these accounts. This toadying informs a second flawed assumption. That the AUKUS deal secretly hatched by the instinctively secretive Morrison government and too hastily embraced by a quaking Labor in opposition, is, ipso facto, vital to Australia's national interest. This, despite serious criticism from credible defence and security experts, and senior political figures on both sides of politics. 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Docile commentators seemed convinced that Anthony Albanese has been humiliated and claim he should have pushed harder and earlier for a Trump meeting. This naively overstates Australia's powers of persuasion in the current unique circumstances, understates Trump's singular attachment to an "America first" mindset, and underplays the gravitational pull of global events to which a mercurial America, sadly, is unnervingly central. If the previously unthinkable happens in coming days and Trump directly intervenes in Iran militarily, all the bleating over a cancelled bilateral in Canada will look even sillier than it does now. A common refrain, too, is that the Australian PM should have been prepared to fly to Washington, DC months ago for an Oval Office assignation (to which he was not invited?) rather than rely on talks on the sidelines of an international summit. The trouble with this is, well, everything. First, there's the epic US lid-doffing coursing under such arguments. Like the teenage pop fan who spends the entire concert filming their idol because without "likes" on social media you weren't really there, these gushing American supplicants betray a flimsy sense of Australia - one that requires validation through repeated external (read: American) recognition. Their reasoning goes like this: No meeting, no respect, we must not deserve respect. The more obvious explanation - that of a flawed, ego-maniacal president ignorant of history, dismissive of alliances and being skilfully played by Bibi Netanyahu - scores only the vaguest of references in some of these accounts. This toadying informs a second flawed assumption. That the AUKUS deal secretly hatched by the instinctively secretive Morrison government and too hastily embraced by a quaking Labor in opposition, is, ipso facto, vital to Australia's national interest. This, despite serious criticism from credible defence and security experts, and senior political figures on both sides of politics. That many journalists either explicitly or implicitly infer only benefits from AUKUS without acknowledging these substantive criticisms is convenient for the government and generally for its pro-America defence champions. Mature, objective journalism, however, it is not. MORE FROM KENNY: Those who say Albo should have been prepared to risk becoming a punching bag for Trump in the bear pit of the Oval Office seem to ignore the reality that such an outcome would be at least as bad for Australia as for the PM personally. A collapse in bilateral civility before the world's media could end up affecting trade, the ANZUS alliance, and Australian access to top-shelf education, medical science and digital technologies, let alone access to lucrative US markets. Besides, the idea of Albanese being personally intimidated is so much conservative wishful thinking. Through three decades in Parliament, and time before that as the sole left-aligned party organiser in the ruthless right-controlled NSW branch of the ALP, the one thing you can be certain of is that Albanese can assuage difficult people and can handle himself in an argument, should it come to that. There is a lot of hyperventilating at present over the Prime Minister's "failure" to score a face-to-face sit-down with Donald Trump. Much of it turns on a surprisingly credulous absorption of official talking points about the supposed necessity of the colossally expensive multi-decade AUKUS nuclear submarine pact. Trump's late cancellation of a scheduled bilateral meeting, then, is depicted as a blow to the $368 billion AUKUS deal and, axiomatically, therefore, to Australia. But is it? Words like "snub" and "debacle" have flown about on Sky After Dark and in pro-Coalition newspapers. Docile commentators seemed convinced that Anthony Albanese has been humiliated and claim he should have pushed harder and earlier for a Trump meeting. This naively overstates Australia's powers of persuasion in the current unique circumstances, understates Trump's singular attachment to an "America first" mindset, and underplays the gravitational pull of global events to which a mercurial America, sadly, is unnervingly central. If the previously unthinkable happens in coming days and Trump directly intervenes in Iran militarily, all the bleating over a cancelled bilateral in Canada will look even sillier than it does now. A common refrain, too, is that the Australian PM should have been prepared to fly to Washington, DC months ago for an Oval Office assignation (to which he was not invited?) rather than rely on talks on the sidelines of an international summit. The trouble with this is, well, everything. First, there's the epic US lid-doffing coursing under such arguments. Like the teenage pop fan who spends the entire concert filming their idol because without "likes" on social media you weren't really there, these gushing American supplicants betray a flimsy sense of Australia - one that requires validation through repeated external (read: American) recognition. Their reasoning goes like this: No meeting, no respect, we must not deserve respect. The more obvious explanation - that of a flawed, ego-maniacal president ignorant of history, dismissive of alliances and being skilfully played by Bibi Netanyahu - scores only the vaguest of references in some of these accounts. This toadying informs a second flawed assumption. That the AUKUS deal secretly hatched by the instinctively secretive Morrison government and too hastily embraced by a quaking Labor in opposition, is, ipso facto, vital to Australia's national interest. This, despite serious criticism from credible defence and security experts, and senior political figures on both sides of politics. 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