Trump says supporters ‘more in love' with him than ever despite Iran divisions
'My supporters are more in love with me today, and I'm more in love with them, more than they even were at election time where we had a total landslide,' the president told reporters as a new flagpole was erected at the White House.
'I may have some people that are a little bit unhappy now, but I have some people that are very happy, and I have people outside of the base that can't believe that this is happening, they're so happy,' he said.
Pete Hegseth (Jose Luis Magana/PA)
Defence secretary Pete Hegseth told legislators on Capitol Hill on Wednesday that the Pentagon was providing Mr Trump with options on Iran but would not say whether the military was planning to assist with Israeli strikes.
'I may do it, I may not do it,' Mr Trump said Wednesday. 'I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do.'
Some longtime defenders of his America First mantra are criticising him for considering a greater US role in the conflict between Israel and Iran after a week of deadly strikes, and reminding their own audiences of Mr Trump's 2024 promises to resist overseas military involvement.
Steve Bannon, one of Mr Trump's 2016 campaign's senior advisers, told an audience in Washington that bitter feelings over Iraq were a driving force for Mr Trump's first presidential candidacy and the Maga (Make American Great Again) movement, saying that 'one of the core tenets is no forever wars'.
Steve Bannon (Alamy/PA)
But Mr Bannon — a longtime Trump ally who served a four-month sentence for defying a subpoena in the congressional investigation into the US Capitol attack on January 6 2021 — went on to suggest Mr Trump will maintain loyalty from his base no matter what. On Wednesday, he acknowledged that while he and others will argue against military intervention, 'the Maga movement will back Trump'.
Ultimately, Mr Bannon said Mr Trump will have to make the case to the American people if he wants to get involved in Iran, and he has not done that yet.
'We don't like it. Maybe we hate it,' Mr Bannon said, predicting what the Maga response would be. 'But, you know, we'll get on board.'
Alex Jones, the right-wing conspiracy theorist and Infowars host on Wednesday posted on social media a side-by-side of Mr Trump's official presidential photo and an AI-generated composite of Mr Trump and former president George W Bush, who Mr Trump and many of his allies have long disparaged for involving the US in the so-called 'forever wars' in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Writing 'What you voted for' above Mr Trump's image and 'What you got' above the composite, Jones added: 'I hope this is not the case.'
Alex Jones (Alamy/PA)
Commentator Tucker Carlson's rhetoric towards Mr Trump has been increasingly critical, with the longtime supporter — who headlined large rallies with the Republican during the 2024 campaign — this week suggesting the president's strategy was breaking his pledge to keep the US out of new foreign entanglements. Mr Trump hit back at Carlson on social media, calling him 'kooky'.
During an event at the White House later on Wednesday, the president said Carlson had 'called and apologised', adding that Carlson 'is a nice guy'.
On Wednesday, Carlson's conversation with Republican senator Ted Cruz laid bare the divides among many Republicans. The two sparred for two hours over a variety of issues, primarily potential US involvement in Iran, and Carlson accused Mr Cruz of placing too much emphasis on protecting Israel in his foreign policy worldview.
'You don't know anything about Iran,' Carlson said after the senator said he did not know Iran's population, or its ethnic composition. 'You're a senator who's calling for the overthrow of a government, and you don't know anything about the country.'
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Trump's great trick is convincing opposing forces within his coalition that he is on their side and that a master plan will soon be revealed to settle matters in their favour. For months, the America Firsters, Trump's supporters and staff who are opposed to all foreign entanglements, had convinced themselves that he had been gulling the hawks in service of the doves. Trump had frustrated Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu behind the scenes and dispatched his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to strike a new grand bargain for the region. Then last week Israel attacked Iran and Trump appeared to take credit. 'Heads-up? It wasn't a heads-up,' he said last week, when asked about the level of his advanced knowledge of Israel's plan. It was 'we know what's going on'. Washington's war lobbyists instantly claimed that Trump's peace agenda had been a ruse all along to give Tel Aviv time to prepare for action. At the same time, however, sources suggest Trump also spoke to the Emir of Qatar and the Emir then reached out to Tehran in another bid to stop the war. 'There is still a middle ground for a cessation of fire,' said one insider. 'But the window is closing fast.' The truth, then, is that the Commander-in-Chief is bluffing and not bluffing. Trump is always improvising, leveraging all options, and using the world stage to appeal to different sections of his domestic audience. Throughout both his presidencies, he has played hawkish Republicans and the anti-war MAGA elements off against each other. The danger for him now is that, in the nightmarish context of Iran vs Israel, his hyper-transactional approach has brought him closer than ever to pushing America into a new conflict in the Middle East. 'If there's one guiding rule about Trump,' says Justin Logan, director of defence and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, 'it's his self-conception. He thinks of himself as a winner, a dealmaker and a peacemaker.' The problem with Iran is that, having failed to pull off a deal, Donald the winner is in conflict with Donald the peacemaker. Trump sees no contradictions, however. It's 'peace through strength'. He seems increasingly confident that he can hurl the Mother of All Bombs at Iran's mountain nuclear-development lair in Fordo, claim 'MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!' and let the Israelis and the Iranians settle the rest. Such an exercise could prove to be the greatest test of his ability to bend reality to his will.
