President Donald Trump’s decision to launch joint strikes with Israel against Iran is jolting a Republican Party already anxious about holding its coalition together ahead of the midterms.
Republicans largely rallied around the White House in the hours after the attack — insisting that the time for debating U.S. intervention in Iran had passed and that the party must unify behind the president. But many of the president’s “America First” allies are questioning the wisdom of undertaking major military action against Iran at a time when voters are clamoring for their leaders to focus on fixing problems at home.
They fear the strikes could drag the U.S. into a prolonged conflict in the Middle East, drive up gas prices and undercut Trump’s core economic message at a time when affordability remains the top concern among voters heading into November. That could demoralize the MAGA base and potentially cost Republicans the midterms.
Already, fissures are showing as the GOP tries to hold together the coalition that propelled Trump to victory in 2024.
“There is a MAGA generational divide on this. Older voters support it, younger voters do not,” influential MAGA podcaster Jack Posobiec told POLITICO. “Gen Z MAGA wants arrests on Epstein, deportations, and economic relief, not more war.”
For a movement that built its identity around skepticism of neoconservative interventionism, the Iran strikes represent a sharp test of what “America First” means in practice — and whether the isolationist aspect of it was just a temporary phase.
“I don’t know who benefits most from this attack on Iran — but it’s not Americans and it’s certainly not Republicans up for re-election this fall. Trump voters supported him to keep us out of these forever wars, deport illegals, stop transgender for everyone, and put the corrupt deep state officials in jail,” said one Trump ally, granted anonymity to share their candid assessment. “At this point I just hope as few Americans die as possible.”
The unease is particularly acute in battleground districts.
“There’s optimism that this will proceed swiftly, but obviously nobody wants a drawn-out conflict. Then there’s the ‘what next?’ question” for Iran and further American involvement, said a GOP operative working on a battleground House race, granted anonymity to share their candid assessment.
Recent polling suggests the public remains wary of deeper U.S. involvement in the Middle East, with voters expressing support for targeted action against Iranian threats but little appetite for a sustained military campaign.
It’s a tension that was also on display after the U.S. carried out strikes on key Iranian nuclear sites in June 2025, an operation aimed at degrading Tehran’s enrichment capabilities. At the time, allies in Congress and conservative media rallied around Trump’s framing that the strikes were necessary to prevent a nuclear breakout — but some populist commentators later argued that even limited military action risked playing into a broader war dynamic they once decried.
“This is a voluntary crisis and a war of choice. Iran’s relationship with the U.S. was benighted — though often by Washington’s design — in January 2025 but it was stable in its mediocrity.
Trump didn’t have to do any of this,” said Curt Mills, the executive director of American Conservative magazine. “The president has chosen to humiliate many of his earliest and most ardent supporters and make his 2024 argument that he headed ‘the pro-peace ticket’ a bad joke.”
The United States’ record of military intervention over the past two decades has been uneven at best. Campaigns in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya were initially framed as decisive shows of American power, but each ultimately unraveled into prolonged instability at a cost of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars. Those conflicts also deepened public skepticism about open-ended foreign wars.
Still, some allies who share ideological reservations are urging unity now that the strikes are underway.
“Once our troops are in the field fighting, the time to debate the need for war is over,” said Steve Cortes, a former Trump adviser. “Every American should pray for their safety and cheer on their successes in battle.”
While more traditional conservative figures on the Hill, like House Speaker Mike Johnson, are voicing support for the president’s actions, other more nationalist-populist leaders who have come to prominence in the age of Trump are more sharply critical.
Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene, in a post on X, derided the strikes as “America Last,” and said that it “feels like the worst betrayal this time because it comes from the very man and the admin who we all believed was different and said no more.”
“Now, America is going to be force fed and gas lighted all the ‘noble’ reasons the American ‘Peace’ President and Pro-Peace administration had to go to war once again this year, after being in power for only a year,” Taylor-Greene wrote. “Head-spinning, but maga.”
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who as of late has found more friends on the left than the right, said that he would work with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Ca.) to force a congressional vote on war with Iran, an unusual cross-party alignment that underscores the unease on both ends of the ideological spectrum.
“I am opposed to this War,” Massie said on X. “This is not ‘America First.’”
Still, early defenses of the Iran strike from other Trump allies usually wary of foreign entanglements shows how the administration and other Republicans are likely to try to sell the military action to the American people. They note that the president has emphasized the limited American footprint on the ground compared with past wars and insisted this is not an open-ended conflict driven by ideology.
“I think the president will have broad support for this. This isn’t an open-ended conflict for ideological reasons. The president is targeting key Iranian capabilities that threaten U.S. interests. I think most members of the America First movement will support this strategy,” said Alex Gray, who served as National Security Council chief of staff and deputy assistant to the president during the first Trump administration. “There is always unpredictability in these things, but I think the president is setting expectations appropriately.”
Another person close to the White House, granted anonymity to share their candid assessment, added that the “president hates war. He obviously believes it’s something that has to be done for lasting peace.”
At the same time, Trump’s political operation is also moving swiftly to tamp down dissent. Chris LaCivita, one of the president’s top campaign hands, swiftly fired back at Massie’s criticism.
"Thomas Massie is a self loathing dope that will find work soon as the newest cast member on 'The View,’” LaCivita told POLITICO.
And some of the president’s supporters see the strikes not as a departure from his foreign policy but as an extension of it. The Iran strikes come a little less than two months after the U.S. conducted a military operation to oust Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and comes as Trump teases a “friendly takeover” of Cuba.
“If we take out Maduro, then the Mullahs, then Cuba — will be absolutely cathartic and the greatest foreign policy sequence in modern American history,” said one White House ally, also granted anonymity to speak frankly. “Talk about a legacy of strength, deterrence, and moral clarity.”
Diana Nerozzi contributed to this report.
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