The MAGA Republican voters who are most supportive of President Donald Trump’s skepticism of foreign military engagements are giving the U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear weapons infrastructure two thumbs up, according to political operatives and media figures in Trump’s orbit—which matches the first bit of public polling on the issue.
While MAGA supporters did express some initial anxiety about joining Israel’s massive, days-long attack—sparked chiefly by concerns that Jerusalem was pushing the U.S. into another so-called endless Middle East war—insiders familiar with those Republicans say it was more than just trust in the president that has them approving the Iran strike (and defying assumptions from pundits).
Trump’s decision to opt for limited military action that met specific, definable national security objectives, plus his move to strong-arm a reluctant Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into a ceasefire with Iran, reassured nervous MAGA voters, according to these insiders. The president’s approach also happened to intersect with Republican voters’ historic support for flexing American military muscle in bold, short bursts that accomplish specific goals.
“It’s not that they are isolationist; they’re not anti-war. They’re just non-interventionist. In particular they’re noninterventionist in the Middle East,” Steve Bannon, a Trump confidant who hosts the War Room podcast, told The Dispatch, explaining MAGA voters’ approval of Trump’s order to bomb three Iranian nuclear weapons sites on June 21. “The way he did it was fine: Went in, made a strike—although people are not wildly enthusiastic about it—made a strike and got out,” Bannon said. “And, particularly what they’ve liked is, with all the pressure of the shills like Tel Aviv Mark Levin and all these shills at Fox News trying to push him into a broader war commitment and, particularly, regime change.” (Bannon and Levin, a conservative talk radio host, are battling each other over the merits of the strike and the extent of GOP backing.)
A Republican strategist who specializes in MAGA politics elaborated, saying Trump’s populist base isn’t opposed to military action per se.
This strategist, requesting anonymity to speak candidly, said MAGA voters are hostile to “aimless, extended ground wars” and suspicious of assertions that “destabilizing regime change advances American interests.” The military action the president ordered, however, amounted to “overwhelming, targeted strikes with clear objectives that relate to American interests. As a result, the electorate is mostly satisfied. They still worry about a slippery slope. But Trump didn’t go down that slope and they’re happy about that.”
On the heels of Israel’s multiday military campaign to cripple Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities, the U.S. joined the fray, with Trump announcing the evening of June 21 that long range Air Force bombers had struck three sites—Fordo, Natanz and Ishfahan—believed crucial to Tehran’s elicit program to enrich uranium and produce munitions that could threaten Israel and the U.S. Trump declared the operation successful and shortly after signaled his preference that Israel and Iran cease hostilities.
Many Republicans cheered, lauding the president for finally acting after years of Iranian belligerence and obfuscation in regard to its nuclear weapons program. But on the MAGA right, a few prominent figures protested, arguing the military operation ordered by Trump broke his promise to break with past “neoconservative” GOP presidents and keep the U.S. out of “endless” Middle East wars. Among such critics was Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
Matt Kibbe—not a Trump loyalist but a well-known libertarian activist in Washington, D.C., attracted to the president’s noninterventionist foreign policy rhetoric—went so far as to predict the commander in chief’s electoral base would splinter because of the strike. “I don’t know if President Trump successfully blew up his target in Iran, but he’s doing a great job of blowing up his voting coalition,” Kibbe said in a post on X two days after the bombing.
Kibbe is correct in one regard: Trump’s apparent hesitancy to use American military force is a critical component of his appeal to conservative populists, libertarians, and others in his coalition beyond Republican regulars. But veteran GOP pollster Patrick Ruffini, who keeps close tabs on Trump’s coalition, told The Dispatch that many political observers have “misread” this sentiment and presumed shifts in Republican foreign policy opinion broadly that never actually occurred.
“Polling has been consistent that Republicans remain more committed to a posture of military strength—and MAGA Republicans more so, not less so, than other Republicans,” Ruffini said.
“MAGA is now positioning this as strikes, not permanent nation-building occupations,” Ruffini added. “What it is, in fact, is a return to the norm. [Ronald] Reagan did not do nation-building occupations, but he did do strikes. And he won the Cold War without firing a shot. There is not as big a difference [between Reagan and Trump] as people think.”
The polling conducted so far proves Ruffini’s point.
A national survey of American adults from NBC News found public disapproval for Trump’s military strike on Iran, driven by self-identified Democrats and independents. But among Republicans, 49 percent of voters who consider themselves “more of a supporter of the Republican Party” strongly backed the strike, while 70 percent of voters who consider themselves “more of a supporter of the MAGA movement” were strong backers. A second national poll, from Axios, saw GOP support for the bombing increase from 72 percent beforehand to 82 percent afterward.
But there is noteworthy lingering caution on the MAGA right: a general suspicion of Israel, at least as it relates to American foreign policy.
As a political operative in MAGA circles told The Dispatch, Trump loyalists, especially the younger voters among them, were worried upon hearing the news that the U.S. had joined Israel’s attack on Iran. To them, the president’s decision gave off “the vibe” that he was being “dog-walked into war” by Netanyahu.” Trump managed to reassure anxious MAGA voters with his harsh condemnation of Israel’s military strikes on Iran as a shaky ceasefire was taking hold, described by this source as “the F bomb heard around the world.”
“We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f— they’re doing,” Trump told reporters last week. Those comments convinced MAGA “hand-wringers” that Trump was in charge, this political operative said. Younger MAGA voters in particular are much less committed to U.S. military support for Israel than older voters with similar political inclinations, this source said: “There is a real generational divide.”
