Iran Parrots Isolationist Right-Wingers Opposing US-Israel Strikes as Trump Denounces Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly

US President Donald Trump’s decision to launch joint military strikes on Iran with Israel has provoked an epic fury of opposition from parts of his so-called “America First” base, whose talking points have now apparently inspired Iranian officials to echo them.

“Mr. Rubio admitted what we all knew: US has entered a war of choice on behalf of Israel. There was never any so-called Iranian ‘threat.’ Shedding of both American and Iranian blood is thus on Israel Firsters,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted Monday on X, referring to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “American people deserve better and should take back their country.”

A brief excerpt of statements offered by Rubio explaining the rationale for the war began circulating online suggesting Israel had directed the attacks, eliminating the full context of his remarks which emphasized his view that the Iranian regime posed a threat to the US and the world. “The imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us,” Rubio said.

“No matter what, ultimately, this operation needed to happen,” he added, arguing that Iran was building up its missile arsenal to such an extent that it could “hold the whole world hostage” while having a degree of “immunity” from outside action due to the damage it could inflict.

Nonetheless, Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, wrote in all capital letters Monday on X that “TRUMP HAS BETRAYED ‘AMERICA FIRST’ TO ADOPT ‘ISRAEL FIRST.'”

In a Monday appearance on SiriusXM’s “The Megyn Kelly Show,” former US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican and outspoken opponent of the Jewish state, said, “I was out there on the front lines for ‘Make America Great Again.’ And ‘Make America Great Again’ was supposed to be ‘America first,’ not ‘Israel first,’ not any foreign country first, not any foreign people first, but the American people first in our problems.”

Pointing her finger and raising her voice, Greene told Kelly that “[US Vice President] JD Vance promised it. [US intelligence chief] Tulsi Gabbard promised it. All of them promised it. And we’re a year in, and we’re in another f**king war, and we’ve got American troops being killed. I think it’s time for America to rip the band-aid off, and we need to have a serious conversation about what the f**k is happening to this country, and who in the hell are these decisions being made for and who is making these decisions?”

Greene later added to her comments on X: “And just like that we are no longer a nation divided by left and right, we are now a nation divided be those who want to fight wars for Israel and those who just want peace and to be able to afford their bills and health insurance.”

Kelly praised Greene’s posting on her show, saying that “X is completely saturated in neocons, the pro-Israel crowd, and people who would love to cheerlead us right into another Middle East ground war that’s endless. I was grateful for your contrary perspective, Marjorie.”

Making her position further explicit, Kelly added, “I don’t think those four service members died for the United States. I think they died for Iran or for Israel … this feels very much to me like it is clearly Israel’s war.”

The next day, Trump was asked at the White House if Israel dragged the US into conflict with Iran and rejected the notion.

“I might have forced their [Israel’s] hand,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office as he met with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. “We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first. If we didn’t do it, they were going to attack first. I felt strongly about that.”

Beyond Kelly, far-right podcaster Tucker Carlson promoted a comparable point of view as reports circulated that over the past month, he had met with Trump three times in the Oval Office to make the case against a regime change war in Iran.

On Monday, Carlson released a new installment of his show — a monologue running more than 100 minutes — titled “Israel’s war and what it means.”

Carlson said within the first 60 seconds, “First, why did this happen? Now in this case there’s a really simple answer. This happened because Israel wanted it to happen. This is Israel’s war. This is not the United States’s war. This war is not being waged on behalf of American national security objectives to make the United States safer or richer. This war’s not even about weapons of mass destruction.”

Far-right podcaster Candace Owens said the same thing in an interview with Piers Morgan.

“The reason America wants a regime change in Iran is because Bibi Netanyahu is demanding it,” she said, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “There was no imminent threat to the United States when Trump made this decision to do what Bibi wanted. I want to be clear here. This was not Trump’s decision; it was Bibi Netanyahu’s decision. And that is why he did it. We’re very aware that Israel is dictating our foreign policy and we would now like that to stop.”

Owens wrote in response to a clip of Trump saying that US soldiers could die that “Goyim always must die so the Khazarian mafia can expand their borders,” a promotion of the conspiracy theory claiming that the origins of the Jewish people trace back not to Israel but to a Turkic population in the Middle Ages.

Continuing with her months long-efforts to link Israel to the murder of her friend, Turning Points USA chief Charlie Kirk, Owens wrote on Saturday: “Remember when they tried to gaslight us last June by calling us ‘Panicans,’ claiming we were lying about serial killer Bibi Netanyahu’s aims? The ONLY reason this war didn’t begin last June was because of Charlie Kirk. They eliminated that reason on September 10th.”

White nationalist podcaster Nick Fuentes — who has celebrated Adolf Hitler and encouraged his “Groyper” followers to rape women — also filtered the attack on Iran through an antisemitic conspiracist ideology.

“This war has nothing to do with nuclear weapons, terrorism, or dead protesters,” Fuentes wrote on Saturday, referencing the Iranian regime’s recent massacre of tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators. “For decades, Israel has openly pursued an agenda to topple Iraq, Syria, and Iran. They orchestrated all of these wars in order to eliminate their rivals and gain total hegemony over the Middle East.”

On Sunday, Fuentes wrote that “this is a war of aggression for Israel. Americans will die in terrorist attacks and in missile strikes so that Israel can expand its borders in every direction. Trump, Vance, and Rubio sold us out.”

Matt Walsh, a populist-nationalist podcast host for Owens’ former employer, The Daily Wire, said in response to Rubio’s comments that “he’s flat out telling us that we’re in a war with Iran because Israel forced our hand. This is basically the worst possible thing he could have said.”

Trump has rejected Carlson and Kelly’s criticism, however.

“I think that MAGA is Trump — MAGA’s not the other two,” he said in an interview with independent DC newsletter The Inner Circle on Monday night. “MAGA wants to see our country thrive and be safe. And MAGA loves what I’m doing — every aspect of it.”

Noting Kelly in particular, Trump stated she “was opposed to me for years when I ran the first time and nothing stopped me.” He said that “some people are against — and they always come back. She came all the way back. But now I guess she maybe doesn’t like the idea of this war, but I do because I have to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of the Iranians.”

Giving Carlson an apparent green light to continue with his outbursts and conspiratorial provocations, Trump said that the podcaster “can say whatever he wants; it has no impact on me.”