As far as President Trump is concerned, he decides what it means to put America first, not the pundits on the isolationist right.
Mr. Trump pushed back after podcasters Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson bemoaned his decision to launch strikes on Iran, insisting that the mission is in America’s best interests and that the Trump-founded Make America Great Again movement is behind him.
“I think that MAGA is Trump — MAGA’s not the other two,” Mr. Trump said, referring to Ms. Kelly and Ms. Carlson, in a Monday interview on Rachael Bade’s “Inner Circle” Substack. “MAGA wants to see our country thrive and be safe. And MAGA loves what I’m doing — every aspect of it.”
He characterized the massive attack, which wiped out the top Iranian leadership and its warships in the Gulf of Oman, as “a detour that we have to take in order to keep our country safe and keep other countries safe, frankly.”
Leading the blowback on the anti-war right were Mr. Carlson, who called the attack “absolutely disgusting and evil” in an interview with ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl, and Ms. Kelly, who accused the president of doing Israel’s bidding.
“Our government’s job is not to look out for Iran or for Israel; it’s to look out for us,” she said on her Monday podcast. “And this feels very much to me like it’s Israel’s war.”
SEE ALSO: The president is calling: Trump uses whirlwind of interviews to sell his Iran war through the media
EXCLUSIVE: In a phone call w/me just now, @realDonaldTrump hit back at MAGA World critics of his Iran gambit, including @megynkelly & @TuckerCarlson
->Kelly “outta study her history book a little bit,” he said when asked the criticism on her show today.
->Tucker’s…
— Rachael Bade (@rachaelmbade) March 3, 2026
They drew further attention to the rift on the right between the anti-interventionist wing and the “peace through strength” side, which includes the vast majority of Republican lawmakers.
Despite the GOP support, Daily Wire podcaster Matt Walsh warned that Mr. Trump’s core constituency isn’t on board.
“I’m referring to MAGA conservatives, America Firsters, Trump’s base. The people I talk to every single day,” he said in a Monday post on X. “Attacking Iran was not a policy priority for them. And many were expressly against it. Trying to rewrite that history now is just grotesque.”
Happy to stoke the division was Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who said shortly after the launch of Operation Epic Fury that Mr. Trump has become “Israel First.”
SEE ALSO: Iran war overshadows Trump’s meeting with German Chancellor Merz
“Trump has turned ’America First’ into ’Israel First’ — which always means ’America Last,’” he said in a Saturday post on X. “Our Powerful Armed Forces are prepared for this day and will teach the aggressors the lesson they deserve.”
More than 1,000 Iranian combatants have been killed in the attacks, while the American death toll stands at six, U.S. Central Command reported Monday.
“Shedding of both American and Iranian blood is thus on Israel Firsters,” Mr. Araghchi posted. “American people deserve better and should take back their country.”
In Mr. Trump’s Monday interview, he said he wasn’t sure whether a significant portion of his base opposes the war, but emphasized that preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and destroying its military might is critical to American interests.
“I have to do what’s right, number one — and you can’t have Iran getting a nuclear weapon. That’s predominant to me,” he said.
He also shrugged off Mr. Carlson’s criticism, saying that “it has no impact on me.”
Critics accused Mr. Trump of straying from his campaign promise to avoid “endless” wars, while the White House posted a list of the 74 times he has vowed that Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon dating back to 2011.
Unpersuaded was Ms. Kelly, who said that “no one should have to die for a foreign country. I don’t think those … servicemembers died for the United States. I think they died for Iran or for Israel.”
Mr. Trump dismissed her take, saying that “Megyn was opposed to me for years when I ran the first time, and nothing stopped me.
“And so, you know, 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.”
The Trump administration has argued that Iran has been waging a one-sided war against Americans for 47 years, starting with the 66 hostages taken at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran following the overthrow of the shah of Iran in 1979.
Since then, Iranian and Iranian-backed forces have killed more than 800 Americans, including 608 troops during the Iraq War and 241 military personnel in the October 1983 bombing of the Marine compound in Beirut.
“For 47 years, the Iranian regime has actively and intentionally facilitated the killing of Americans while chanting ’death to America’ and funding other bloodthirsty terrorists seeking to destroy the United States and all of Western Civilization,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday on social media.
“Prior American leaders were too weak and cowardly to do anything about it,” she added. “Now, President Donald J. Trump is correcting decades of cowardice and holding those responsible for the deaths of Americans accountable.”
Conservative supporters of Operation Epic Fury said eliminating threats to U.S. interests is the definition of America First.
“This is ’America First,’ getting rid of your deadly enemies and their ability to destroy you,” said conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza on X.
Fox News host Mark Levin said Tuesday on his “Liberty’s Voice” podcast that attacking Iran is “about America First, national security, supporting our troops, protecting the homeland, and ensuring Iran never gets nukes.”
He blasted “these phony podcasters and video podcasters who pretend that they speak for you and me,” insisting that the “vast majority of the American people support what he’s doing.
“The only people who are not backing the president and what we are doing, our military, are the Democrats, the Marxists, the Islamists, and Tucker Qatarlson and his cabal in the woke right.”
