The rise of Donald Trump helped bring far-right fringe voices into the mainstream. Now, some of them are trying to push him out.
The MAGA and “America First” movement has split over the Trump administration’s surprise attack on Iran on Saturday, which was carried out in coordination with Israel.
Streamers and podcasters are voicing their sense of betrayal toward the White House after the president ignited a war in the Middle East that has already claimed the lives of six American service members and, by Trump’s own admission, will likely claim more. Additionally, the president’s military action has reportedly cost the American taxpayer an estimated $5 billion, further igniting fury among the America First group.
“I needed Trump as my lifeboat,” Alex Jones said during a podcast episode with fellow far-right influencer Nick Fuentes this week. “It may not be perfect, but it’s the lifeboat I’ve got, and I’m watching it sink by its own doing.”
Research shows that this growing group of right-wing influencers has played a significant role in Trump’s rise to power by undermining his enemies and promoting the president’s themes. In turn, he has peddled the conspiracies they profit from by giving them unparalleled access to him and his administration.
But their fracturing from the president comes at a fraught time for Republicans, who are already bracing for losses in the upcoming midterm elections and are eager to shore up support from their base.
Jones, InfoWars founder and the nation’s most-litigated conspiracy theorist, appeared to grow overcome with emotion as he denounced Trump to Fuentes earlier this week.
“It’s sad to see something you fought and bled for die, yeah,” Jones, who lost a $1.3 billion defamation case for spreading bogus lies about the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, added.
Jones, 52, has been a staunch supporter of Trump since early 2015, rarely breaking ranks with the president. But Fuentes, for his part, has veered far from Trump’s White House, going so far as to urge his supporters to vote Democrat in the wake of the attacks.
“I’m voting Democrat in 2026 because White people can play both sides too,” wrote Fuentes, 27, in an X post viewed more than 4.7 million times as of publication.
“The GOP broke every single promise: Epstein File coverup, regime change War in Iran, and no mass deportations. The GOP must be purged and burned to the ground in 26. Hostile takeover in 28.”
Fuentes, an America First podcaster whose show draws between 500,000 and 1 million views per episode, was once a fervent Trump supporter before publicly turning on the president over what he said was a campaign that had been “hijacked by the same consultants, lobbyists, and donors that he defeated in 2016.”
But Fuentes took his criticism much farther this time, even writing in a separate X post: “Still better than Kamala?”
Even Manosphere influencer Andrew Tate—whom Trump’s youngest son, Barron Trump, is reportedly a fan of—stated: “Why would going into a war with Iran benefit anybody in America at all?”
Podcaster and former Fox News firebrand Megyn Kelly was among those voicing concern about the U.S.- and Israel-led war in Iran. She told her audience she has “serious doubts about what we’re doing” with the conflict.
Elsewhere, Tucker Carlson, a hugely influential figure in Trump’s orbit, also blasted Israel’s apparent influence in convincing the president to start what is already a deeply unpopular war that could destabilize the entire Middle East.
For years, Republicans took aim at what they viewed as a “liberal media” influencing American politics. But this week, right-wing political commentator Matt Walsh flipped that narrative on conservative influencers, many of whom were drawn to Trump’s original campaign promise to “end forever wars,” not start them.
“You and I both know that almost every conservative influencer in the business was opposed to war with Iran until just now,” he wrote in an X post view over 6 million times at publication. “And now you’re trying to use justifications that stretch back decades. It doesn’t make any sense.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House, Nick Fuentes, Alex Jones, and Matt Walsh for comment.
