President Donald Trump’s administration is facing a war on two fronts: one in Iran, and another at home among those who used to be his most faithful supporters, his biographer argues.
“I think it’s a really interesting moment—a kind of pivotal, tipping point moment that the White House really feels it is at war with the MAGA voices,“ author Michael Wolff said on the Inside Trump’s Head podcast. “And that may extend to their war with their whole base.”
“Partly it has to do with the Iranian war, because obviously the MAGA position is like, ‘What the f---?’” he told co-host Joanna Coles. “The MAGA position is: We are against forever wars, we’re against foreign wars, America first. This is what you promised, wasn’t it?”
Some of the biggest names throughout the MAGAsphere have turned on Trump over his surprise war on the Middle Eastern nation, calling out the president for failing to deliver on a key promise he made throughout his campaign.
Former Fox News firebrand Megyn Kelly said she had “serious doubts about what we’re doing” regarding the conflict, while far-right influencer Nick Fuentes urged his followers to vote Democrat because of the joint attacks with Israel, which have lasted nearly two weeks.
“The GOP broke every single promise,” Fuentes, whose podcast regularly draws more than 500,000 views per episode, wrote in a post on X. “Epstein File coverup, regime change War in Iran, and no mass deportations. The GOP must be purged and burned to the ground in 26.”
Right-wing political commentator Matt Walsh also pushed back against the conservative influencer base that has stuck with the president, calling them hypocritical for flipping on their previous support of Trump’s promise to “end forever wars.”
“You and I both know that almost every conservative influencer in the business was opposed to war with Iran until just now,” Walsh wrote in an X post on March 2. “And now you’re trying to use justifications that stretch back decades. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Even Manosphere influencer Andrew Tate, whom Trump helped weasel out of a travel restriction in Romania—where the former kickboxer is facing charges of rape and human trafficking—expressed plainly in a post on X that “NOBODY WANTS THIS WAR.”
“That’s what everybody is grousing about in the White House,” Wolff, who was allowed access to the White House during Trump’s first term, added. “Where are these people? Why are these people leaving us? Why are they deserting us? What is this pushback?”
When reached for comment, the White House shared two statements with the Daily Beast; the first from White House spokesperson Olivia Wales.
“President Trump is courageously protecting the United States from the deadly threat posed by the rogue Iranian regime—that is as America First as it gets,“ Wales said. ”The American people trust President Trump as their Commander in Chief to protect our national security interests and keep them safe. Brand-new polling shows a plurality of Americans support these necessary operations with nearly unanimous support from Republicans. Claims that the noble Operation Epic Fury will somehow fracture the President’s base are not backed by or reflected in the data.”
“Michael Wolff is a lying sack of s--t and has been proven to be a fraud,” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung, whom Trump has reportedly called “my sumo wrestler,” said in a frequently recycled statement. “He routinely fabricates stories originating from his sick and warped imagination, only possible because he has a severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his peanut-sized brain.”
Trump, 79, has faced considerable pushback over his administration’s decision to pursue a war with seemingly unclear objectives.
Less than a third of Americans support the nation’s strikes on Iran, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, while an NBC poll found that more than half of Americans believe the U.S. should not have taken military action.
For comparison, 92 percent of Americans supported the Afghanistan War in 2001, while 76 percent supported the Iraq War in 2008.
Another poll from progressive think tank Data for Progress found that 52 percent of likely voters believe Trump’s strikes are an attempt to distract the public from his relationship with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
In just its first week, the Pentagon estimated that the war had cost the United States more than $11.3 billion, equivalent to $33 per person across the entire U.S. population of 342 million.
More than $5 billion was spent on advanced munitions in the opening salvos during just the first two days, the Pentagon told Congress.
Oil prices have skyrocketed in response to the conflict, following Iran’s announcement of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz on March 2. The average price per gallon of gas domestically has risen to $3.60, according to AAA—up more than 22 percent from $2.94 just a month ago.
It’s also likely that Trump will have to face the music regarding a Tomahawk missile that struck an Iranian elementary school on the first day of the war, which preliminary findings from an ongoing military investigation determined to be the result of a U.S. targeting mistake. The strike killed more than 175 people, many of whom were children.
Trump blamed Iran for the attack on Monday, implying that the nation had gotten hold of the advanced weaponry, though only the U.S., the United Kingdom, and Australia have them readily available for combat use.
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