Washington Examiner chief political correspondent Byron York said Tuesday that there is “a fight” within President Donald Trump’s fan base over the United States’s involvement in foreign conflicts, an issue Vice President JD Vance also has to deal with.
Trump has encouraged Iranian protesters to continue their demonstrations amid reports the Iranian regime has killed thousands, writing on Truth Social that “help is on the way.” This comes shortly after the Wall Street Journal published a report Monday, claiming that Vance and Trump administration aides are encouraging the president to try diplomacy with Iran before taking serious retaliation.
York said there have been reports about the vice president’s office attempting to “paint” Vance as not on board with the Trump administration’s foreign policy. Commentator Hugh Hewitt said he doesn’t see Vance as a “backstabber,” though York clarified there are “lots of other people” involved in this alleged disagreement.
“You have to remember, when you hear news that’s sort of out of the White House or out of a criminal investigation or out of something, it could come from the person who’s right in the center of everything, or it could come from somebody out in the periphery who’s heard about stuff,” York said on the Hugh Hewitt Show.
“So clearly, obviously, there is a fight inside MAGA about isolationism, foreign interventions, endless wars, all of this stuff, and the president has proved much more interventionist than I think most people would have predicted from the campaign, and that doesn’t sit well with some people who are in his coalition,” York said.
Vance served in the Iraq war prior to his political career, and York said he thinks the vice president sees “a lot” of the U.S.’s attempt to intervene in Iraq as “futile.” As such, the question comes down to whether someone views every foreign intervention ending the same way as Iraq.
Regarding Trump’s approach to foreign intervention, York said the president’s handling of this topic is “Do it fast, do it with overwhelming force, get the job done, it’s over,” citing the U.S.’s “Operation Midnight Hammer” against Iran’s nuclear facilities last June.
While York said he personally didn’t believe the U.S. needed to do this, as Israel was “getting this job done,” the U.S.’s bombing was “extremely effective” and didn’t result in any “immediate consequences.”
Going forward with Iran, York said Trump hasn’t done anything with his warning that “help is on the way.” However, he added, any country being threatened by Trump “probably ought to take him seriously.”
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION PROJECTS UNITED FRONT AS PRESIDENT WEIGHS IRAN OPTIONS
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has urged caution against the U.S. taking military action in Iran on Sunday, suggesting this could cause the Iranian protesters to “rally” around Iran. He added that while he wants the Iranian people to gain freedom from the country’s regime, he doesn’t believe it is the U.S.’s job to involve itself with “every freedom movement around the world.”
Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Abbas Araghchi told ambassadors in Tehran, Iran’s capital, that the country isn’t “looking for war,” but is prepared for it. He also said the country is “ready for negotiations.”