ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl said Monday that several of President Donald Trump’s most vocal anti-war allies have been “remarkably quiet” following the former president’s surprise airstrikes on Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend.
Appearing on ABC News’s The View, Karl addressed both the constitutional concerns surrounding Trump’s decision to bypass Congress and the noticeable silence from key MAGA figures who have long opposed U.S. intervention in foreign conflicts.
“Constitutionally, Congress has the power to declare war — you need congressional approval for this,” Karl said. “But president after president has launched military action without it. Congress, under both Democratic and Republican leadership, has complained that presidents are violating the War Powers Act. This is not new. I covered Bill Clinton during the Kosovo strikes in 1999.”
Co-host Joy Behar noted that Trump’s airstrike seemed to contradict one of the core tenets of his political brand.
“Before this strike, there was trouble in MAGA paradise,” she said, pointing to past comments from Marjorie Taylor Greene, Steve Bannon, and Tucker Carlson, who warned that military action against Iran would betray Trump’s “America First” ethos. “He was all about no more wars, no more foreign wars.”
“I noticed since this assault and attack, they’ve been pretty quiet,” Behar added.
Karl agreed, saying that restraint in foreign policy wasn’t just a campaign promise for Trump — it was central to his appeal.
“This was a defining feature of the Trump movement,” he said. “The Bushes and the Republicans got us into wars — we’re not going to do that. They’ve been remarkably quiet.”
“Marjorie Taylor Greene has reiterated her opposition, but it’s very polite,” he added. “We haven’t heard from Tucker Carlson. Steve Bannon has been muted on this.”
Before the strikes, figures like Bannon and Carlson had repeatedly warned that a war with Iran would betray Trump’s “America First” foreign policy. Carlson has not posted on social media since Friday.
Bannon addressed the issue on his War Room podcast Monday, praising Trump’s boldness and the precision of the strikes, but warning against any creeping move toward regime change. He accused the Pentagon of creating a vague narrative around the mission’s success that could be used as a pretext to deploy troops.
US MILITARY BASE IN QATAR COMES UNDER IRANIAN ATTACK
“What’s that going to lead us to, folks?” Bannon said. “Do we need the 75th Ranger Battalion to go in and find [enriched uranium]? Oh, it’s coming.”
Greene, meanwhile, took to X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday to vent her opposition, expressing how she was “sick of” going to war in foreign lands for foreign causes on behalf of foreign interests.