President Donald Trump is encountering resistance from one-time MAGA allies over his threat to demolish Iran’s infrastructure on Tuesday night unless a deal is reached to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump’s threat to launch a series of strikes against Iran’s energy grid and its major bridges is not being well received by members of his own party, including some of his most prominent former supporters.
Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, a former Fox News host, tore into Trump over a profanity-laden Truth Social post he made on Easter Sunday, in which the president demanded that Iran reopen the Strait of Hormuz, or else it would be “living in Hell,” and included the phrase “Praise be to Allah.”
“Who do you think you are?” Carlson said during the opening monologue of his online show. “You’re tweeting out the F word on Easter morning. ‘You’ll be living in hell. Just watch Praise be to Allah.’ So obviously, you’re mocking the religion of Iran. Okay, if you seek a religious war, that’s a good idea. But by the way, no decent person mocks other people’s religions.”
“No president should mock Islam,” added Carlson. “That’s not your job. This is not a theocracy. We don’t go to war with other theocracies to find out which theocracy is more effective. We are not a theocracy, and God willing, we never will be, because theocracies corrupt the religion.”
Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a once prominent ally of Trump’s, similarly decried Trump over his post and the war itself, saying in a post to X that “Christians in the administration should be pursuing peace. Urging the President to make peace. Not escalating war that is hurting people.”
“This NOT what we promised the American people when they overwhelmingly voted in 2024, I know, I was there more than most,” Greene wrote. “This is not making America great again, this is evil.”
The former Georgia representative went further on Tuesday after Trump threatened that unless Iran agreed to a deal with the U.S., a “whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”
In a post including a screenshot of Trump’s statement, Greene called for the 25th Amendment to be invoked and wrote, “Not a single bomb has dropped on America. We cannot kill an entire civilization. This is evil and madness.”
Conservative influencer Candace Owens, who has at times split from the MAGA base, echoed Green.
“The 25th amendment needs to be invoked,” Owens said in a post on X. “He is a genocidal lunatic. Our Congress and military need to intervene. We are beyond madness.”
The 25th Amendment establishes the rules of presidential succession, including in the event of an involuntary removal of a sitting president. It also lays out the mechanism by which the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet can declare a president unfit to continue serving as commander in chief.
Unease among MAGA-aligned conservatives has been percolating since the start of the war in February. Podcaster Joe Rogan, who endorsed Trump in 2024, expressed shock last week that the U.S. launched strikes against Iran at all.
“I’m confused,” Rogan said in an episode of his podcast released on April 2. “I can’t believe we went to this war. When we started bombing Iran, I was like, ‘This can’t be true.’”
Rogan has previously said that supporters of the president’s pledge for no more wars feel betrayed by the war in Iran, “Well, it just seems so insane, based on what he ran on. I mean, this is why a lot of people feel betrayed, right?”
Even some of the president’s allies in Congress are unsure of his plans to attack Iran’s infrastructure. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) told the “John Solomon Reports” podcast, “I am hoping and praying that President Trump is — this really is bluster.”
“I do not want to see us start blowing up civilian infrastructure,” Johnson said. “I do not want to see that we are not at war with the Iranian people. We are trying to liberate them.”
Trump has threatened the “complete demolition” of Iran’s infrastructure, including power plants and bridges, if an agreement is not reached by Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern time.
The president has left the door open to a deal, saying Tuesday morning that “maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen” in negotiations with Iran’s new leadership.
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“We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World,” Trump wrote. “47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!”
The backlash highlights growing unease within some parts of Trump’s political base over the prospect of a broader conflict, particularly among supporters who backed his pledge to avoid new foreign wars.