President Donald Trump’s decision to order U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites may have unsettled the Middle East, but the operation — which the administration argued was narrowly targeted at Iran’s nuclear program — appeared to bring most of the Republican Party back into balance in support of the president.
For roughly a week, the debate over American involvement in the war between Israel and Iran pitted establishment Republicans and hawks against some of the loudest voices on the right urging Trump to avoid foreign entanglements.
It led to some of the sharpest infighting within the Republican Party — and the MAGA movement — since Trump entered the 2016 presidential race a decade ago.
“Either you want Iran to have a nuclear weapon, or you don’t,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said last week at the Capitol. “And if you don’t, and diplomacy fails, you use force.”
“The warmongers wanted strikes early this week,” Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., wrote on X, when the White House press secretary first claimed Trump would wait up to two weeks to take action on Iran. “[Trump] is showing his wisdom.”
In the end, Trump approved a U.S. strike that took place roughly 48 hours later; and when Trump made his decision — one top administration official portrayed as narrow and targeted strike — Gaetz’s response was muted, and did not criticize the president’s choice.
On X, he said the U.S. strike “was about the nuclear program for Trump,” and about “regime change [in Iran] for Israel.”
President Donald Trump speaks to the press in the Oval Office of the White House as members of Italian soccer club Juventus pay a visit in Washington, June 18, 2025.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
Conservative activist Charlie Kirk spent the week leading up to the attack criticizing Graham and others advocating for military action against Iran and described himself on X as being “a lot closer to the isolationists than the war hawks” in the GOP.
While he advocated for diplomacy, he also argued for Republicans to trust Trump on the issue.
Once news of the U.S. attack broke, he said “Iran gave President Trump no choice” and that the commander-in-chief “acted with prudence and decisiveness.”
To be sure, some Republicans remained worried that the attack might have opened a Pandora’s Box in the Middle East, and continued to debate the nature of the U.S. relationship with Israel, as the nation continues its aggressive operations against Iran.
“No, I didn’t sleep better after neo-cons and war mongers talked this administration into entering a hot war that Israel started,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., one of Trump’s most loyal supporters on Capitol Hill, said on Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s podcast.
“Six months in Steve, and here we are turning back on the campaign promises. And we bombed Iran on behalf of Israel. Yes, it was on behalf of Israel. We are entering a nuclear war, world war three, because the entire world is going to erupt,” Greene said.
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., an occasional critic of Trump’s agenda, remained one of the few Republicans willing to criticize Trump directly for the strikes. He was the sole Republican sponsor of a bill to stop the U.S.’s involvement in the conflict.
“This is not Constitutional,” Massie said on X about the U.S. actions.
Trump lashed out at Massie in a lengthy social media post on Sunday, writing the Republican congressman is “not MAGA” and that “MAGA doesn’t want him” and “doesn’t respect him.” Trump said he’ll campaign for Massie’s Republican primary opponent in the next election.
Following Trump’s announcement of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Iran on Monday, however, Massie said he’s now considering pulling the bipartisan War Powers Resolution he introduced to rebuke the president’s decision to launch strikes.
He told reporters: “If the ceasefire holds, and we’re not engaged in hostilities, then it’s a moot point. I wouldn’t need to bring it [War Powers Resolution] to the floor.”
Massie also quipped, “I’d like a ceasefire between me and President Trump. If I can get the same deal, after his bunker busters he dropped on me.”
Steve Bannon, the Trump adviser and 2016 campaign strategist who remains a prominent figure in MAGA world, told reporters last week that it would be a mistake for the United States to get involved in the conflict.
But he also predicted that the party — and voters — would largely remain loyal to the president at the center of the movement once he had decided on his course of action.
“I will tell you, if the president as commander in chief makes a decision to do this, and comes forward and walks people through it, the MAGA movement – you’ll lose some – but the MAGA movement, the Marjorie Taylor Greenes, the Matt Gaetzes, we will fight it up to the end, to make sure he’s got information, but if he has more intelligence and makes that case to the American people, the MAGA movement will support President Trump,” Bannon said.
Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Monday at the largest U.S. military base in the region appeared to offer an off-ramp to Trump and the United States to prevent further escalation — something Trump embraced in his social media response to the attacks.
“Perhaps Iran can now proceed to Peace and Harmony in the Region, and I will enthusiastically encourage Israel to do the same,” he said on Truth Social.
But on Monday, the president announced Israel and Iran had agreed to a ceasefire, saying in 24 hours the conflict between the nations would be officially settled.
If Trump is successful at bringing down the temperature in the region, he will have threaded the needle between his campaign promises to set back Iran’s nuclear program and limit American intervention abroad.
But with so many questions remaining about Iran’s remaining nuclear capacities, Israel’s plans, and both countries’ ultimate intentions, Trump may have to make more hard choices to make about deploying and projecting U.S. military power abroad. That next juncture could reopen the debate — and the tensions — within the MAGA movement.
