President Donald Trump and his top allies insist that “America First” doesn’t necessarily mean staying out of another international military conflict. Senate Republicans are so far broadly giving him the benefit of the doubt.
Vice President JD Vance said Tuesday that the president is putting America first by preventing Iran from producing nuclear weapons — whatever that prevention effort should look like.
“I just wanted to explain to the American people, if you want safety, part of safety, and I think all Americans want that, is ensuring that the worst people in the world don’t have a nuclear bomb,” Vance said, explaining his post on X to reporters on the Hill.
The possibility of a new war in the Middle East underlines sensitive dynamics for the Republican Party. The party is now composed of defense hawks like Sen. Lindsey Graham, who have long pushed for intervention in Iran, and isolationists like Sen. Rand Paul — all held together by their allegiance to Trump.
The White House is trying to project ideological consistency as the president weighs his options — even as he has himself vacillated between the party’s two poles on Iran. White House and administration officials repeatedly said this week that Trump’s policy on Iran has been focused on getting the country to agree to a nuclear deal.
At a bill signing last week, Trump said he preferred “the more friendly path.”
“AMERICA FIRST means many GREAT things, including the fact that, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON,” Trump said in a post to Truth Social.
Trump’s “America First” allies — like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson — are part of a growing chorus of Republican voices against U.S. involvement.
“This coalition … is the defining fact of American politics,” Carlson said of MAGA in an interview with Steve Bannon. “And it kind of feels like it’s being blown up over this war in Iran.” Trump repeatedly bashed Carlson in return.
Despite the fracture within Trump’s base, a source familiar with Republicans’ thinking said they’re confident Republicans will continue to trust the president and his decision-making.
“Marjorie Taylor Greene and the MAGA movement respect Trump. They know his decision-making is based on one thing: what’s best for the American people,” the source said, adding later, “Republicans are going to have different feelings. Democrats are fractured on this, too — they don’t know whether to support Israel or Hamas.”
Many Republican senators are declining to weigh in decisively, instead giving the president room to make a decision in the coming days.
Sen. Mike Rounds told NOTUS he believed the president had been consistent in his position on Iran — and that now is the time to address that problem: “We’re out of other options,” he said.
“Peace through strength is still the name of the game, and I think President Trump clearly understands that,” Rounds continued. “The message that I think he has for the rest of the world is, ‘We don’t want war, but when it comes right down to it, we do have capabilities, and we will use them if we’re forced to.’”
“I think the president is doing the right thing here, which is, he is standing by our ally as they defend themselves, and he’s offering an off-ramp to Iran if they wanna take it,” Sen. Josh Hawley told NOTUS. “So far, it sounds like they don’t wanna take it.”
But a few Republicans, no matter how you frame it, are firmly against U.S. involvement.
“I hope that the president will show restraint and not get involved in Israel’s war with Iran,” Sen. Rand Paul told reporters, echoing Rep. Thomas Massie, who has also come out forcefully against U.S. involvement.
“If your goal were to bankrupt America and destabilize the world, dragging us into another endless Middle East war would be the way to do it,” Paul wrote in a post to X.
One GOP strategist, a faithful MAGA Republican close to the White House, described the current policy as a “roller coaster” that reminds them of the days of tariff confusion after “Liberation Day.”
“Before, it was Navarro versus Musk. Now, it’s Tulsi and JD versus Rubio and AIPAC,” the loyalist said.
There’s a real fracture emerging in the president’s base, though, on whether getting involved in the war was the path forward or a clear promise from Trump being broken.
Asked whether the base will eventually get over it if Trump decides to intervene, the loyalist was blunt: “It’s definitely no.”
A decision from the White House is expected within the coming days, if not hours. After leaving the G7 Summit in Canada early, Trump on Tuesday convened in the Situation Room with officials in a meeting that lasted nearly an hour and a half.
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Violet Jira and Emily Kennard are NOTUS reporters and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellows. Jasmine Wright is a reporter at NOTUS. Ursula Perano and Em Luetkemeyer contributed reporting for this story.