US President Donald Trump’s Republican allies have lined up to praise the attack on Iran, as the president’s response to the war remains sharply divided along partisan lines.
Despite the rise of non-interventionists within President Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, Republican opposition to a war on Iran remains weak, underscoring the strength of the party’s foreign policy hawks.
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“Today, Iran faces serious consequences for its evil actions,” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement supporting the war.
“President Trump and his administration have made every effort to seek a peaceful and diplomatic solution to the Iranian regime’s continued nuclear ambitions and development, terrorism, and killing of Americans and even its own citizens,” Johnson said in a statement.
The argument that President Trump first attempted diplomacy before bombing Iran, highlighting Tehran’s supposed threat to the United States, was a recurring theme in Republican statements welcoming the attack.
Indeed, President Trump on Saturday ordered a joint operation with Israel to bomb Iran while U.S. and Iranian negotiators continued talks over Tehran’s nuclear program. Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi, who mediated the indirect talks, believes they are closer than ever to an agreement to secure peace.
“President Trump has given Iran ample opportunity to negotiate,” Sen. Chuck Grassley wrote in X.
Congressman Randy Fine, an ally of President Trump who has made anti-Muslim statements, also expressed support for the attack.
“We are with you, Mr. President,” Fine wrote to X.
“We will cut off the head of the serpent of Islamic terror, bring lasting peace to the Middle East, and save the Iranian people. We will remove the bomb.”
minimal objections
Many Republican politicians also rushed to praise the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.
“President Trump just changed ‘Death to America’ to ‘Death by America,'” Sen. Bernie Moreno wrote on X.
Lindsey Graham, a hawkish senator and avid supporter of regime change in Iran, said “unleashing” Washington’s military power against Iran would send a message to Russia and China.
“All I can say about President Trump is I’ve never met anyone like him. I’ve never met anyone so determined to make peace, and I don’t want to be on his bad side,” Graham told Fox News.
Conservative commentators who had warned against the war, such as podcaster Tucker Carlson, were largely silent Saturday.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, a former Trump ally who fell out with the US president and resigned from Congress earlier this year, shared multiple posts arguing that war with Iran does not advance US interests.
Greene pointed out that when Trump ran for president, he announced that he was a pro-peace candidate.
“Will a war with Iran help America’s mental health crisis? Will it help America’s drug addiction pandemic? No. Will a war with Iran do anything to help American families stick together and survive? No, not at all,” she wrote.
“But within hours of the war with Iran, it was reported that about 40 innocent girls, schoolchildren, were killed in Iran by bombs from Israel. And they don’t care. They killed thousands of innocent children in Gaza. And apparently our peace-promoting government doesn’t care either,” Green added.
Rep. Tom Massie, whom President Trump is seeking to oust by supporting a primary challenge, has declared himself a rare Republican critic of the war.
“I am against this war. This is not ‘America First,'” he wrote to X.
Massey has vowed to advance legislation that would curb President Trump’s authority to attack Iran when Congress reconvenes in the coming days.
Democratic Party’s reaction
Many Democratic lawmakers focused on the legal aspects of the attack on Iran, arguing that President Trump should have sought Congressional approval. The U.S. Constitution gives the power to declare war to Congress, not the president.
Still, many people welcomed Khamenei’s death while criticizing President Trump’s strategy.
“I’m not going to shed a tear over his death. He brutalized his own people and built Iran into the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told National Public Radio.
“But what happens next is unclear because the Trump administration has not been able to articulate a plan to keep the U.S. military from becoming involved in perpetual war in the Middle East, which we know will be catastrophic,” Jeffries said.
Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine has cast doubt on claims that Iran poses an imminent threat to the United States, a claim likely to be cited as a legal argument against President Trump’s attack.
“I sit on two committees that have access to a lot of classified information, but there was no immediate threat to the United States from Iran that would send our sons and daughters into another war in the Middle East,” Kaine told CNN.
“We’re going to do everything in our power to stop that.”
But some pro-Israel Democrats broke ranks with the party and praised the war without qualification.
“President Trump has been willing to do what is right and necessary to create true peace in this region,” said Sen. John Fetterman.
“God bless America, our great military, and Israel,” he wrote.
