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The Constitution is pretty clear about the powers bestowed upon Presidents: they can negotiate treaties, command the military, stack a Cabinet and the courts, issue pardons and commutations. But the true superpowers of the presidency are more nebulous, but just as significant. Presidents can rally world-weary Americans to coalesce on foreign policy. They can rally America-weary countries to Washington’s causes. They can exploit the instinctive respect for the presidency at moments of crisis.
But for any of those softer powers to work, the White House has to have credibility. And, at the moment, President Donald Trump is at a pronounced disadvantage as he faces a Middle East in crisis. It isn’t just that he is coming off a weekend in which he provoked one of the largest single-day protests in U.S. history as he threw an underwhelming, but expensive, military parade. Trump could more easily dismiss his many detractors if his base were with him as solidly as it was just a few weeks ago. But the political movement that fueled his most unlikely return to power is threatening to now crack.
“We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran,” Trump posted on Tuesday, making clear the U.S. and Israel were now in lockstep on the Israeli military operation that the U.S. didn’t initially back. “Nobody does it better than the good ol’ USA,” he added.
It was the latest diplomatic swerve from Trump, who has responded in recent days to Israel’s offensive by veering to nearly every possible position—from a hands-off approach to pressing for a diplomatic off-ramp to claiming total ownership of Israel’s barrage and threatening Iran’s annihilation.
Ever one for theatrics, Trump this week even urged millions of Iranians to evacuate their capital ahead of suggested wasteland strikes. His Vice President, J.D. Vance, on Tuesday seemed to hint at further escalation—even as the architects of the MAGA movement he is usually more aligned with are pushing Republicans to climb down from scorched-earth rhetoric.
There remains a window for this moment to deliver a clear political victory for Trump. Iran clearly wants to de-escalate its hot war with Israel, which is now in its fifth day and ostensibly over a nuclear program Israel sees as an existential threat. Israel pushed pause on plans to assassinate Iran’s Supreme Leader after U.S. officials—including Trump—called it too outrageous. A return to a deal with Iran to put limits on its nuclear programs could give Trump diplomatic cache he has sought in that region since his first foreign trip as President in 2017. And nothing would shut down his haters faster than an objective win for U.S. interests.
But the political realities Trump finds himself navigating are different from the ones he has dispensed with in the past. As he pushes for Iran’s surrender, here are the specific factions that are trying to guide his next steps.
Trump and the GOP Traditionalists
Trump ran in 2024 on rich promises of fast ends to conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, pledging peace deals were on the horizon if only he could get back into the White House. As he railed against his predecessors’ meddling into international affairs and flex of American might, the GOP traditionalists largely bit their tongues. After all, the alternative of Joe Biden and later Kamala Harris was still seen to them as less desirable than Trump—who proved pretty pliable on the global stage during his first term.
But it’s an unbendable fact in GOP orthodoxy that the United States stands linked with Israel. As Washington’s strongest ally in the region, support for Israel has been a cornerstone of U.S. policy since modern Israel’s founding. To the dismay of critics of Israeli’s governments over the years, that has sometimes been mistaken for a blank check. But the Establishment-minded Republicans are not going to be quiet if Trump is seen even hinting at a split with Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
That said, those same Republicans are keeping a close eye on signals coming from the White House. It’s no secret that Trump and Netanyahu do not have a terrific relationship. (Though Netanyahu hasn’t exactly been besties with any of his U.S. counterparts, dating back to Bill Clinton.) Yet for the moment, the GOP’s hawks are trying to signal optimism. “The Iranians are about to get their asses kicked,” Fox host Mark Levin said this weekend.
Trump and the MAGA Isolationists
The core of Trump’s MAGA base is far more distressed. Trump came to power by openly dinging internationalism from administrations of both parties. He vowed to retreat from foreign entanglements that began decades ago, wind down interventions that left Americans Googling for maps an ocean away, and double-down on a domestic agenda that better served his base. It was a clear play to a constituency that was unhappy with a creeping American reach.
Trump on Tuesday was testing the limits of that cohort’s support, as he posted on social media that he knew where Iran’s Supreme Leader was bunkering down and threatened his life unless Iran agreed to “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER.” “We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now,” Trump posted.
This puts in motion a slow-rolling collision with Trump’s base of supporters who thought they were walking away from other people’s problems. Former Fox host Tucker Carlson, MAGA evangelist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Sen. Rand Paul have all spoken out against unequivocal support for Israel’s actions. Rep. Tom Massie, a Republican who has bucked Trump with glee, on Tuesday introduced a resolution that would block military escalation from the U.S. side.
After promising an end to entanglements that have bedeviled Trump’s predecessors, Trump now seems on the cusp of joining the fray in a region where 40,000 Americans are deployed and there are scant off-ramps.
Trump and the Pro-Israel Activists
How the country feels about Israel belies party labels, even as Republicans are often the most vocally supportive. Trump owned the pro-Israel space in his campaigns. While Americans are pretty evenly split on the three-way question of whether U.S. support for Israel is just right, too weak, or too strong, there was a clear imbalance on how those camps voted last year. Trump carried 4 in 5 of those seeking more backing for Israel, according to exit polls. (Vice President Kamala Harris, by contrast, carried two-thirds of the share who thought Washington was too pro-Israel.)
Trump clearly owes this constituency a chit. The pro-Israel lobby in Washington is highly organized to the point of sparking conspiracy theories. The clout is real and the consequences are significant. It reaches across the aisle, which is why even some of the most reliably liberal lawmakers still make the hike to AIPAC’s policy conferences.
Trump has mastered the pander here. Despite his deep, deep antipathy toward Netanyahu, Trump understands the transactional nature of his relationship with those voters who prioritize Israel’s future over any domestic U.S. priorities. Given that constituency’s heft on the Hill, Trump gets that falling short with them could complicate everything else on his agenda, from tax cuts to immigration enforcement to crypto regulation to his beloved tariffs.
Trump and the Christian Right
There is some overlap with the pro-Israel cohort here, but for very different reasons. The Christian Right has a long-seeded allegiance with those who want U.S. support of Israel to be absolute. Trump carried Evangelicals and born-again Christians last year, again, by a 4-to-1 margin, according to exit polls.
For many on the Christian Right, Israel’s survival is a necessary component to Jesus’ return to the physical earth. In some readings of the Bible, a modern state of Israel is destined and will be where Jesus makes his second coming as prophesied in the so-called End Times. For many on the Christian Right, anything but fealty to Israel is an affront to their faith.
The overlap between Trump’s isolationist base and his Israel-at-all-cost Evangelicals seems destined for a conflict, one with deep contradictions that has zero apparent resolution. The balancing act is not one that comes naturally to Trump, but he has time and time again proven capable of digging himself out of seemingly impossible dead ends.
Trump and the Democrats
Democrats have so far been measured in their response to the current strikes into Iran. No fans of a nuclear Iran, Democrats recall the landmark deal the Obama Administration negotiated with Tehran that Trump quickly abandoned in his first term. But Democrats also have pointed memories of how Netanyahu all but campaigned against Obama’s re-election in 2012 in favor of Mitt Romney, a former colleague. And the long-festering frustrations with Netanyahu’s administration cannot be overstated, even among Israel’s strongest defenders in the Democratic caucus.
The opposition party is far from united in how they want to see the U.S. engage in the Middle East in this moment. Some voices, such as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, have urged restraint against rushing to defer to Israel’s efforts—putting leading leftists in an odd confluence with folks like Carlson and former Trump counselor Steve Bannon.
While the Jewish vote was just 2% of the total electorate last year, it was pretty unified for Democrats; 78% of Jewish voters backed Harris, according to exit polls. Trump is no fool when it comes to optimism that Democrats would be natural allies here. But even his allies make for unsteady partners. Ultimately, Trump will need to figure out how to cobble together a coalition that permits him to execute a choice that he alone can make.
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