MAGA is split over Israel and Iran. Which way will Trump go?
The Take
Al Jazeera
4.7 • 748 Ratings
🗓️ 19 June 2025
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How did MAGA become Trump’s biggest opponent of a US strike on Iran? The Republican base is split over Trump’s rhetoric about getting involved in another foreign war. Conservative stalwarts like Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon are pushing back. Could a US strike on Iran be a blow against Trump at home?
In this episode:
- Ali Harb (@HarbPeace), Al Jazeera journalist
Episode credits:
This episode was produced by Ashish Malhotra, Sonia Bhagat and Amy Walters with Phillip Lanos, Spencer Cline, Mariana Navarette, Khaled Soltan, Remas AlHawari, Kisaa Zehra, and our host, Manuel Rapalo. It was edited by Noor Wazwaz.
Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editor is Hisham Abu Salah. Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio.
Connect with us:
@AJEPodcasts on Instagram, X, Facebook, Threads and YouTube
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Al Jazeera Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | Today, Trump's base is split on whether the U.S. should strike Iran. |
| 0:15.0 | You don't know. I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do. |
| 0:19.0 | I can tell you that. |
| 0:20.0 | The rift has left even Trump fumbling over what comes next. |
| 0:23.8 | Is he being dragged somewhere he doesn't want to go? |
| 0:26.2 | And by who? |
| 0:29.1 | I'm Manuel Rappalo, and this is the take. |
| 0:47.4 | My name's Ali Harb. I am a reporter for Al-Zara English, based here in Washington, D.C., where I cover U.S. foreign policy and American politics. |
| 0:55.7 | Ali Harb, welcome back to the take. It's nice to see you. Ali, we're talking on Thursday morning. |
| 1:12.1 | It's been almost a week now since Israel attacked. Iran, unprovoked. And now we're seeing this sort of meltdown taking place here in the United States within President Donald Trump's political base, the Make America Great Again movement, otherwise known as MAGA. |
| 1:16.8 | This is a rift over how Trump should respond. And maybe the most telling representation of this feud that we're watching play out in real time |
| 1:22.3 | is a clip that's gone viral between former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and United States Senator Ted Cruz arguing about it. |
| 1:32.1 | How many people living around, by the way? |
| 1:34.0 | I don't know the population. |
| 1:35.7 | At all? |
| 1:36.6 | No, I don't know the population. |
| 1:38.5 | You don't know the population in the country you seek to topple? |
| 1:42.8 | How many people living around? |
| 1:44.1 | 92 million. Okay. Yeah. How could you not know that? I don't sit around memorizing population |
| 1:51.3 | tables. Well, it's kind of relevant because you're calling for the overthrow of the government. |
| 1:55.0 | Why is it relevant? I mean, Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz tend to be on the same page over a lot of things. |
... |
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