Fox News Is Demanding War With Iran. Donald Trump Is Listening
As President Donald Trump weighs sending U.S. forces to help Israel bomb Iran — and potentially plunge the nation into a new war — his decision is being influenced by bellicose on-air content at Fox News. The favored network of the president has put forth a parade of hosts, guests, and professional commentators with an effusively pro-war and pro-regime change message.
According to an administration official and another close associate of the commander-in-chief, Trump's heavy consumption of Fox News content is increasing his appetite for direct military confrontation with Iran.
This marks a significant change in Trump's outlook. In past weeks, Trump had favored diplomacy with Iran and privately suggested that Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu was trying to suck the U.S. into a hot war. But in recent days, the sources tell Rolling Stone, the president has marveled at the militantly anti-Iran coverage on Fox, as well as footage of Israeli air strikes. 'Wow,' Trump has said, per the associate, commenting on what he views as the awe-inspiring ferocity of Israel's operations. Trump has also privately expressed how impressed and, currently, optimistic he is about military campaigns against Tehran.
Trump has long portrayed himself as a peacemaker president, in contrast to interventionist Republicans like George W. Bush. But this episode is underscoring that Trump can be swayed into a hawkish mode that rivals the most militant neo-con.
'This is a dumb and fake story,' White House spokesperson Anna Kelly tells Rolling Stone. 'President Trump takes feedback from experts across the administration, and is constantly communicating with his national security team, but ultimately makes the decision he feels will keep Americans safe.'
In recent days, the voices speaking to a presidential audience of one, via the mass broadcast of Fox News, include Sen. Lindsey Graham. The South Carolina Republican has appeared on the network repeatedly to advocate for direct U.S. involvement in the conflict between Israel and Iran. 'We've got a chance to end a threat to the state of Israel forever by replacing this regime with something better. I do believe the biggest winner of them leaving will be the Iranian people,' Graham told host Sean Hannity on Monday.
At one point, the senator broke the fourth wall and spoke directly to the commander-in-chief. 'Be all-in, President Trump, in helping Israel eliminate the nuclear threat,' Graham said. 'If we need to provide bombs, do that. If we need to fly planes with Israel, do joint operations.'
On Tuesday, Graham appeared on America Reports, another Fox News show, expressing his confidence that 'President Trump understands the threat the ayatollah presents to us, not just Israel, and that he will at the end of the day help Israel finish the job. That will require, I think, weapons that Israel doesn't possess and may be joint military operations.'
On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that after watching Fox News gush about Israel's supposed tactical military genius last week, Trump began to call reporters to suggest that he had played a role in orchestrating that country's surprise strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, and told people he was privately leaning towards involving the U.S. more directly in the conflict.
The president has, the sources tell Rolling Stone, also spoke glowingly to advisers about Fox segments showing how network stars are supporting his policies of (supposed) strength and military might. In the same breath, he's bashed recent comments made by other prominent allies, such as former Fox News star Tucker Carlson, who have challenged Trump's openness to war.
The sway that Fox News producers have over President Trump's thinking, as he weighs matters of war and peace, is jarring, if not entirely unsurprising. The network cheerleaded the disastrous march to war with Iraq under President George W. Bush in the early 2000s. And this reflexive hawkishness has hardly abated over the decades.
During Trump's first presidency, pro-war advocates would make a point of getting themselves booked on Fox, knowing Trump binge-watched it, specifically so they could look straight into the camera and urge Trump to bomb Syria.
In Trump's second term, the cable news giant became a go-to recruiting pool for the Trump administration. Trump elevated multiple Fox News personalities to posts as senior government officials, in particular Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Another Fox News host, Jeanine Pirro was recently tapped to become the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. Pirro herself is a huge Middle East war hawk, who in a now infamous 2015 screed against Syria and Iraq demanded that the U.S. 'bomb them, bomb them, and then bomb them again.'
In recent days, Fox News personalities have again been banging the drums of war. In a Sunday night monologue, host Mark Levin screamed at his audience that 'this is good versus evil. You're either a patriotic American who is going to get behind the president, the commander in chief, or you're not.' Levin went on to declare that the War Powers Act — which requires the president to seek the approval of Congress before entering an military conflict — was an 'unconstitutional law that tries to steal power from the commander-in-chief,' and that it was imperative that Trump be allowed to initiate a war, unilaterally, lest 'these primitives' launch a nuclear bomb at Detroit.
In a segment aired Tuesday, former Delta Force Intelligence Analyst Brett Velicovich told the network's audience that the United States needed to 'bomb [Iran] back to the negotiation table,' because 'this region only understands power.' (Velicovich's Fox bio lists him as 'a managing partner at Expert Drones/Dronepire Inc.')
That same day Fox & Friends host Laurence Jones claimed — without a hint of irony — that 'if we ever even got into a conflict with Iran, it would be over within two days.' The network aired computer generated simulations on the manner in which a bunker buster BLU-109 bomb might be used to cripple Iranian infrastructure.
Such is the narrative being mainlined by the nation's notoriously impressionable president.
On Thursday, while attending the ceremony unveiling two large flagpoles Trump had installed at the White House, Trump told his base, 'We're not looking for long-term war.'
The president was asked if he had made up his mind about joining the Israeli offensive against Iran. 'I may do it. I may not do it. Nobody knows what I am going to do.' Trump said. While the president remains a wild card, those advocating to plunge the nation into another needless conflict abroad know exactly where he's turning to make up his mind.
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