Trump in Iran crisis: MAGA descends into mutiny as Israel threatens to take out Ayatollah in regime change plot
Donald Trump is teetering on the brink of an all-out Iran crisis amid MAGA fury over his 'complicity' in Israel's strikes.
In a sensational development Sunday, two US officials revealed that the president vetoed an Israeli plan this week to kill Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The plot signals the intent and velocity with which Israel is moving to dismantle Iran's leadership amid fears it is deliberately fomenting regime change.
The president is now facing calls from Iran hawks in the GOP to join Israel 's bombing campaign.
Any military action in the region threatens to put Trump at odds with major allies in the MAGA movement, not least Tucker Carlson who has accused the commander-in-chief of being 'complicit' in Israel's strikes.
It comes as Trump this morning refused to rule out involvement in the conflict, while at the same time denying any American participation to this point.
Speaking with ABC News Sunday morning, Trump addressed reports that Israel was encouraging Administration to join the conflict with Iran to eliminate its nuclear program.
"We're not involved in it. It's possible we could get involved. But we are not at this moment involved," the president said.
'The U.S. had nothing to do with the attack on Iran, tonight,' the president wrote on Truth Social in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Trump vetoed an Israeli plan in recent days to kill Iran's Khamenei, two U.S. officials told Reuters on Sunday.
"Have the Iranians killed an American yet? No. Until they do we're not even talking about going after the political leadership," said one of the sources, a senior U.S. administration official.
Israel launched "Operation Rising Lion" with a surprise attack on Friday morning that wiped out the top echelon of Iran's military command and damaged its nuclear sites, and says the campaign will continue to escalate in coming days. Iran has vowed to "open the gates of hell" in retaliation.
Israel and Iran launched fresh attacks on each other overnight into Sunday, killing scores and raising fears of a wider conflict.
Israeli rescue teams combed through rubble of residential buildings destroyed by Iranian missiles, using sniffer dogs and heavy excavators to look for survivors after at least 10 people, including children, were killed, raising the two-day toll to 13.
Sirens rang out across Israel after 4 p.m. on Sunday in the first such daylight alert, and fresh explosions could be heard in Tel Aviv.
In Iran, images from the capital showed the night sky lit up by a huge blaze at a fuel depot after Israel began strikes against Iran's oil and gas sector - raising the stakes for the global economy and the functioning of the Iranian state.
Iran has not given a full death toll but said 78 people were killed on Friday and scores more have died since, including in a single attack that killed 60 on Saturday, half of them children, in a 14-storey apartment block flattened in Tehran.
Municipal workers clear the wreckage and debris in the northern Israeli town of Tamra, following an overnight missile attack from Iran on June 15, 2025, where four people were reported killed. Israel unleashed a punishing barrage of strikes targeting the capital Tehran on June 15, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to make Iran pay "a very heavy price" for killing civilians, on the third day of fierce fighting
To win re-election last November, Trump had to build a coalition of powerful allies across media, politics, and business.
Now, some of his most vocal public backers are distancing themselves from some of the president's biggest moves, including right-wing media mogul Tucker Carlson.
A Former Fox News primetime dynamo, Carlson was one of the very vocal allies Trump brought into the GOP fold last year, but their post-election honeymoon may be over.
In a Friday newsletter post for his own media outlet - The Tucker Carlson Network - Carlson and his team wrote 'This Could Be the Final Newsletter Before All-Out War.'
'On Thursday, Iran 's president threatened to 'destroy' any country that eliminates his government's nuclear facilities,' TCN wrote.
'Now, the world will learn what that looks like,' they concluded.
Trump's winning November coalition also heavily featured populist conservatives, may of whom consider Steve Bannon - a former Breitbart editor and a chief White House strategist from Trump's first term - to be their ringleader.
Bannon, who also has built his own media empire around his War Room podcast, noted during a Friday episode of the show that he believed the Israeli government was attempting trying to pull America into a war with Iran, saying they 'want us to go on offense' against Tehran.
Both inside and outside of government, the current GOP coalition has wide-ranging set of views on the level of American interventionism that is required on the global stage, particularly in the Middle East.
The intra-MAGA split on foreign policy appears to be far-reaching, even extending as far at the leadership at the Pentagon itself.
Semafor reports that the nation's top military officials have competing visions about how involved America should be with Israel.
'US military leaders, including the chief of US Central Command, Gen. Michael Kurilla, have requested more resources to support and defend Israel,' Semafor notes.
'But their requests have drawn resistance from undersecretary of defense for policy Elbridge Colby, who has long opposed moving US military assets from Asia to the Middle East, people sympathetic to each side of the argument,' Semafor reported.
Colby was one of the Trump administration's more controversial selections that has gone through the Senate conformation this year.
Vice President JD Vance personally advocated for Colby's confirmation before his former U.S. Senate colleagues back in March.
Elbridge Colby, President Donald Trump's nominee to be under secretary of defense for policy, prepares for his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on March 04, 2025 in Washington, DC. Colby served in Trump's first administration
'In so many ways, Bridge predicted what we would be talking about four years down the road, five years down the road, 10 years down the road. He saw around corners that very few other people were seeing around,' Vance told an audience of the Senate Armed Services Committee in March.
'If you look at his long career in defense policy, he has said things that, you know, frankly, alienated Democrats and Republicans. He's also said things that I think both Democrats and Republicans would agree with,' Vance also stated.
'There is a real risk of major war, and we cannot afford to lose one. I recognize these realities in my bones. It is my great hope that we can get through the coming years peacefully, with strength in ways that put us and our alliances on a stronger and more sustainable footing,' Colby noted at his own confirmation hearing.
'I'm willing and ready to engage with those who disagree with me and adapt my views based on persuasive arguments and the fact is that I value our alliances deeply, even as I think they must be adapted, and that I love our great country, and will put its interests first and foremost,' Colby added, addressing some of the controversy behind his nomination.
After his confirmation, Colby now sits in the Pentagon's number three spot.
Meanwhile, Colby's boss Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appears to be in the more interventionist camp.
In a post made to social platform X in May, Hegseth noted that the U.S. had their sights set on Iran over the nation's backing of the Houthi rebels.
'We know exactly what you are doing,' Hegseth wrote at the time.
'You know very well what the U.S. Military is capable of — and you were warned. You will pay the CONSEQUENCE at the time and place of our choosing.'
The debate between interventionism and isolationism within the GOP also extends to elected members of Congress.
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who legislates with a heavy libertarian streak in his Republicanism, was one to acknowledge Trump's foreign policy record this weekend, writing 'No new wars on your watch—and you continue to push for a leaner, more accountable government. We appreciate your commitment to putting America first,' in a Saturday post on X celebrating the president's birthday.
Yet, other more hawkish Republicans cheered Trump's decision to allow Israel to strike Iran earlier this week. They have been urging him to take more aggressive approach in the Middle East.
'Game on,' wrote Sen. Lindsey Graham on social media. 'Pray for Israel.'
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., questions Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth during a Senate Committee on Appropriations subcommittee hearing to examine proposed budget estimates for fiscal year 2026 for the Department of Defense, on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, June 11, 2025, in Washington
'Donald Trump doesn't mess around. Bombs away,' cheered Rep. Randy Fine of Florida on social media after the attacks.
Trump's first Secretary of State and former CIA director Mike Pompeo appeared on Fox News on Friday morning, greeting hosts by noting it was 'a very good morning'
'There was literally zero evidence that the negotiations were going to lead to a good outcome,' he said about Trump's peace talks.
'I think the Israeli leadership finally decided not only did they have the moment to do this, but they had the tools and resources to effectively obliterate much of the Iranian regime's military programs.'
Pompeo cheered on the strikes as a demonstration of 'Western resolve' to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Speaking with ABC News Sunday morning, Trump addressed reports that Israel was encouraging Administration to join the conflict with Iran to eliminate its nuclear program.
'We're not involved in it. It's possible we could get involved. But we are not at this moment involved,' the president told ABC News.
Trump also addressed a rumor that Russian president Vladimir Putin way be open to serving as a mediator between Iran and Israel.
'Yeah, I would be open to it. He is ready. He called me about it. We had a long talk about it. We talked about this more than his situation. This is something I believe is going to get resolved,' the president said of his Russian counterpart to ABC News.
On the campaign trail in 2024, Trump himself often promised to be a peacemaker and the conflict between Israel and Gaza, as well as Russia and Ukraine.
During a rally in Washington, D.C. the day before he was sworn in for a second term this past January, Trump declared,'I will end the war in Ukraine, stop the chaos in the Middle East and prevent World War III from happening, and you have no idea how close we are.'
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