The MAGA Coalition Has Turned on Itself

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The MAGA movement usually displays remarkable unity in attacking the left. But Israel's military assault on Iran has splintered President Donald Trump's coalition, as rival factions fight over the true meaning of an 'America First' foreign policy.
Right-wing figures have descended into vicious debate over whether the White House should take a more active role in Israel's bombardment of Iran—one that, with American help, could dismantle Tehran's nuclear program or even lead to regime change. Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, and other isolationist voices are demanding that Trump stay out of another Middle Eastern war. Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and other more hawkish conservatives are making the case that there has never been—and may never again be—a better time to take on Iran. That same split has surfaced among Republicans on Capitol Hill. Senator Lindsey Graham and others are pushing Trump to help Israel destroy Tehran's nuclear program, a goal of American presidents dating back decades. Meanwhile, MAGA luminaries such as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene have declared that further U.S. involvement would betray the president's 'America First' ideals.
Both sides in MAGA world have furiously lobbied Trump in recent days, and the president is very aware of the competing interests in his base, a White House official and an outside adviser told us. Trump initially opposed Israel's plan to strike Iran last week. But after briefings from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as Trump's own staff, the president came around to staying out of Israel's way while helping it defend itself from Tehran's counterattack. Now that Israel's initial wave of strikes has proved a remarkable success, Trump has embraced the attacks, offering more support. He cut short his time at the G7 summit in Canada to return to Washington last night and ominously suggested that Tehran, a city of 10 million people, be evacuated immediately, sparking rumors that the U.S. was about to decisively enter the conflict.
The White House denied those reports and said that the U.S. military was remaining in a defensive posture. But part of Trump's thinking is that such threats may scare Iran back to the negotiating table, the White House official and two other administration officials told us. (We granted them and others interviewed for this story anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.) The president now believes that Israel's bombardment could push the Iranian regime, fearful for its survival, to re-engage with a U.S. proposal to abandon its nuclear-enrichment program, the officials said.
Trump will have to decide whether to fully join the conflict by authorizing the use of massive American bunker-buster bombs, of the sort needed to destroy Iran's underground facilities. One of the officials told us that the weapons are 'leverage' for Trump, who hopes to revive talks in the days ahead. Another person familiar with the discussions surrounding Trump's hasty return from the G7 said defense officials were preparing options for the president.
'I'm not looking for a cease-fire. We're looking at better than a cease-fire,' Trump told reporters on Air Force One on the flight back to Washington last night, adding that he wanted 'a real end' to the conflict between Iran and Israel and a 'complete give-up' by Iran of its nuclear ambitions. Trump has grown frustrated that the Iranians did not accept his administration's most recent offer for a deal. 'But remember, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,' Trump said. 'It's very simple. We don't have to go too deep into it.'
[Read: What Trump knew about the attack against Iran]
Vice President J. D. Vance, part of the GOP's isolationist wing, published a long post on X today that praised Trump's reluctance to commit American troops to combat and said, 'People are right to be worried about foreign entanglement after the last 25 years of idiotic foreign policy.' But the post read like a justification for potential military involvement, noting that Trump 'may decide he needs to take further action to end Iranian enrichment. That decision ultimately belongs to the president.'
Trump has pulled back from striking Iran before. In June 2019, after Iran's military shot down an American surveillance drone over the Strait of Hormuz, Trump authorized a retaliatory attack. But military officials were blindsided when, just minutes before the attack was to begin, the president called it off, citing potential Iranian casualties.
A few months later, after Trump ordered a drone strike that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, the MAGA movement's fracture over Iran began to show. When Carlson hosted the 8 p.m. hour on Fox News, he advocated restraint in dealing with Iran and warned about the dangers of escalation. An hour later on the same network, Hannity struck a wildly different tone, reveling in Trump's strike and suggesting that Tehran could be hit with the full power of the American military.
Trump was close to both men, who each knew that often the best way to deliver a message to the commander in chief was through the televisions that he faithfully watched in the White House residence or in the private dining area off the Oval Office. That time around, in January 2020, Carlson's messaging on Fox over several days—and a private phone call with the president—won out: Trump decided not to ratchet up the standoff with Iran.
Just before Israel's attack last week, Carlson, who was terminated from Fox in 2023, went on social media and blamed conservative voices—including former colleagues and employers—for trying to stoke a war. 'Who are the warmongers? They would include anyone who's calling Donald Trump today to demand air strikes and other direct US military involvement in a war with Iran,' Carlson wrote in a post on X. 'On that list: Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Rupert Murdoch, Ike Perlmutter and Miriam Adelson. At some point they will all have to answer for this, but you should know their names now.'
Carlson then appeared yesterday on Bannon's podcast to urge Trump to stay away from the conflict and 'drop' Netanyahu. Carlson also suggested that the president was 'complicit' in Israel's attacks, a charge that did not sit well with Trump when he was asked about it yesterday at the G7 summit. 'I don't know what Tucker Carlson is saying,' Trump said in response to a reporter's question. 'Let him go get a television network and say it so people listen.'
Carlson in particular has targeted Levin, who met with Trump last week and made the case that Iran was close to developing a nuclear weapon, one of the administration officials told us. After Carlson accused Levin on X of agitating for Trump to bomb Iran, the radio host hit back on his Friday show, saying, 'You're a reckless and deceitful propagandist, and that's the best I can say. You promote anti-Semitism and conspiracy nuts. You slobber all over some of the most evil people on earth.' (Levin also responded to Carlson on social media: 'Hey thug. I never said to the President that American forces should bomb Iran. The leaker who is feeding you is a liar.')
[Read: Iran's stunning incompetence]
In Congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene used similar language to attack those pushing for U.S. involvement: 'Anyone slobbering for the U.S. to become fully involved in the Israel/Iran war is not America First/MAGA,' she wrote on X, adding that staying out of foreign entanglements is 'what many Americans voted for in 2024.' Trump, in an interview with The Atlantic last week, made clear he believes that he 'decides' what 'America First' means.
Some in Trump's orbit have pushed him to take advantage of Tehran's weakness at the moment; Tehran proxies Hamas and Hezbollah are badly diminished, and Israel managed to wipe out much of Iran's senior military leadership in its attacks over the past several days. Lindsey Graham, a longtime Iran hawk, has called on the president to aid Israel in recent days, and made a similar pitch on television last night. 'Be all in, President Trump, in helping Israel eliminate the nuclear threat. If we need to provide bombs to Israel, provide bombs. If we need to fly planes with Israel, do joint operations,' Graham said during an appearance—where else?—on Hannity's show. 'But here's the bigger question: Wouldn't the world be better off if the Ayatollahs went away and were replaced by something better?'
Other members of the MAGA movement have taken sides, and not always predictably. Laura Loomer, the conspiracy theorist who has advised Trump on national security in the past, backed Levin. Charlie Kirk and Jack Posobiec have pushed diplomacy. A former U.S. official close to members of the current administration played down the war of words: 'This is the battle of the podcast hosts.' This person predicted that the competing influence efforts would ultimately have little sway on the president. 'What Trump said is, 'It's my decision,'' the former official said. 'I think that's right.'
In a social-media post yesterday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that he had ordered additional military assets sent to the Middle East, a move he said was intended to strengthen America's 'defensive posture' and protect U.S. troops in the region. In recent days, the U.S. has moved guided missile destroyers closer to Israel and accelerated the previously planned movement of the aircraft carrier Nimitz from Asia to the Middle East. The Air Force has also dispatched a fleet of refueling aircraft to Europe, positioning them closer to the region. Trump posted on social media today, 'We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran'—the word we seemingly claiming partial ownership of an operation conducted by Israeli forces using some American-made equipment.
For months, Trump has been pushing for a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear-enrichment crisis—a problem his critics believe he caused when, in 2018, he backed out of the agreement that had been brokered by Barack Obama. Trump's diplomatic envoy, Steve Witkoff, told confidants this spring he believed that a deal was possible; the administration's latest proposal would allow Iran to procure enriched nuclear fuel from outside the country but not to enrich it on Iranian soil. And Trump blocked Netanyahu from a strike on Iran in April. But the president's top advisers, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Dan Caine, briefed him last week that Israel believed Iran was on the brink of developing a weapon and was determined to strike. Netanyahu delivered the same message in a call with Trump early last week, and Trump grew resigned to the strike, offering Israel limited military support—intelligence sharing, as well as American air-defense systems and a Navy destroyer to help shoot down incoming ballistic missiles—even as he still hoped for a diplomatic solution.
The U.S. intelligence community has assessed that Iran is not trying to build a nuclear weapon, and that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has not lifted the suspension he placed on the weapons program in 2003. But pressure from hard-line elements in the regime has built on him to change course so that Iran is better able to deter Israel and the United States. Khamenei has the final say on whether Iran builds a weapon. In congressional testimony in March, Trump's director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, shared the intelligence community's analysis, which has remained essentially the same for years. Experts have debated how quickly Iran could construct a nuclear device able to be delivered to a target of its choice. This morning, CNN reported that Iran is up to three years away from achieving that goal, according to U.S. intelligence analysis, a stark contrast with Israeli estimates.
[Read: Israel's bold, risky attack]
In his remarks aboard Air Force One after leaving the G7 meeting, Trump dismissed Gabbard's position altogether: 'I don't care what she said. I think they were very close to having them,' he said.
Instead, Trump has suggested that he might look elsewhere for guidance. This morning he posted a lengthy text he'd received from U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who said that God had spared Trump from last summer's assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, so he could become the 'most consequential President in a century—maybe ever.' Huckabee wrote that no president in his lifetime 'has been in a position like yours. Not since Truman in 1945,' an apparent reference to Harry Truman's decision to drop a pair of atomic bombs on Japan to end World War II.
'You did not seek this moment,' Huckabee wrote. 'This moment sought YOU!'
Shane Harris and Missy Ryan contributed reporting.
Article originally published at The Atlantic

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Previous Next JJ had joined 81 percent of Yuma County's voters in supporting Trump, whom he considered the better of two bad options. He wanted to believe that the president would honor his many pledges to do right by people like him. 'The USA will PROTECT OUR FARMERS!!!' Trump had posted to Truth Social that very day. JJ needed that to be true as he climbed into his Dodge, turned onto a gravel road and drove toward the horizon, where eastern Colorado's parched brown canvas converged with a cloudless sky. Nothing else was within view. No people. No cows. No homes or barns, pickups or tractors. Out here, it was just JJ and the dirt. It was the fall of 2023, and an ad urging farmers to apply for the grant program had been playing for months on the radio when JJ's wife finally brought it up. 'Why not?' Kassidee asked. Larger farms paid specialists to handle the paperwork, but Kassidee, 36, believed they could take on the applications themselves, and they did, slogging through 40 hours of maddening federal bureaucracy. Each night, they put their two kids to bed and sifted through hundreds of pages of guides and forms in JJ's basement office. Taped to his walls were bits of motivation and financial advice. 'Stay the Course,' read a line at the top, bolded and underlined. JJ was a fourth-generation farmer but had been handed no wealth, land or expensive equipment from his parents, who divorced when he was about 6. To make a living, he had baled hay and helped raise neighbors' wheat, soybeans, pinto beans, great northern beans and alfalfa. Now he rented and farmed his mom's two circles of corn, each about 125 acres, and partnered with his dad to sell seed corn. He and Kassidee, a dental hygienist, married in 2012 and slipped into debt in their early 20s. They dug themselves out with advice from Dave Ramsey's books: Save for big purchases and live below your means. The couple paid off their home early, opened investment accounts, bought a small rental house. They'd avoided serious debt since, but the promise of a grant and another worker inspired JJ to make a bigger bet on himself. Vivian Ficken, 7, and her brother, Henry, 4, play on bags of seed corn. Henry rides on his father's lap in the tractor. JJ pours a mixture that prevents the seed corn from clumping as it's planted. In the months after applying, he bought a 2012 combine, a 2013 planter, a 2013 corn header, a 2000 Dodge pickup meant for Otto and a second hay stacker, the only new piece of equipment he'd ever owned. JJ paid cash as much as he could but still owed more than $380,000. At the time, it didn't scare him, because with Otto, the grant money, the farmhand he already had and the extra margin he'd pocket from owning his machinery, JJ figured he could pay it all off in three years. His investments spoke to the value that even one dependable worker can bring to today's farms, where more than 40 percent of the workforce is undocumented. To address the critical shortage of labor and stem the flow of undocumented immigrants, the U.S. Agriculture Department unveiled the Farm Labor Stabilization and Protection Pilot Program in 2023. With the grant, farms could bring on foreign workers through the H-2A visa program and, in exchange, provide good working conditions. 'I've employed Americans, and they quit after a few days,' said Tracy Vinz, assured $400,000 for her organic farm in Wisconsin. 'They quit after a few hours.' Story continues below advertisement Advertisement 'I've had a couple who didn't even last a whole day,' said Mitch Lawson, a Georgia produce farmer who lost nearly two dozen American employees before he qualified for $200,000. In Trump's first term, he gave farmers $23 billion to cover the losses from his trade war with China, and he expanded support programs through a new Farm Bill, an achievement President Joe Biden's administration would fail to match. 'Nobody's done for farmers what I've done,' Trump, sitting before a pair of John Deere tractors, told a crowd in Pennsylvania this past fall. Then, four months later, he halted the grant payments. On Jan. 20, his first day in office, Trump signed executive orders intended to block funding from Biden-era climate legislation and purge links to 'diversity, equity and inclusion,' known as DEI. Baffled staffers at the Agriculture Department told The Washington Post they struggled to interpret vague directions dictating who should and shouldn't be paid. 'The process is changing more than once a day,' Tricia Kovacs, a deputy administrator, told managers, according to a record of the meeting. Staff abandoned their normal work to defend programs that appeared to have nothing to do with DEI. Many were snagged in a broad search for key words branded problematic. Among the misfires was the widespread flagging of 'biodiversity.' JJ's grant was frozen in late January as top administrators considered whether to cancel it. Over the next two months, more than 20 farmers requested $4 million owed to them, according to documents reviewed by The Post. None were paid. Dozens of farmers in the program met in a virtual call to share updates and commiserate, later starting a chat group JJ joined. Some considered filing lawsuits. 'Why are you ignoring a military veteran?' Jason Harris, a Trump voter offered a $400,000 grant for his farm in Mississippi, wrote Republican senators in early April. 'The longer these funds are not released it is starting to make me think that you do not care for people like me.' Citing litigation, an Agriculture Department spokesperson declined to answer questions, including whether the agency intended to cancel the program. But the White House defended Trump. 'Farmers helped propel President Trump to victory in November because they knew he would negotiate better trade deals, cut red tape, and boost American exports,' spokesperson Anna Kelly wrote in a statement. 'They were right — since January, President Trump has delivered a historic trade deal with the UK, with more deals on the way, and eliminated bureaucracy and bloat at USDA, which is why farmer sentiment has improved across the country.' She cited a survey from April that showed farmers were increasingly optimistic about their future. As that poll was conducted, farmers in Tennessee, Texas, Michigan, Minnesota, California and Georgia who'd signed up for the grant program told The Post they'd drained their savings or taken on debt. In Oregon, a pear farmer had to cash out her children's life insurance policies. In West Virginia, a farmer who'd risked raising a dozen new fruits and vegetables feared she'd have to close if the money never came. In Maine, a broccoli farmer already contemplating bankruptcy doubted he'd last another year without it. Pictures on the wall of a room the Fickens use as both an office and a home-school classroom. Otto was the youngest candidate JJ interviewed, but he sounded eager. Through an interpreter, Otto told him he wanted to learn English, and JJ told Otto he wanted to learn Spanish. The language barrier didn't concern JJ when he offered him the job. He already had another worker, a 21-year-old named Riggin Williams, who had grown up in the community. As long as he had Riggin, JJ wouldn't have to ask Otto to deal with customers or operate the most technical equipment. Then, one morning in mid-April, Riggin quit. He had found a job with regular hours and didn't want to spend another season baling hay. He gave JJ two weeks' notice and told him he hoped the new guy worked out. But the new guy was still in Guatemala, waiting for a visa. JJ couldn't even apply for the first installment of his grant money until Otto arrived, which should have happened weeks earlier. He'd heard from a recruiter that the administration's attempt to make the government more efficient had slowed the visa process throughout Central America. JJ tried not to panic, but suddenly, for him to operate, Otto had to make it to Colorado, and if he did, he had to work out. Tell us how people's lives are being changed This story is part of an ongoing examination into how President Donald Trump's overhaul of the federal government is reshaping the lives of Americans. The Washington Post wants to hear from people who have been affected. You can contact us by email or Signal encrypted message. John Woodrow Cox: or johnwoodrowcox.01 on Signal. Sarah Blaskey: or SarahBlaskey.25 on Signal. Read more about how to use Signal and other ways to securely contact The Post. Previous Next The stakes were still on JJ's mind that afternoon when a neighbor stopped by his shop and, as it often did, the conversation turned to Trump's overhaul of the federal government. 'There'll be some growing pains,' said Eric Smith, who had grown up in Yuma County, joined the Navy and returned to Kirk to raise his two daughters and work the family land. 'There'll be some caught in the fray that, you know, maybe shouldn't have been caught.' JJ handed cans of Michelob Ultra to Eric and Riggin, who was patching a tire. JJ had voted for Trump in part because of the president's promises to cut spending, but he'd never imagined the cuts would target a core Trump constituency. It made no sense to JJ, who said he didn't know what DEI stood for, much less what it had come to represent. He didn't hire Otto to promote an agenda, and he didn't think the government owed him a handout. The Agriculture Department had sought out JJ and the other farmers promoting an opportunity intended to lift the whole country. 'I'd like to think a year from now, what's being done now, we see the benefits from it,' JJ said of what Trump was doing and how he fit into it. 'I would hope.' JJ talks to his father, Kent Ficken, in front of a pallet stacked with seed corn. He didn't care much for politics, preferring parenting and self-help books to partisan podcasts. The fervor Trump inspired unsettled him — he'd hated trying to explain the 'F--- Biden' flag outside town to his daughter — but JJ found elements of the president's rhetoric appealing. He, too, resented that the country sent billions of dollars abroad when so many people here needed support. 'So you're bringing over help?' asked Eric, who understood why. The 47-year-old had taken on more than $800,000 in debt to manage his hayfields and buy equipment, and he flew commercial airliners to cover the bills. 'Mm-hmm,' JJ replied, explaining that, like all businesses in the H-2A program, he'd first been required to advertise the job to U.S. citizens. None applied. 'People don't want to work,' Eric said. Riggin sipped his beer. The conversation was not about him, but that didn't make it less awkward. He had originally committed to two more years, prompting JJ to buy the second hay stacker. But Riggin changed his mind. In the new job, as a field tech working on phone lines, he'd earn more money, get health insurance and make it home for dinner. Eric, meanwhile, wondered what working in Kirk would feel like for an outsider. 'F---ing wind's blowing all the time. It's every shade of brown,' he said. 'It's hard. You can't get people to do it.' JJ took another swig. He hoped that wasn't true. JJ steps inside his shop as he prepares his equipment to plant corn. In Guatemala, Otto was pleading with God. From his rural hometown of Aldea Chispán, he'd prayed that he'd get a job interview, and when he did, he prayed he'd do well, and when he did, he prayed he'd receive an offer, and when he did, he prayed the United States would let him come. Otto had made the six-hour round-trip drive to interview for his visa on April 15 — the same day Riggin quit. Now, he waited, worrying he would be denied or JJ would back out. The two men had spoken during their video interview for just 17 minutes. Each week Otto missed because of the delay cost him at least $700 in lost wages, and all of it mattered to Otto. His family's 40-acre farm, he said, had struggled in recent years. Bad winters killed crops. A lost onion harvest squandered five months of work. He had told JJ that nothing mattered more between a worker and a boss than trust, but he wasn't certain he had the experience to earn that trust. He'd learned on his dad's old tractors, nothing like what he expected to face in Colorado. Otto Vargas, 24, pleaded with God to help him make it to the United States. His earliest memories were on the farm, fetching his dad's tools. His father would dig a little hole, and Otto would press fertilizer into the soil by hand. In the flatlands east of the mountains, he'd learned to tolerate temperatures that topped 110 degrees. During planting season, he and his dad would rest in the shade of their lemon trees, sweating and laughing and sharing his mother's empanadas. Now his dad was 64, and Otto dreaded leaving him. He relied on Otto to manage the land, but Otto also leaned on his dad, who had tried to prepare him for the United States, a place he'd never visited. In the months since Trump took office, Otto said, he'd seen videos on Facebook of immigrants being harassed and arrested. 'You get to thinking about all the people who are here for a better future, for their family,' he said in Spanish. 'It's very difficult.' His dad insisted that if an officer confronted him, he should do what he was told, never argue. So, Otto made a plan: He would hurry to type a message into the translation app on his phone, asking if he could use it to communicate. He would offer documentation that proved he was legal. He would ask to call his boss, who he hoped could explain that everything was okay. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement JJ loaded his kids and their lunch boxes into the back seat of the pickup, and now, just after 8 a.m. on April 17, a Thursday, he pulled a trailer to his father's place and made a list of the work ahead: Deliver 7,000 pounds of seed corn to a farmer an hour away. Prep his ripper for a neighbor who asked to rent it. Bring his corn header inside in case of rain. Fix a sprinkler and mow the lawn and finish installing the water heater. Then JJ remembered. He glanced in the rearview mirror. 'Vivi, what's your sugar at?' In October, Vivian, who is 7, had been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. The whole family changed diets, even her 4-year-old brother, Henry. She needed constant monitoring and frequent insulin shots and regular appointments two hours west in Denver, so the couple decided to home-school both kids. In the pickup, Vivian reached for her phone, linked through Bluetooth with a monitor on her arm. 'It's at 127,' Vivian said, passing the phone up to her dad. 'See?' She needed insulin. He sped up. At his father's shop, JJ figured out the dosage on her phone, and a bottle-cap-size pump on her leg injected the medication. 'Did you hear it go beep beep on ya?' he asked. Vivian eats lunch in a room at JJ's shop. Henry plays with a tablet while sitting next to his father. JJ had accepted that farm work would shape their life at home, and he made certain the reverse was true, too. The kids slowed him down, scaling stacks of corn bags and pretending the trailer was a pirate ship, but he still took them along. He had come to think of himself as the sum of his commitments. First, to the kids and Kassidee and God. Then to his customers, whom he owed fair prices and honest answers. To the country, whose flag he'd pasted along both sides of his grain cart. To the land, so it might survive another generation. To Riggin, until he collected his last paycheck. And now to Otto, a stranger from a faraway place. JJ sometimes faltered, but when he did, he tried to make it right. He expected the same of others, and that included the president, who he'd never believe in again if the grant didn't come through. 'No way in hell,' JJ said. After two hernia surgeries and hundreds of fitful nights, JJ hoped his children found a different path. He and Kassidee had already started saving for their college. The couple suspected Vivian would prefer city life — 'She loves the light,' he said — but Henry was just like him. Now, as JJ fired up the forklift, his son hurried over to sit beside him, legs straddling the levers. Henry had dressed to match his dad, in blue jeans, work boots and a hoodie. At home, in his bedroom, he'd carefully organized a collection of toy harvesters, grain bins, hay bales and seed boxes. JJ, who had dropped out of college before attending an automotive technology program, had rehearsed what he might someday pitch to Henry: 'Why don't you go be an architect, and then own you a farm — a hobby farm? Do it a different way. Do this for a tax write-off, not to feed your kids.' Henry rides with JJ in the forklift. JJ and Kassidee had been a year apart at the only high school in their community. She graduated in a class of eight. JJ, a class of five. Opportunities were scant. The couple had once imagined the grant might allow JJ more time with the kids, freeing Kassidee to earn her master's degree. She'd worked for years as a dental hygienist in rural offices that turned away people on Medicaid. She and a partner had started their own office, and turned away no one, but Kassidee needed an advanced degree to provide treatments their poorest patients couldn't afford elsewhere. 'Maybe next year,' she told her husband. One night, in their kitchen, Kassidee prepared a meat loaf as she considered the relentless uncertainty their family navigated. How would the couple, who had no health insurance, pay for their daughter's care if the administration and Congress gutted Medicaid? JJ never stopped accounting for the farming costs that would not quit climbing and the eastern Colorado drought that would not end. And now came the tariffs that could spike the price of equipment and the attacks on subsidies that protect commodity farmers when markets collapse. Kassidee and JJ gather in the kitchen with their children Vivian, left, and Henry before a meal. 'There are so many variables in farming that things get turned upside down all the time,' Kassidee said. 'Every part of it is a gamble.' From 2017 to 2022, according to the latest Census of Agriculture, the country lost 141,000 farms and 20 million acres of farmland, an area about the size of Maine. At dinner, Henry sat at the head of the table, beside JJ. Vivian, in a bunny-ears headband, crunched on a cherry tomato and opened a small box that read, 'TALKING POINT CARDS.' 'What do you think it means to be,' Vivian read from one, pausing to spell out the last word. Kassidee helped her sound it out: 'Suc-cess-ful.' Vivian asked if making her bed counted. 'Successful people do make their beds,' Kassidee said. 'All of 'em,' JJ added. His definition had evolved. Money would once have been the measure. Today, he said, it was the family in front of him. Kassidee, back in the kitchen baking sugar-free chocolate chip cookies, mulled the question for another minute. 'I don't know,' she said. 'Success can mean just making it through the day.' JJ rests in the living room as Henry plays with a farm toy on the floor. Otto's alarm sounded at midnight, 13 hours before the flight he hoped would change his life. But first he had to make it to the airport, nearly 100 miles away. It was April 28, a week since his visa had been approved, and a national strike was expected to shut down major highways. Otto had slept only an hour or so. He'd worked late into the evening on his father's farm picking loroco, an edible flower bud. Now he loaded two bags into his 2005 Honda CR-V and met a man who, for the equivalent of about $150, shuttled people to the airport. It could be dangerous to travel at that hour. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement If he reached Colorado, the money would make a difference, and not just for his father's farm. Otto had applied for residency in the United States in 2023, the same year he married a neighbor from Guatemala who now lives legally in Rhode Island. They hoped to someday move in together and have children. Otto never considered trying to work in the United States illegally, he said. He knew the abuses other undocumented immigrants endured and hated the idea of living under the threat of deportation. He had tried to do things right. He hoped it would be worth it. Otto reached La Aurora International Airport before dawn, but the government official with his approved passport had yet to arrive. In the mountains of Guatemala City, it was chilly, so Otto sat in his car. Every hour, he walked back to the terminal to ask for an update. Without the passport, Otto couldn't board his flight. Nineteen hundred miles north, JJ sat at his dining room table that afternoon and studied an instruction manual for a pair of $430 earbuds that translated other languages in real time. They'd just arrived. 'This might just save my life,' he said, six hours before Otto's plane was scheduled to reach Denver. 'First use: place earbuds in charging case,' he read. Henry, lugging an old drill, checked on his father's progress. 'Are we going to need the tape measure, Dad?' he asked. 'You never know, bud,' JJ said. 'There's not much we do without a tape measure.' JJ sets up translation earbuds that he hopes will help him communicate with Otto. It was 1 p.m., and he didn't even know whether Otto had left Guatemala. JJ, who had no social media accounts, had tried and failed to connect with Otto on WhatsApp, which he'd never used before. He and Kassidee had fretted over whether Otto would settle into their community. Hispanics accounted for 30 percent of Yuma County's population, but there was no easy way to make friends. It was 104 times the size of Manhattan but had 0.6 percent of its population — 4 people per square mile. Kirk had a lunchtime food truck, the Filling Station, but no restaurants or bars. The local grocery store, Super's, closed at 6:30 p.m. Otto loved soccer, so JJ, who knew nothing about the game, had Googled how to take him to a Colorado Rapids match in Denver. At 5 p.m., JJ left for the airport, still with no idea where Otto was. An hour into the drive, JJ got a call from a Rhode Island number. The man asked for Jack, so JJ hung up. Then came two more calls. 'Hello,' a woman said, her accent thick and the connection spotty. 'I talk with — from Guatemala.' 'Otto?' he asked. 'From Guatemala?' 'Yes, because he lost — he lost the flight,' she said, and for a moment, JJ felt sick. He pulled onto the shoulder of the one-lane road. Another relative called to explain that Otto missed a connection and would arrive late to Denver. The man said he'd connect JJ to Otto on WhatsApp, and a few minutes later, a photo appeared along with a message. 'Hi, Jace,' it read, referencing JJ's full name. 'I am Otto.' 'Hey guy! I don't have great service to load your picture,' JJ wrote back. 'But will be there to pick you up!' Story continues below advertisement Advertisement He stopped at a Mexican restaurant outside the city to eat a long, nervous fajita dinner and sip a margarita. 'I am scared to death,' he said. 'It was just easy with Riggin.' Two hours later, JJ pulled into the parking garage and considered what this experience might mean to Otto. By federal mandate, JJ would pay $17.84 an hour, and to get the grant, he'd agreed to offer overtime after 40. JJ intended to give him as much work as he could handle. Sitting in the darkness, JJ tried to Google the minimum wage in Guatemala. He saw 33 'quetzals,' a word he couldn't pronounce. Just more than $4 an hour. He shook his head. Besides the rental, the truck and the $1,134 flight, JJ would cover Otto's gas, internet, phone, household items and workers' compensation. By then, the grant had technically been unfrozen because of a court order two weeks earlier, on April 15, but an administrator from the Agriculture Department later told the judge it faced a massive backlog. More than 42,000 contracts had been stalled. On April 23, a national group of nonprofits suing the Agriculture Department accused it of largely ignoring the order and rushing to cancel grants rather than unfreeze them. Government attorneys said that wasn't true, but, according to documents and farmers in the chat group, no one in JJ's program had been paid. Inside the airport, JJ lingered by baggage claim, checking his phone, scanning faces. At 10:13 p.m., he waved. Otto, in jeans and a T-shirt, grabbed his bag and walked over, grinning. They shook hands. JJ greets Otto as he arrives at Denver International Airport. In the SUV, JJ handed him an earbud. 'It can translate,' JJ said. 'Oh, okay,' Otto said, nodding. After a few seconds, the words came through, so Otto detailed his flight trouble, eager to explain why he was late. They talked about his wife, a hairdresser, and the protests back home and how there was lots of traffic in Guatemala but none where they were going. At McDonald's, Otto, who hoped to one day become a U.S. citizen, asked for fries, Coke and a Big Mac. 'Do you have more workers on your farm?' Otto asked, according to the translation in JJ's ear. 'I had one full-time guy,' JJ said, 'and he just quit.' 'Okay,' Otto said, eyebrows raised. JJ pointed at Otto, then himself. 'Just you and me.' Otto walks with JJ outside the Fickens' home as a storm passes in the distance. 'Otto speaks Spanish, you guys,' JJ told his kids, strapped in the back seat of the Silverado. Otto had made it to Kirk 29 days late. Now, at 10 o'clock the next morning, JJ was headed back to the rented mobile home to pick him up. 'He's gonna be saying, like, 'comprendo' and stuff?' Henry asked. 'To say 'okay' in Spanish, you say 'comprendo.'' So, JJ practiced: 'Comprendo. Comprendo.' By then, Otto said, he'd already been up for hours. He understood that thousands of people from his home country would have taken this job, and he wanted to prove to JJ, on this first day, that he'd made the right choice. He took a shower and cleaned the glass with a squeegee. He got dressed, slipped on his sneakers, combed his hair, passed the sign on the wall that read, 'Dream the impossible.' He made the bed. As JJ pulled up, Otto walked outside. 'How are ya?' JJ asked, and Otto nodded and smiled. JJ and Otto use the translation earbuds to talk about the work to be done. Otto, sitting on a lawn mower, listens to JJ discuss the farming equipment. That afternoon, they went to JJ's house to plant a row of young Rocky Mountain junipers. It was a laborious, low-pressure task, a good way to ease Otto in. JJ ran a line of twine on stakes to keep the row straight. Otto raked sticks into piles. Henry lugged them to a trailer. They had just unfurled a black weed tarp when JJ's phone rang. It was a woman from Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, a national organization that provides seasonal workers in the grant program with a 'know your rights and resources' training. Until Otto attended a session, JJ couldn't request the first half of his money. He dropped his shovel. 'How are you, ma'am?' It would take time for Alianza to arrange a training near Kirk for just one worker, but the woman said Otto could join a session north of Denver, 165 miles away. 'What day?' he asked. 'Tuesday.' Story continues below advertisement Advertisement 'Ahhh, Rosa. I can't do Tuesday,' he told her, aware that Kassidee had to work that day. 'I've got the kids.' But he would do Tuesday, because he would do whatever it took, even a six-hour round-trip drive with Otto and the kids. He'd already accepted that he needed to ask for an extension on the $46,000 hay stacker payment due the next month. JJ leaned against the hood of his pickup and bowed his head. He didn't know it then, but in early May, a few people in his grant program who'd waited since winter for installments would finally receive them. That did little to calm the fear that political appointees running the agency would kill the program. Already, they had canceled the research component of the grant, which was intended to show whether the program helped farmers or curbed illegal immigration. 'DEI,' officials called it. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins would announce a 'Make Agriculture Great Again' initiative on May 19 that proposed her department address the labor shortage in the same ways JJ's pilot program already did: by working with other government agencies and relying on the H-2A visa process. A month later, at least three farmers yet to receive installments would say they'd soon be unable to make payroll. JJ, who'd send eight emails to the Agriculture Department pleading for answers, would still be waiting for his check. Vivian and Henry watch JJ and Otto organize seed corn containers at Kent Ficken's shop. JJ and Otto prepare the ground before planting trees together near JJ's house. Now, in Kirk, the tree line had been set and the sticks cleared, and JJ was trying to say, in Spanish, that they would stop in 45 minutes, at 5 p.m. He figured Otto must be exhausted from the day before. 'So we'll work 'til,' he said, pausing to count, 'cinco — de la noche?' 'La tarde,' Otto corrected, and they laughed. 'We're all still pretty tired,' JJ said. He picked up a posthole digger and spiked it into the hard, dry earth, and when he was done, Otto planted the first tree. Vivian listed all the words she knew in Spanish. 'The trees are verde,' she said. Otto, now digging the holes, pointed to his jeans. 'What is the color?' he asked her. 'Azuuuuul.' Story continues below advertisement Advertisement JJ knelt to plant the next tree. He looked up at his daughter. 'This is going to be good for us, Viv.' About 4:45 p.m., a white pickup sped past on their dirt road. It was Riggin, who honked and waved. He was finished for the day, headed home. JJ waved back. Ten minutes later, he picked up the tape measure and dropped it into the toolbox. He told Otto they could finish later. 'I'm beat,' JJ said. Otto asked how many more trees they needed to plant. 'Probably 20,' JJ answered. Otto reached for the posthole digger. 'No problem,' he said. So JJ grabbed another sapling and followed him back to work. JJ and Otto work late into the afternoon planting trees near JJ's home.