How Iran Is Dividing the MAGA Base
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Hi, this is Deirdre in Pipersville, Pennsylvania. I'm at the barn sitting inside, just brought in 10 horses from the big heat we're having today, and I'm listening to them munching and

Nice. What a nice life. Very nice. Very sweaty today to be doing that, but a very nice life indeed.

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Miles Parks. I cover voting. I'm Greg Myhre. I cover national security. And I'm Mara Liason, senior national political correspondent. And today on the show, Iran, where the Middle East conflict goes from here and what United States involvement could look like. So, Greg, this is a rapidly evolving situation in the Middle East. Where do things stand right now?

Yeah, Miles, we've had a sixth straight night of bombing going back and forth between Israel and Iran. The Israeli airstrikes have continued in Iran. Iranian missiles fired at Israel. So I think a couple developments, though, are becoming more clear as this goes on. Israel now says it controls the skies over Tehran, the capital, and seemingly much of the western part of the country. And Israel says it hasn't lost a single aircraft.

Israel is hitting a wide range of targets, but two in particular are important. One is Iran's nuclear facilities. Israel keeps striking nuclear sites. It's hit several of them. It's hard to get a clear picture of how much damage they're causing. Is this damage that can be repaired relatively quickly and Iran could resume its program? Or does it set the nuclear program back substantially? We don't quite know at this point.

The second key target is Iran's mobile launchers that it uses to fire these missiles at Israel. Israel says Iran has about 100 of them. A couple days ago, Israel said it had knocked out a third. We have seen the number of missiles coming out of Iran going down. It was 100 or more the first couple days. It seems to be less than 50 the last couple days. So in terms of big trend lines, they do seem to be pointing in Israel's favor.

And we're going to get more into what U.S. involvement could look like in the future. But I know President Trump, Mara, was asked about all of this this morning. What did he say? Yeah, he was asked whether the United States is moving closer to a decision to strike Iranian nuclear facilities that would basically be providing Israel with help with these giant bunker-busting bombs that only America has. And Trump said, I may do it. I may not do it. Nobody knows what I'm going to do, unquote. And I think Trump

Maybe even he doesn't know what he's going to do because he has been moving very rapidly back and forth on this issue. He started out asking Bibi Netanyahu not to attack Iran because he was negotiating with Iran on a nuclear deal. Then once Israel did start bombing Iran, he said the bombs were excellent. He's now talked about we have control over the skies. We are doing this as if he is involved with Israel.

So he's gone back and forth on this, and we don't know where he's going to end up. Remember, he ran against foreign wars. He ran pretty much as an isolationist, thought that foreign entanglements were stupid. But he also is a bellicose, sometimes imperial-sounding foreign policy president.

And, you know, this is another example where he sees Israel having some success, looking strong and tough, and he wants to be on board with that, run up to the front of the parade and grab the flag. I mean, Greg, the central question here is whether Iran actually is close to producing a nuclear weapon. Israel has said for decades that they were, and President Trump seems to be echoing some of that language now. What do we actually know about how close Iran is?

Well, we do know a fair bit about Iran's nuclear program. U.S. and Israeli intelligence have followed this closely for many, many years. International inspectors go to Iran with regularity.

Now, Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu has been the leading voice for many, many years saying that Iran was on the cusp of a nuclear weapon. And he said he ordered the attack on Iran last week because, he says, it was making a new push for the bomb. Now, the U.S. intelligence community says Iran suspended its nuclear weapon program back in 2003 and has never ended that suspension program.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard reiterated this U.S. position when she testified in March before the Senate Intelligence Committee. But now we have President Trump contradicting Gabbard. He said, quote, I don't care what she said. I think they, meaning the Iranians, were very close to having it. So Trump has now thrown this new U.S. position or his position into the mix and

And so he seems to be much closer to the Israeli position. And there's no sign that Trump is saying this based on anything coming from the U.S. military or U.S. intelligence community. And I'd add that the U.S. and Israel tend to agree on the facts regarding Iran's nuclear program, but their interpretations differ. And Israel and Netanyahu in particular have tended to see new developments as movement toward a bomb that would directly threaten Israel.

The U.S. national security officials have always acknowledged that the Iranian program is evolving, but they say the country's leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has stopped short of authorized the building of a nuclear weapon. And Greg, is it clear what the Israeli and or U.S. goal is? Maybe they're two different goals. Is it regime change or is it just to stop them from getting a nuclear weapon? Netanyahu has been very clear on this. He set two goals. First and foremost—

greatly damage or destroy Iran's nuclear program. And that's been his big issue for years and years. Second is to stop these missiles, the ballistic missiles that Iran is clearly capable of firing in large numbers at Israel. Those are the two big things which Israel and perhaps with help from the U.S. have some control over.

Now, Israel would love to see the Iranian regime weakened or overthrown, but that's not really something they can control, and they're not expressing it as a primary goal. And again, there's really no prospect that troops from Israel or the U.S. would go into Iranian territory. So regime change would have to come from within, with Iranians rising up and finding a way to oust Iran.

the clerical regime that's been in power for 46 years. All right. Well, let's take a quick break. When we get back, we're going to talk about how this issue is dividing the Republican Party.

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Seek the clarity you deserve at Jackson.com. Jackson is short for Jackson Financial Incorporated, Jackson National Life Insurance Company, Lansing, Michigan, and Jackson National Life Insurance Company of New York. Purchase New York. And we're back. So, Greg, we've talked about the possibility of the United States involvement expanding here. Can you explain what that would actually look like?

Right. So the U.S. has been helping Israel play defense with ships in the region and planes and air defense systems on the ground that are helping shoot down the incoming Iranian missiles. The big line that Trump may cross here is helping Israel play offense. And Israel in particular wants the U.S. to do something it can't.

which has unleashed a huge bunker-busting bomb to hit the most important Iranian nuclear facility, Fordow, which is built into the side of a mountain a little over 100 miles south of Tehran. Now, the U.S. bomb that would be used in this operation is called the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or GBU-57. It weighs 30,000 pounds each.

It's so heavy, only one U.S. warplane is configured to carry it, the B-2 stealth bomber. Now, the U.S. provides Israel with a wide range of U.S. planes and bombs, which Israel is currently employing, but Israel doesn't have this plane or this bomb. Israel has repeatedly made this request to the U.S., but it's always been denied. There's no guarantee that this U.S. bomb would work, even if President Trump decides to go ahead with this.

We've been talking to a lot of experts. They say it would likely take more than one hit. It might take waves of bombers. It could also be hard to judge the extent of damage since this Iranian facility is perhaps 300 feet or so underground. And as Mara said, Trump hasn't made up his mind whether he will or won't do this. Hmm. Well.

I mean, switching to the politics for a second, Mara, in the past few days since Israel began these strikes against Iran, we have seen real divisions within the Republican Party and even among the most loyal MAGA supporters. Can you tell us about that?

Yeah, you know, there have been divisions before over the tax bill, over Musk, over immigration. But this is a really profound split because you have people like Tucker Carlson, people like Steve Bannon, who believed Trump when he ran as an isolationist. For them, America first meant no more involvement in forever wars, stupid foreign entanglements. And here's what Tucker Carlson had to say about that on The War Room with Steve Bannon. My interest is really simple. I don't want the United States to

Yeah, and there you have it. That is what a lot of the MAGA base believes, and they believe Trump ran on that.

I think that this is a pretty deep split, so deep that Vice President Vance had to mediate. He posted that he thought Trump has earned some trust on this. And of course, he sees his role as a successor to Trump. He certainly hopes to inherit the MAGA mantle. But I think that if

the American involvement is confined to dropping some bombs, no American boots on the ground, and the effort is successful, then I think the split gets papered over and healed.

I mean, as you mentioned, Mara, Trump campaigned against this idea of forever wars. And it's impossible, I feel like, not to see the developments this week and think of the past 20 years in Afghanistan and Iraq. Greg, can you dig into that a little bit? I mean, is this a different beast than that sort of forever conflict that America weathered over the last two decades?

Yeah, Miles. Well, and of course, that's the really big question here. Is this a 20 year war with an open ended commitment or is this a relatively brief bombing campaign? And I think that Trump, if he decides to go forward with it, certainly thinks it's something that's quick, that this is still Israel's fight. And Israel is asking the U.S. to do something that Israel can't do by itself because of the special massive weapon that the U.S. has.

there's really no prospect that either Israel or the U.S. would put troops on the ground in Iran. It's a country of 90 million people. It would require, I'm not even sure, combined they could generate enough force to maintain some sort of occupation or regime change there. So that's just not realistic. But again, the question is, could a short-term

airstrike or series of airstrikes by the U.S. have a significant impact on the course of this conflict? And then could the U.S. withdraw from the involvement? That's still not a clear, easy question.

And you know, the other example of why this is so different than Iraq or Afghanistan is look at the reaction of Europe. Europe has been extremely critical of Bibi Netanyahu's conduct of the conflict in Gaza, but they are behind him on this. Most of the world sees Iran as a destabilizing force in the region. It doesn't want Iran to have a bomb, and it's having a much different reaction to Israel than it did in Gaza.

I mean, this is literally a story that is changing every few minutes or every hour. What are you both going to be watching in the next day or two? Well, clearly, does Trump decide to provide the bunker-busting bombs and help to Israel? And does it work? Does it actually get rid of that Fordow nuclear facility?

And I'll be looking at that, certainly, but also to see if Iran can sustain missile strikes on Israel. If they can't do that, then Israel will have complete dominance of the sky and ability to bomb Iran at will. And it will be hard for Iran to keep fighting if it can't unleash a regular missile barrage at Israel, because this is very much an air war, not a land war. All right, well, we can leave it there for today. I'm Myles Parks. I cover voting.

I'm Greg Myhre. I cover national security. And I'm Mara Liason, senior national political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. This message comes from the Nature Conservancy. Nature is common ground for everyone, and uniting to protect nature can help solve today's challenges and create a thriving tomorrow for future generations. Discover why at nature.org slash NPR.

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The Middle East is dominating this week's headlines. On Consider This, we dive into what's at stake in a war between Israel and Iran. Plus, we take a look back at the Iraq War and lessons from 2003. Listen now to the Consider This podcast on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.