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Front Burner Transcript for June 24, 2025

Host: Jayme Poisson

JAYME POISSON: Hi everybody, I'm Jayme Poisson.

[Music: Theme]

JP: In the weeks leading up to Donald Trump's strikes on Iran, MAGA world was generally divided into two camps: the America-first isolationists, urging the president to not get directly involved in a war -- think Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.

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MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE: Six months in, Steve, and here we are, turning back on the campaign promises. And we bombed Iran on behalf...

JP: And Trump's former attorney general pick, Matt Gaetz.

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MATT GAETZ: Many of President Trump's pro-Israel friends and advisors are trying to pressure and convince him that the United States should join airstrikes against Iran. On this program, we strongly disagree with that assessment.

JP: And then there is the hawks. Lindsey Graham:

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LINDSEY GRAHAM: We've got a chance to end a threat to the state of Israel forever by replacing this regime with something better.

JP: And Fox News analyst Mark Levin.

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MARK LEVIN: This is good versus evil. You're either a patriotic American who's going to get behind the president of the United States, the commander in chief, or you're not.

JP: But nowhere did this play out more explosively than on The Tucker Carlson Show, where he took down Republican Senator Ted Cruz.

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TUCKER CARLSON: How many people live in Iran, by the way?

TED CRUZ: I don't know the population.

TUCKER CARLSON: At all?

TED CRUZ: No, I don't know the population.

TUCKER CARLSON: You don't know the population of the country you seek to topple?

TED CRUZ: How many people live in Iran?

TUCKER CARLSON: 92 million.

TED CRUZ: Okay. Yeah, I...

TUCKER CARLSON: How could you not know that?

JP: Now with Iran reeling from the repercussions of the U.S. and Israeli strikes and hitting back at a U.S. base in Qatar, have the divisions in MAGA world deepened or have they just been papered over? And what does it tell us about who's most influencing the president's foreign policy right now? Adam Wren is a senior politics correspondent at POLITICO and contributing author to POLITICO Playbook. He's been following this supposed MAGA civil war and he's here to break it all down for us today.

[Music: Theme]

JP: Adam, hey, it's great to have you on Front Burner.

ADAM WREN: Good to be with you.

JP: So before we get into the news from this week, I just want to better understand the factions within the MAGA movement and why they land where they do when it comes to America's foreign policy. As I mentioned, on the one side, you have people labelled isolationists -- J.D. Vance, Steve Bannon, Tulsi Gabbard, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson. People who want America to step back from getting directly involved in conflicts around the world and focus on issues at home. On the other hand, you have the Lindsey Grahams, the Ted Cruzs, Mitch McConnell, Secretary of State Marco Rubio. These guys are usually labelled as more hawkish towards Iran. And so why does this divide exist generally?

ADAM WREN: In some ways, it's sort of an echo, an ideological outline of the old Republican Party, where you had sort of internationalists and more isolationists pre-Trump. And Trump has transformed the party into a much more isolationist party overall and spent much of last year campaigning on it. J.D. Vance, his vice president, endorsed him in the Wall Street Journal in 2023, basically saying that he should be president again because he managed 2016 through 2021 without getting into the United States-- uh, into any wars. And so that is one of his big selling points. And of course, you know, a lot of this is muscle memory, with people like Lindsey Graham arguing for years, for decades if not for more, a harder line towards Iran. And so this conflict with Israel sort of exposes the ideological risks that were in this large coalition. And Donald Trump, to his political credit, smartly played the political coalitions over the last couple of years and built this coalition that includes, you know, both isolationists and hawks. And people from the MAHA strain, the Make America Healthy strain Again, like Gabbard and Bobby Kennedy. And so in some ways, just the ongoing conflict and the timing with the Israel and Iran war gave, gave this coalition the chance to express some of these larger disagreements. But-- And in the larger scheme of things, you know, there isn't sort of a schism so much to speak of in terms of just the bombing itself. There were some arguments within the administration -- voiced by people like J.D. Vance -- not to get involved. But people are organized less around ideology in the MAGA movement and more around personality, and that personality is Donald Trump. And so he is the catalytic figure, and um, and what he says goes.

JP: Yeah, and I do want to get into that more with you in a minute, but I mean, certainly leading up to these strikes on Saturday, you could see the fractures, right? Maybe the place where you saw it the most was in that interview with Ted Cruz and Tucker Carlson, right? It was super combative.

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TUCKER CARLSON: Okay, what's the ethnic mix of Iran?

TED CRUZ: They are Persians--

TUCKER CARLSON: What per cent?

TED CRUZ: --and predominantly Shia. Okay, this is cute. Okay--

TUCKER CARLSON: No, it's not even -- You don't know anything about Iran. [Cross-talk] So actually the country...

TED CRUZ: Okay, I am not the Tucker Carlson expert on Iran, who says--

TUCKER CARLSON: You're a senator who's calling for--

TED CRUZ: Okay, you're the one who claims--

TUCKER CARLSON: --the overthrow of the government and you don't know anything about the country!

TED CRUZ: No, you don't know anything about the country.

JP: And just like, what were some of the arguments that we heard on display there?

ADAM WREN: Essentially, that this is a repeat of our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. That the administration would get bogged down into a wider conflict, whether or not that was the intention or not.

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TUCKER CARLSON: It's like you don't really know where these things are going once the shooting starts. That's my only point. And calling people names -- antisemite, isolationist -- to get them to stop talking is not the way to serve your country. That's all I am saying.

TED CRUZ: [stutters] So look, I'm trying to have a real...

ADAM WREN: You know, essentially, on Meet the Press, the Sunday show, this past week, J.D. Vance, the vice president, argued that the difference between now and then was that:

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J.D. VANCE: Back then we had dumb presidents, and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America's national security objectives.

ADAM WREN: Speaking of George W. Bush, of Barack Obama, and, you know, that this is a different time now, and that, you know, Trump is smart and therefore will avoid the pitfalls that he believes they succumbed to.

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J.D. VANCE: So this is not gonna be some long, drawn-out thing. We've got in, we've done the job of setting their nuclear program back. We're gonna now...

JP: I mean, are you surprised to see someone like J.D. Vance come out and say something like that? Because J.D. Vance and Tulsi Gabbard are both Iraq war veterans, right? Um. This was a drawn-out unpopular war justified by the threat of weapons of mass destruction that turned out not to be there. So I mean, you know, I understand the pull of the cult of Donald Trump. But are you still surprised to see J.D. Vance react like that in the last couple of days?

ADAM WREN: No, because J.D. Vance was elevated to his position by Donald Trump and he owes Donald Trump his spot -- the former spot that he had in the Senate, and his spot that he has now in the Naval Observatory where he lives as vice president. He owes him everything, and so he is required to repay him with everything. We watched how vice president Mike Pence was a loyal sounding board to Donald Trump the first four years of his first term, and it was only at the end when he and Pence parted ways on the 2020 election results that Trump cast him aside. And so Vance, regardless of his own political ambitions and ideology, has to be faithful to Trump on this and has to sort of shove his own thinking and ambitions aside in service to Trump's larger wants.

JP: What about someone like Tucker Carlson? So I don't know if you listened to the entirety of this interview last week. I did. And I mean, he was so aggressive in his arguments, right, against the U.S. getting involved in any way, right? He argued that the U.S. has nothing to show for all of these wars that it has gotten involved in in the last many years. Libya, a failed state in a migrant crisis; Afghanistan, a forever war.

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TUCKER CARLSON: And I see an unending string of foreign policy disasters that have impoverished and hurt our country.

TED CRUZ: An unending string. So--

TUCKER CARLSON: An unending string. They would include Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria. And our inability to stop the Houthis, by the way, in Yemen, which exposes us...

JP: Even Ukraine, right? He made this argument that America's involvement has pushed Russia closer to China, right? Which is a real threat.

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TUCKER CARLSON: At the end, where we sit now, Russia is stronger, it's closely allied long-term with China.

TED CRUZ: I don't know that Russia's strong, I don't think that's right.

TUCKER CARLSON: Okay. Um, I think it's pretty obvious that it is, but it's certainly not destroyed. Um, and it's allied long term with China.

TED CRUZ: Maybe.

JP: And so how is Tucker reacting in the wake of Trump's decision to get directly involved in Israel's campaign?

ADAM WREN: Well, he doesn't appear to like it, but I would also sort of raise questions about, you know, the relevancy that Tucker Carlson has here. He knows that he can generate headlines by disagreeing with any action the president takes. He hasn't said it himself, but we heard Donald Trump last week say that:

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DONALD TRUMP: Tucker's a nice guy. He called and apologized the other day because he thought he said things that were a little bit too strong. And I appreciated that. And Ted Cruz is a nice guy...

ADAM WREN: You know, ever since Carlson left the Fox News orbit, he's had a shrinking audience, and it's really hard to discern how much influence he has over the broader base of the party right now.

[music]

JP: Talking about Iran specifically, the U.S. has this long and hostile history with the country, from the CIA working to overthrow Iran's prime minister in the '50s...

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NEWS PRESENTER: Mohammad Mossadegh had moved to nationalize oil production in Iran. Well, the U.S. was concerned at the time that that would mean a victory for the Soviets in the Cold War. So shortly after his election, the CIA began to plan his overthrow, teaming up with Britain's MI6...

JP: ...to supporting the regime that took over, which was thought of as kind of like a U.S. puppet government. And then, of course, the toppling of that government in the '70s during the revolution.

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[Sound of a man yelling, indistinct crowd noise, car horns beeping, sirens]

NARRATOR: Revolution in Iran. A revolution that swept away all traces of the Shah's regime and ended an era. On the surface, at least, it was a revolution carried out in the name of Islam.

JP: And then the hostage crisis in '79, which involved American diplomats and civilian workers taken hostage.

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[Archival clip]

REPORTER: Several hundred young people, mainly students at Tehran University, have taken over the embassy. We are not occupiers, they said. We have thrown out the occupiers. But instead of chasing all the Americans out of the compound, the Iranians imprisoned them in a building somewhere on these grounds. They have been hostages ever since.

JP: Can you help me understand how that history informs American policy and those who are more bellicose when it comes to their stance on this conflict, who have essentially won out here, right?

ADAM WREN: Yeah, I think the organizing principle is fidelity to Israel, and to Israel as the only democracy in the Middle East, its peace and security. And so, you know, largely, I think this is an instance of Bibi Netanyahu pinching and cornering Donald Trump, and uh, incensing him and invoking him to appeal to his more bellicose side. And, you know, Trump, if anything, apart from ideology, likes to appear strong and decisive. And as he was watching Fox News over the last week and Israel's approach to Iran, he wanted some of that shine. He wanted some of that military glory. You know, he had just-- is fresh off having his own parade to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the army, which coincided with his 79th birthday. And, you know, the idea that he could do a limited strike in Iran and feel some of that commander-in-chief gravitas appeared to be appealing to him. And so I think that sort of transcends any, you know, long-standing, you know, historic positioning that the, that the U.S. has had on Iran. It doesn't appear that, you know, Trump's broader thinking about foreign policy is formed that way, even though he does have a long record of taking a stronger tack, uh, on, on Iran.

JP: I know that we've seen and we've talked about people who, you know, initially were against this and have kind of flipped their positions. I would put people like Matt Gaetz and Charlie Kirk in that bucket as well. Gaetz, for example, posted on X: "President Trump basically wants us to be like the Solimani strike - one and done. No regime change war. Trump the peacemaker," exclamation mark. Um. But there are still people who are disillusioned by it, right? Steve Bannon is one of them. After the strike, he went on his podcast, and he said, quote, "an overwhelming majority of the people in the U.S. don't want to get involved in any of this." And that Israel, quote, "essentially forced President Trump's hand."

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STEVE BANNON: Who are you to jam us into this situation, which you knew you couldn't finish the job. Or if you can, go finish it. You got plenty of things to say, hey Bannon, don't [unclear], we ain't finished. Then go finish it! Quit coming to us to finish it.

JP: Like, how deep is that sentiment within MAGA world?

ADAM WREN: Um, sorry. Can you hold on just a second? I'm texting with Steve Bannon, so I just need to...

JP: Right now?

ADAM WREN: Yeah.

[Jayme laughs]

ADAM WREN: Yeah. No, I'm sorry. Uh, where were we at?

JP: Well, I mean, it's really good timing that you were just texting with him, because I think the question I have is, you know, after the strikes, he was critical of them. Like he didn't come around like the other guys. How widespread is that feeling in MAGA world? Is he kind of isolated, I guess?

ADAM WREN: Um, he really has a pulse on the base in a way maybe Trump himself, uh, even does not. And he is, uh, he said, you know, essentially on his show after the strike, that there are definitely some people in the MAGA movement who are not exactly ecstatic about this happening, about the strikes and our involvement. You know, in some ways-- uh, you know, I had talked to Steve after he left the White House last week, you know, before these attacks happened, and there's some speculation that he was used as a decoy. That Trump's meeting with him pointed or [unclear] that Trump would take a more dovish tack here.

JP: Right. And just for people listening, that was a meeting on Thursday, right? People thought, like, oh, if Steve Bannon's at the White House, um, Trump's thinking about, you know, trying not to get involved in this, right?

ADAM WREN: Yeah. That's correct. And so, there is some consternation here. But I do just think that broadly, except for a direct engagement of American troops on the ground in Iran, that largely the MAGA coalition is going to back Trump on this. They're going to give him some leeway. And if you look at the polling, you know, across partisan lines, this is an 80-20 issue. You know, 80% of Americans don't think that Iran should have a nuclear bomb, even in this fractious partisan climate that we're seeing. And so this is going to be, you know, broadly popular, uh, you know, short of troop deployment. And so I think that's sort of the state of where the MAGA coalition is. There's going to be some nitpicking here and there. We still are waiting for a damage assessment about how significantly some of these bombing sites have been destroyed, how significantly the uranium enrichment operation was damaged. Some of the early reports trickling out are suggesting that Trump maybe suggested that there was more damage that occurred than actually did. And so it's hard to sort of assess here. But I think at this particular moment, MAGA is largely behind Trump. And even amid criticism among some of these figures that we're talking about, like Tucker Carlson or Steve Bannon, that we are just not going to see significant blowback, um, as things are, you know, suspended right now.

[music]

JP: I'm just curious how much leeway you think there is here. Like, I see now -- you and I are speaking just a little bit over 2 in the afternoon on Monday -- Iran has just fired missiles at the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East, located in Qatar. Qatar's defence ministry was able to intercept those attacks, right? There are not any casualties or injuries to report at the moment. But what if they hit another U.S. military base and there were American casualties?

ADAM WREN: You know, certainly Trump has said on social media that Iran should not try to respond in kind. We know from reporting that's out there that, you know, diplomatic efforts, back-channeling have happened between the U.S. and Iranian officials, letting them know that we see this-- we saw this as a one-off attack this weekend. And so, you know, this appears to be kind of largely an effort by the Iranian regime to save face and to respond in a way that they believe is commensurate here. And so beyond this, it's difficult to say at this moment where the conflict goes next.

JP: Trump himself, of course, he did campaign on ending the Israel and Hamas conflict, the war in Ukraine. I know there's been debate over what he does actually believe, right? Whether he is a hawk or a dove. And I mean, how would you describe his foreign policy sense, how he sees the world?

ADAM WREN: I mean, he is a dovish figure on paper who's not afraid to sort of saber-rattle to look intimidating. Um, you know, beyond, beyond his actual actions. I mean, this is someone who did take out Soleimani back, you know, in his first term. And there was speculation at the time that that would involve and lead to a larger military action in the Middle East, and that speculation was wrong. And he largely kept his base intact then, and so it's possible that that happens again now. You know, I do think compared to many of his colleagues in the Senate GOP, for example, he is a, he is a dovish figure by all respects and, you know, does make decisions, in his mind, that lead to sort of making America great again, rather than, you know, investing into NATO and other alliances like that.

JP: Mm-hmm. Um, okay. Adam, this was really interesting. Thank you so much for doing this with us. Really appreciate it.

ADAM WREN: Sure thing.

[Music: Theme]

JP: That is all for today. I'm Jayme Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.

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The MAGA civil war over Iran - Transcript

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