Commentary: Jane Fonda and Tucker Carlson agree on this: Trump’s Iran war is bad — and a betrayal

It’s an odd turn of events when MAGA mouthpiece Tucker Carlson and lefty icon Jane Fonda are in agreement. But that’s exactly what happened Saturday when Fonda and Carlson both spoke out against President Trump’s new war with Iran.

“Right now we are witnessing the horror of an unnecessary, unprovoked war of choice, waged by the Trump administration,” Fonda said to a crowd of anti-war protesters in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday. “This dangerous and insane war against Iran not only violates international law and our constitution and War Powers Act, but risks exploding into a vast war of mass proportion, taking the lives of many, including U.S. service people.”

Former Fox News host Carlson called the launch of Operation Epic Fury “absolutely disgusting and evil” in a conversation with ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jon Karl. The conservative podcaster said the attack will have major implications for the MAGA party and Trump ahead of the 2026 midterms. “This is going to shuffle the deck in a profound way.”

”America first” was Donald Trump’s promise on the 2024 campaign trail, but his administration broke that oath late Friday night when it launched a joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran.

The president who once vowed to avoid foreign entanglements is now flexing his muscles abroad. While the usual suspects fell in line, some Republicans are voicing anti-war sentiments, railing against his actions in Iran and voicing concern about what is next.

The self-declared “president of PEACE” said in a Truth Social video Saturday that the attack on Iran was a “massive and ongoing operation” that is aimed at toppling the country’s regime and ending their nuclear programs. So much for Campaign Trail Trump of 2024, who swore he’d start “no new wars.” Or the 2016 Trump who declared that “regime change is a proven, absolute failure.”

Despite his isolationist sloganeering — “America first” repeated at rallies and on all matter of MAGA merch — many disgruntled Trump supporters feel he has pushed the U.S. to the back on the line, behind Iran, Venezuela, the Caribbean, etc.

Carlson’s remarks were congenial compared to those of former Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of MAGA’s most outspoken defenders until she broke with Trump over his administration’s handling of the Epstein files.

“War with Iran does not lower inflation and make cost of living affordable,” Greene wrote Saturday on X. “The Trump admin actually asked in a poll how many casualties voters were willing to accept in a war with Iran???,” she said in another post. “How about ZERO you bunch of sick f—— liars. We voted for America First and ZERO wars.”

Despite Trump’s claims that his military action would help Iranians on the ground, popular right-wing podcasters The Hodgetwins condemned the US-Israeli strikes in an X post: “Freeing the people of Iran is not why I voted for Trump,” the post said.

Trump hasn’t put much of a marketing effort to sell his new war to MAGA, or anyone else, for that matter. He’d have to address his former boast that he’d “obliterated” the country’s nuclear program in June when he sent US forces to bomb strategic sites four months into his second term. He repeated the obliteration claim in last Tuesday’s State of the Union.

In recent days, however, the president has claimed that Iran restarted its nuclear program and now has enough available nuclear material to build a bomb within days. He said Iran has “already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they’re working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America.”

Yet international weapons monitoring groups, American officials and reports from U.S. intelligence agencies say the stockpiles of uranium that Iran previously enriched are still buried after last year’s strikes, making it nearly impossible for Iran to build a bomb “within days.” Experts also reported little evidence that Iran is actively resuming its efforts to enrich uranium let alone building a bomb-detonating mechanism.

At least the Bush administration put some effort into its false claim that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had WMDs, therefore we needed to invade Baghdad in 2003. Think of all the meetings and memos they could have skipped had they just rammed the war through, Trump style, alienating its own base in the process.

There is of course the usual unconditional flood of support for anything Trump does from his loyal foot soldiers in the Senate, such as Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), as well as accolades from 99.9% of Fox News’ on-air staffers.

The administration has suggested the strikes will continue throughout the week while Iranian state media already reported Saturday that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is dead as are many top ranking officials in his government.

It’s impossible to know how this war ends. Maybe it leads to a better government for the long-suffering Iranian people. But maybe it brings more instability, oppression and violence.

One thing is clear: The “America first” Trump who criticized other presidents for getting the U.S. into wars abroad is gone. He’s now an instigator of regime change, and will have to live with the political fallout. That fallout includes a sense of betrayal among some on the right, like conservative influencers Keith and Kevin Hodge: “President Trump has completely LIED to his voters, backstabbed our country and has disgraced his legacy beyond repair.”