'It's time to say no': MAGA influencers push back on Trump on Iran

Iran warMAGA influencers push back on Trump on Iran: 'It's time to say no'Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson advised U.S. officials to tell the president "no" if asked to carry out mass attacks on Iranian civilians. Listen to this article with a free account00:0000:00From left, Tucker Carlson, President Donald Trump and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis.AFP; GettyShareAdd NBC News to GoogleApril 7, 2026, 1:58 PM EDTBy Jonathan Allen, Allan Smith and Peter NicholasAt the 1988 Republican National Convention in New Orleans, George H.W. Bush swore an oath to his party: "Read my lips: No new taxes."Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.He won the election. Then, he raised taxes. The move alienated Republican activists, and GOP lore has long held that he lost re-election because the broken promise tattered his relationship with the party's base.Now, Trump is threatening to destroy Iranian civilization after campaigning in part on a "no new wars" mantra in 2024. He has said the war is necessary to stop Iran's leadership from obtaining nuclear weapons and further destabilizing the global order. His reversal is creating major strains within his own "Make America Great Again" movement, evident in increasingly loud dissent from some of its most prominent media figures, resistance from a growing number of GOP lawmakers and polling.The roster of conservative luminaries rebuking Trump over Iran this week could have been cut and pasted from a list of his most reliable supporters of the past: Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, Mike Cernovich, former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Turning Point USA's former communications director Candace Owens, among many others."Trump would not have won the primary in 2016 had he run on Mitt Romney’s platform, nor would he have won the 2024 election by running on new wars," Cernovich, a right-wing influencer who has promoted pizzagate and various other conspiracy theories, wrot...