‘Disgusting and evil’: Trump’s Iran strike sparks backlash from MAGA base

ISTANBUL

US President Donald Trump's military operation against Iran has drawn sharp criticism from prominent supporters of his MAGA base, according to American media on Saturday.

“Absolutely disgusting and evil,” Tucker Carlson said about the joint US-Israel attack in an interview with ABC News. “This is going to shuffle the deck in a profound way.”

“The Trump admin actually asked in a poll how many casualties voters were willing to accept in a war with Iran??? How about ZERO you bunch of sick (expletive) liars. We voted for America First and ZERO wars,” said former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, as she blasted the administration on US social media company X.

“We said ‘No More Foreign Wars, No More Regime Change!’ … Trump, (Vice President JD) Vance, basically the entire admin campaigned on it and promised to put America FIRST and Make America Great Again (MAGA),” she added.

Other MAGA figures joined the criticism, with podcaster Tim Pool and influencers Keith and Kevin Hodge writing, “President Trump has completely LIED to his voters, backstabbed our country and has disgraced his legacy beyond repair.”

Some Republican lawmakers, including Rep. Thomas Massie, denounced the strike as contrary to “America First,” while Sen. Lindsey Graham and Democratic Sen. John Fetterman praised Trump for acting decisively against Iran’s nuclear threat, which Trump said could soon reach the US homeland.

The US and Israel attacked Tehran early Saturday, in the middle of negotiations about Iran's nuclear program that had been continuing under Oman's mediation. A new round of talks in Geneva ended Thursday.

The US also struck three Iranian nuclear sites during a 12-day Israel-Iran war last June.