The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: Anti-MAGA Right Knows Iran Campaign Is No Forever War

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

Operation Epic Fury was never the pretext for a larger, endless war, and the so-called anti-MAGA right—Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, or Marjorie Taylor Greene—should know better than to label it as such, argues Victor Davis Hanson on today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words.” The whole subtext of the Iran campaign is this: While regime change is not the primary agenda, America’s weakening of the regime may spur people to rise up and overthrow the government. (00:00) Anti MAGA Critics (01:34) Iran Strikes Backlash (02:34) Not a Forever War (04:10) Trump Rhetoric and Restraint (06:15) Betrayal or Bigger Agenda 👉 The Daily Signal cannot continue to tell stories, like this one, without the support of our viewers: http://dailysignal.com/donate 👉Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest short videos by subscribing to The Daily Signal today. You’ll be notified every time a new piece of content drops: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1⁠  Also on Spotify: https://megaphone.link/THEDAILYSIGNAL9753340027  👉Want more VDH? Watch Victor’s weekly, hour-long podcast, “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” now! Subscribe to his YouTube channel, and enable notifications:  https://www.youtube.com/@victordavishanson7273?sub_confirmation=1👉More exclusive content is available on Victor’s website: https://victorhanson.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, this is Victor Davis-Hansson for the Daily Signal. The left is making quite a deal of attention to what they call the anti-Maga right, that is former staunch supporters of Donald Trump that have now parted ways with them. And the names that they fixate on, the left, Marjorie Taylor Green, who, resigned from Congress after a big fight with Donald Trump over the Epstein Files and the Iraq War. Tucker Carlson, the former Fox news host and now has become a fierce Trump critic. Megan Kelly, who had a Fox very successful Fox show herself and then went to NBC and now has a very successful podcast.

And she seems to have parted ways with Donald Trump over the same issues. as Marjorie Taylor Green and Tucker Carlson. Then, of course, Joe Rogan has expressed disappointment. Perhaps he is now not in the Maga Fold. Candice Owen's been a virulent critic. Steve Bannon, I don't know what his status is, but there's a group of people. And then further to the right, of course,

there's the Groypers and Nick Fuentes and all those people. But what was their beef? The first thing that seems to really bother them is the current war. I shouldn't say the first thing. The first thing that bothered some of them was the summer 2025 attack by the United States for about 25 hours on the nuclear facilities in Iran. It was a one-off. Tucker Carlson said this was unnecessary. It could lead to World War III. It didn't. It did retard the progression of nuclear acquisition. Then new information came in. that they had much more ballistic missiles than had been anticipated,

and there may have been other areas where they had stored nuclear materials. So then that reopened negotiations this year to remove those peacefully. They didn't work, and so then the United States began at the end of February bombing, and now we're in the sixth week, and they feel that that is a forever war and an endless war, but it's a very funny forever war, isn't it? I mean, if you look at it, there's been tragically 13 Americans killed, but it's not four or five thousand, as we've seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, 7,000 total, perhaps another 20,000 casualties.

It's an air war, almost exclusively an air war, except for the rescue of the pilot, and it's completely asymmetrical. We have destroyed, as people have said, their Navy except for their patrol boats, which I think will be destroyed shortly if they try to interrupt traffic any further in the strait. We've destroyed their Air Force. We've destroyed their missile defense. We've taken out the first and second tier of the Islamic Republican Guard Corps, the regular

army, the theocrats, and even some of the politicians. So they're commanding controls and disarray, and we have suffered really no major downfall other than politics. The future of that war is entirely political. I mean, the United States is at liberty to do what they want, whatever the military feels is necessary to disarm Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and to stop its ballistic missile potential. But it's a political question, just a question of what's the effect on the world economy, what's the effect on the American economy, and more importantly, how does that affect the midterms and the future of the Trump presidency? But people are conflating those and suggests that militarily it's a defeat.

That's absurd. What else did this new group of critics, this new old group of critics get angry about? Trump tweeted that if Iran had not met these conditions and were not going to negotiate, then he would destroy their civilization. It was pretty poorly worded, and they felt that this was beneath him, beneath the United States. They joined the left and saying that this was outrageous. The left took him literally, not figuratively. But I don't think anybody believed he meant all of the Iranian people.

And we know that because, of course, as I had said earlier, no president has avoided dual-use civilian targets as much as Trump. We didn't do it in World War II. We hit every civilian target we could, from power plants to highways, to water facilities, to oil production. In Germany and Japan, we did it again in Korea. We did it certainly in Vietnam. We took out all the bridges and the Danube in the 99 bombing under Clinton. And, of course, we knocked out the power grid of Belgrade, a million and a half people several times. We did the same thing in Libya.

We denied we did it, but we hit civilians. ship, we hit port facilities, we hit TV stations. Trump hasn't done that except for one bridge. So he didn't really, I mean, his record shows that he doesn't believe he wants to destroy this civilization. In fact, it's just the opposite. And I think his critics know that, or he wouldn't have said help is on the way. Help is on the way. The whole subtext of this entire campaign is, while regime change is not the primary agenda, he hopes that by weakening and humiliating this theocracy, then the people will rise up, and that's why he's selected targets that would allow them to rise up and not hurt the people. So was it an overstatement? Yes, but they should

know better what he meant. Of course he did, because his deeds prove what he meant. So what's going on here? I think part of the problem is in the intimacy that some people on the right have cultivated and developed with Trump. In other words, if you're going to campaign with Trump, if you're going to be a regular visitor at Marlago with Trump, if you're going to be an intimate of the family, and if you're going to work with him and you're a news person, then you feel, it's apparently that Steve Bannon felt that way, maybe Tucker feels that way, maybe Megan feels that way, maybe Marjorie Taylor Green felt that way. But if you feel that you have a special relationship, then you feel downcast or betrayed because not only your president,

but your friend and associate that you'd helped didn't quite. agree with you. But it's always better to have some distance so you can be empirical. And if you're empirical, then the question is, what's the alternative to Donald Trump's MAGA agenda? Because if you look at the border, it's closed. If you look at illegal immigration, he has deported 500,000 criminals. Another million have self-deported. And he's in the process of probably finishing another 500,000 deportees. We should have two million. We've never done that before. If you look at energy right now, the United States has never produced so much oil and gas, and we're right on the verge of a nuclear energy renaissance, and we're going in Alaska,

we're going offshore, we're trying to get more oil and gas in California. For all practical purposes, at least for now, DEI is dead. No other president would have done that. This reverse racism or this tribal chauvinism that has so plagued the nation. Donald Trump ended that. He has put the universities on notice that they cannot continually defy civil rights laws and Supreme Court decisions. No one did that before. As far as transgenderism, they're on the defensive now.

The idea that biological men will dominate female sports and men with biological male characteristics will dress among women is over. So what I'm getting at is this. All of these critics agree with what Donald Trump has done. on 80% of the issues, at least their record says they do. So why, on one particular issue in which you disagree, and it's very doubtful that you can categorize this a forever or endless war, it's much more in the flavor of the Venezuela, the Soleimani, the Baghdadi, the ISIS bombing. It is not anything near, anything near fighting house-to-house in Fallujah

or going into hostile villages in Helmand province. We're not on the ground. We're not fighting on the jihadist turf. We're using our strength, air power and a distance from, to mitigate casualties and inflict greater damage on the theocracy. It's not a forever endless war, and they know that. So if you are apostates from the whole Trump agenda, because of your disagreement about this one particular issue,

and you feel that he betrayed you because you categorize it a forever or endless war, which he promised to avoid, then you're nullifying the entire agenda. And what is the alternative? A Kamala Harris agenda? I don't know. An Eric Swalwell agenda? A Gavin Newsom agenda. It's antithetical to everything these people have stood for and lobbied for and advanced for.

And so if you sit out the midterms, I use figuratively, or in your, advocacy, if you sit out or you oppose Trump, de facto whether you know it or not, you are favoring the alternate agenda. And that agenda is something that, at least in your recent, positions that you have adamantly opposed. Thank you very much. This is Victor Davis-Hanson for the Daily Signal. Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal. Please like, share, and subscribe to be notified for more content like this. You can also check out my own website at victorhansen.com and subscribe for exclusive features in addition