New York Times: Why Trump Attacked Iran

Reporter: How did you respond to @TuckerCarlson criticizing you, saying that you were complicit in the war?

Trump: I don’t know what Tucker Carlson is saying. Let him go get a television network and say it so people actually listen. pic.twitter.com/zouE5eHAdw

— Grace Chong, MBI (@gc22gc) June 16, 2025

Levin: We have to defeat these Democrats, these isolationists who are in congress, the radical isolationists like Tommy Massie, Rand Paul who claimed that they know the constitution is when they don’t know what the hell they are talking about pic.twitter.com/4zePIG72xH

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 23, 2025

Fox ? = Weapon of Murdoch Destruction pic.twitter.com/7Z2XNCvNTk

— Curt Mills (@CurtMills) June 23, 2025

Amazing. NYT has more confirmation that Trump’s decision to bomb Iran was motivated in large part by the way the Israeli strikes were “playing” on Fox News, which drove him to want some credit for it pic.twitter.com/RFchIGodbF

— Greg Sargent (@GregTSargent) June 23, 2025

It cannot be overstated how much of the past 10 days can be explained by Trump watching Fox News all day

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) June 23, 2025

Massive Banner Unfurled in Tel Aviv After U.S. Strikes Iran – Israel Thanks ‘Mr. President’ ???? pic.twitter.com/sOb9D8D4iv

— Sean Hannity ?? (@seanhannity) June 22, 2025

I don’t watch FOX News.

I couldn’t tell you what goes on there because I only watched Tucker Carlson’s show. We cancelled our subscription when he was fired in April 2023. We used to turn the television off when Hannity came on at 8 PM. I haven’t watched a single episode of Jesse Watters Primetime.

The Right is composed of various niche audiences and the online Right more or less ignores the BoomerCon Right that reads and watches the Murdoch Press. Unfortunately, the president is a FOX Geezer and Trump’s disastrous decision to attack Iran appears to have been motivated by how he thought it would “play” on FOX News to the senior citizens who are still watching that garbage.

Sean Hannity, Brian Kilmeade and Jesse Watters fanning his balls on there goaded him into doing this. Undoubtedly, the $100 million from Miriam Adelson played a role as well.

New York Times:

“Standing at the lectern in the White House briefing room on Thursday afternoon, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, read a message she said came “directly from the president.”

Because of the “substantial chance of negotiations” with Iran that could bring the United States back from the brink of jumping into the war in the Middle East, President Trump’s statement said, he would make a decision about whether or not to strike Iran “within the next two weeks.”

Mr. Trump had been under pressure from the noninterventionist wing of his party to stay out of the conflict, and was having lunch that day with one of the most outspoken opponents of a bombing campaign, Stephen K. Bannon, fueling speculation that he might hold off. …

The president was closely monitoring Fox News, which was airing wall-to-wall praise of Israel’s military operation and featuring guests urging Mr. Trump to get more involved. Several Trump advisers lamented the fact that Mr. Carlson was no longer on Fox, which meant that Mr. Trump was not hearing much of the other side of the debate. …”

This explains a number of things:

• It explains why Trump made Pete Hegseth the Secretary of Defense
• It explains why Trump made Dan Bongino the deputy FBI director
• It explains his curious dismissal of Tucker Carlson for not being on television
• It explains why all of his online Right influencers – Tucker, Bannon, Charlie Kirk, Jack Posobiec, etc. – were aghast at his decision to do this and tried to talk him out of it