Liz Landers:
As we just heard, more than half of Americans do not support U.S. military action in Iran, despite the Trump administration’s efforts.
For more on that, we’re joined by Curt Mills, executive director of “American Conservative” magazine. He’s been outspoken against U.S. involvement in Iran.
Curt, thank you for joining the program.
Curt Mills, Executive Director, “The American Conservative”: Thank you for having me.
Liz Landers:
Let’s start with President Trump ran on this notion of no more forever wars. We just heard from Rick Scott earlier in this program, the senator from Florida, saying that Trump has said that he doesn’t like them. And he acknowledges that Americans don’t like these long, protracted wars.
Is this conflict with Iran America first?
Curt Mills:
No. No, it’s transparently a betrayal. And the Republican rhetoric is increasingly becoming Orwellian.
This is a war. Iran feels this war. The late supreme leader of Iran knows it’s a war. The denial of this, the denial that this is not a complete, frankly, about-face or volte-face from what Trump was saying in 2016 and 2024 particularly, it just defies credulity.
It’s the equivalent of George H.W. Bush breaking his no new taxes pledge. It’s a campaign betrayal for the ages.
Liz Landers:
What are you hearing from inside the administration from people reacting to this conflict?
Curt Mills:
You know, the administration thing is very curious. I think the president drove this decision, and I don’t think there was a long series of consultations. And I think that’s why you see the helter-skelter nature of the rationales that they’re citing.
They don’t know why they went to war because there wasn’t an all-of-the-administration discussion, frankly. And I think also — especially because you saw the counterterrorism chief, Joe Kent resign, I think it would not be surprising if more members of the administration resigned in the coming weeks if the conflict continues.
Liz Landers:
OK. I wanted to ask you about that. So we heard that the National Counterterrorism Center director, Joe Kent, he resigned on Tuesday and he cited in his resignation letter a lack of an imminent threat from Iran.
This is the first major ideological departure from this second term, second Trump administration. You think this may open the door to more of these?
Curt Mills:
For sure.
And, look, and I don’t think we should just brush Kent aside. It’s already the biggest — a bigger resignation in this administration for Iran than there were for the Democrats under Gaza in two years.
Liz Landers:
Do you see a generational divide right now among MAGA and conservatives over this Iran war?
Curt Mills:
For sure. And respectfully to the older viewers, but this is a war that is driven by Baby Boomer conservatives. It is plain to say.
Liz Landers:
What are you hearing from the younger MAGA set about why they don’t support this?
Curt Mills:
I think it’s demoralizing.
And I think, well, first of all, they reject the casus belli such as it is. There was not an imminent threat. The messaging from Speaker Johnson and others that there was an imminent threat to the Iranians getting some form of nuclear enrichment is just twisting the words. This is — there was not an imminent threat.
The Iranians could — did not have nuclear weapons that could hit the homeland, did not have missiles that could hit the homeland. The Iranians were at the negotiating table. It’s not to say that we should trust everything they wanted to do. But if Trump wanted a better deal than even Obama’s JCPOA, that was on offer last spring, that was on offer this spring. He rejected it and went to war.
Liz Landers:
The magazine that you work for was founded in response to the Iraq War and U.S. involvement in that conflict. How does foreign policy rank now for conservatives?
Curt Mills:
Yes, the magazine was founded in 2002 by Pat Buchanan and others, very much the Tucker Carlson of his day, against the Iraq War.
I think foreign policy is of a piece of what Trump ran on in 2016 and 2024. Foreign policy is part of a, I would say, troika of issues with immigration and trade, the idea that the country has been sold out, deindustrialized and flooded with unassimilated immigration, that the average man has been forgotten, that they have been shipped — their jobs been shipped overseas and their sons and daughters have been shipped off into wars that nobody voted for.
I think it’s all of a piece.
Liz Landers:
We were talking earlier about Joe Kent and some of the reaction to his resignation. There were Jewish organizations like the Anti-Defamation League that criticized him and his resignation letter, saying that some of the language in that echoed antisemitic tropes.
We looked at a poll the Manhattan Institute did last year; 25 percent of Republicans under 50 years old say that they hold antisemitic views. Do you think that this conflict is going to magnify or amplify those kinds of voices within the party?
Curt Mills:
Well, the Manhattan Institute has an agenda, so I distrust that data, frankly. They want to equate principal criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism.
And I think that should be rejected on both left and right. It’s the most cynical type of politics. It’s the type of politics that, frankly, Republicans were put back into power to reject. People were tired of speech policing and woke mind games, frankly.
And the Republicans are doing the exact same thing with antisemitism and the Israel debate. That’s not to say that there’s no antisemitism in the country, but I believe it is being willfully conflated with principled criticism of this war for the war’s aims.
Liz Landers:
How do you see this Iran conflict impacting the midterm elections later this year in November and also looking ahead, influencing the Republican presidential primaries, which will really start within the next year or so?
Curt Mills:
First of all, the president can declare victory now and come home. He doesn’t seem like he’s going to do that, but if he doesn’t do that, I think they’re going to lose Congress and they’re going to lose both houses of Congress.
And I think that’s going to be pretty dramatic. As to the primary, I think it is going to be the leading issue. I mean, the reality is that whoever is in power now has the Israel bag. You saw it in the Democratic primary. Everyone forgot because of Joe Biden’s disastrous performance in June of 2024 is the debate what was going on weeks and months before.
There were campus protests roiling the country over Israel. The reality is that both parties, the bases are fed up with this relationship that is driving us into war.
Liz Landers:
Curt Mills, thank you so much for joining us.
Curt Mills:
Thank you.
