Analysis: As MAGA base grows anxious, Trump warns Iran's supreme leader is 'easy target'

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has talked and maneuvered himself into a policy stance on the Israel-Iran conflict with no clear strategic objectives and a slew of contradictory words and actions.

After some hesitation, his backing of Israel has made some loud opinion-makers in his MAGA movement anxious, and some followers are worried he’s abandoning campaign promises. To that end, one senior House Democrat from a key national security committee wondered whether the president is taking a major political risk by shedding his “America First” cloak.

Trump’s spoken and social media statements in recent days about his next moves and just what he wants to happen have been as clear as mud — and often at odds with the previous public statement. As he turned hawkish on Tuesday, some of his senior aides did not dispel the notion of direct American military and intelligence community involvement in the fast-moving Middle East crisis.

A Tuesday afternoon post on social media was a prime example, as Trump used it to both warn Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that he could be targeted and to reassure him.

“We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

After first blanching at its language, the U.S. president has reportedly decided to sign a joint statement from all G7 leaders that, in part, calls for both sides to agree to “a broader de-escalation of hostilities in the Middle East.”

But, before he abruptly left the G7 summit in Canada on Monday night — a day earlier than planned — to oversee the Middle East crisis, the president poured cold water on the idea that he was heading back to the White House to broker a ceasefire. He reiterated that assertion during a 12-minute exchange with reporters on Air Force One.

“We’ll [be] looking at something better than a ceasefire. We’re not looking for a ceasefire,” Trump said. Pressed on just what that would mean, he said: “An end. A real end. Not a ceasefire.”

And about his administration potentially restarting talks with Iranian officials, Trump said Monday night: “I don’t know.”

“I’ve been negotiating. I told them to do the deal. They should have done the deal. Their cities have been blown to pieces. Lost a lot of people,” he said.

The president then acknowledged he was considering dispatching Vice President JD Vance and Steve Witkoff, his special envoy to the Middle East, for new negotiations with Iranian officials. But he quickly appeared to contradict that statement. “It depends on what happens when I get back,” the president said, adding: “I’m not too much in the mood to negotiate.”

That marked a distinct shift in Trump’s rhetoric. In just a few hours.

‘Unconditional surrender’

Earlier Monday at the start of the G7 summit, Trump sounded upbeat about brokering a deal with Iranian leaders, though with a hawkish caveat.

“I think a deal will be signed or something will happen. But a deal will be signed,” Trump said, adding: “I think Iran basically is at the negotiating table — they want to make a deal.”

That matched his stance Sunday morning, before departing the White House for what became a truncated stay in the majestic Canadian Rockies.

“Iran and Israel should make a deal, and will make a deal, just like I got India and Pakistan to make, in that case by using TRADE with the United States to bring reason, cohesion, and sanity into the talks with two excellent leaders who were able to quickly make a decision and STOP!” he wrote on social media.

But by midday Tuesday, Trump appeared to have a new demand of Iran in mind: “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”

In response to a list of written questions sent to White House and national security officials, a senior administration official wrote in an email sent just before 1 p.m. Tuesday: “We have nothing to add beyond the President’s TRUTH’s. Defer you to those.” The questions included ones about whether Trump now would consider supporting — or even aiding — an Israeli operation to try to take out Iran’s top leader, as well as what an “unconditional surrender” by Iran would look like in reality. The senior official, notably, did not chase a reporter off those notions nor respond to a follow-up email.

After contending he had personally steered other rivals away from outright war, Trump added in the same Sunday post that “we will have PEACE, soon, between Israel and Iran! Many calls and meetings now taking place. I do a lot, and never get credit for anything, but that’s OK, the PEOPLE understand. MAKE THE MIDDLE EAST GREAT AGAIN!”

The leader of the “Make America Great Again” movement appeared to be amending its inward-looking definition, as he later explained Monday evening.

“AMERICA FIRST means many GREAT things, including the fact that, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

That post came after Trump and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson had traded barbs beginning last week when the conservative commentator spoke out against any direct U.S. military involvement in a war with Iran.

“The real divide isn’t between people who support Israel and people who support Iran or the Palestinians. The real divide is between those who casually encourage violence, and those who seek to prevent it — between warmongers and peacemakers,” Carlson wrote Friday on social media. “Who are the warmongers? They would include anyone who’s calling Donald Trump today to demand air strikes and other direct U.S. military involvement in a war with Iran.”

Trump, speaking at the G7 summit Monday, called his onetime ally “kooky” for expressing that stance. He also jabbed at him in a social media post, writing: “Somebody please explain to kooky Tucker Carlson that, ‘IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!'”

‘End the conflict’

But it’s not just Carlson. Some of Trump’s 9.9 million followers on Truth Social commented on Trump’s post by criticizing the president — and siding with Carlson.

“Tucker is the opposite of a Kook. Please don’t start this again. He could be a very levelheaded advisor. DONT Listen to kook Lindsey Graham. Now there’s the Kook,” one follower wrote.

Another chimed in: “I agree with Tucker Carlson! Don’t betray your base.”

Yet another follower wrote: “Omg. You got elected thanks to Tucker and Elon (Musk)! Especially with independents. Why would you shit on the very people who helped you? I didn’t vote for more wars! I thought you are pro peace and diplomacy. Disappointed big time!”

Two more examples: “This isn’t what we voted for, Sir,” wrote one user, while another said: “I agree with Tucker. MAGA doesn’t want War!”

Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Trump was betraying his “America First” philosophy and promises to his base by not ruling out — at least, so far — direct U.S. military involvement in the conflict.

“(For) Donald Trump and MAGA, the sort of article of faith is that you don’t get involved in foreign wars, much less regime change wars in the Middle East, which I think we all understand are problematic,” Himes said Monday night on CNN.

In a separate interview with CNN, former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Trump antagonist and longtime proponent of Washington taking a lead role in global affairs, said it had “been kind of a bad week for the isolationists.”

“What’s happening here is some of the isolationist movement led by Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon are distressed we may be helping the Israelis defeat the Iranians,” the Kentucky Republican said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set off shockwaves Monday when he declared in a television interview the possibility of taking out Khamanei: “It’s not going to escalate the conflict, it’s going to end the conflict.”

Notably, Netanyahu did not cast the scenario as a hypothetical. But Israel would likely need multiple forms of American military and intelligence assistance to carry out such a complex and dangerous regime decapitation operation deep inside Iranian territory.

And that could further upset Trump’s MAGA base and its isolationist opinion-shapers like Carlson, Bannon and others with large followings.

“Let’s just imagine the best case scenario for … Netanyahu is that the (Iranian) regime falls tomorrow morning. Then, of course, in the Middle East, the question is, and what replaces it?” Himes said.

“We don’t have a great track record of regime change. I mean, let’s not use euphemisms here. You know, attempting regime change in the Middle East almost always ends brutally. And tragically.”