President Donald Trump's willingness to involve U.S. service members in Israel's military action against Iran has exposed some rifts in the MAGA coalition.
Vice president JD Vance defended the president against criticism from former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and others in the "America First" camp, and journalist Tara Palmieri told "CNN NewsNight" how the foreign policy crisis has split the isolationist wing of the MAGA movement from the rest of Trump's coaltion.
"I think president Trump is realizing that MAGA is not that loyal to him, not as loyal as he thinks," Palmieri said. "Yeah, I mean, did you see that comment that he made to Michael Scherer at The Atlantic this morning? He said, 'I made America First, I can decide what it means to me.' That means someone who is very reflexive is in a defensive state, and he thinks he controls it. By the way, it was Reagan, I think, who came up with America First, but you know what I'm saying? He thinks that he can decide what is America First, what is isolationist, what he thinks he can decide what the policy is of MAGA, and they'll go along with him."
"But they're showing that they're on the brink, that they are – they've had it," she added. "They are not happy with this, and they're already coming off of being angry with him on going back and forth on his immigration policies over the past week. As you saw, he was saying, you know, we'll make exceptions for farm workers, restaurateurs, hoteliers. They went crazy over that, and he quickly reversed it. This is something he does. He sees the base react to his moments when he veers away from what they really want, and then he goes back to suit them."
Palmieri said the schism showed the tail was wagging the dog in the MAGA movement.
"He's really controlled by them more than he thinks," she said, "more than he tries to let on that he controls them."
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