A segment on MAGA influencer Steve Bannon's War Room accused President Donald Trump of "an open betrayal" of his base following the weekend strikes on Iran.
As the U.S. military was continuing to pound Iranian targets, Curt Mills, Executive Director of The American Conservative, told Bannon that Trump had received poor guidance before launching the strikes.
"We got here, frankly, at the behest of the foreign power," Mills explained. "I'm not entirely clear or not entirely sure, the appetite of the American people to absorb fatalities. Three Americans have been killed. Five apparently have been grievously wounded. And that's just what the government is conceding. Very notably, they're not telling us how they died."
Mills called the conflict an "out-of-control war."
"Hang on, hang on, take a deep breath," Bannon implored. "When you say out of control, as we've gone to the day, militarily, it's pretty systematic how we're trying to take down their defenses and the leadership. Is that part out of control? Are you saying the expanding nature of it is out of control?"
"I'm not entirely sure," Mills admitted. "I mean, the Fifth Fleet just got hit yesterday. I mean, it's entirely unclear, with the exception of the Supreme Leader, if the Iranian—I mean, the bombings in a lot of ways were less severe than the ones in June of 2025, and the Iranian counterattacks are much more severe."
"And the Israelis are going to try to escalate this to keep the U.S. in," he remarked. "They just basically carpet-bombed Tehran. They give the Iranians, quote, the Gaza treatment. There was some idea that they were going to treat Persians any different than Arabs. And I think there's going to be a real desire to keep President Trump in here."
According to Mills, "the president has gotten very poor counsel."
"And I do think it matters politically that he was the no more endless wars candidate in 2016 and 2024, particularly. And this looks like an open betrayal of the base," he explained. "And now there's an argument that this is different than the Bush-era neocon wars. But I will flag: What Bush-era neocon is not for this today? Find me one. Name one."
Mills noted that John Bolton was "pleased as hell about what we're doing."
"Remember, the never-Trumpers were the neo-conservatives," he pointed out. "They still are, in many respects. Trump's entire rise in 2016, and you know this more than any American alive, Steve, was against these folks."
"Yeah, so the polling initially conducted overnight on the strikes is overwhelmingly negative, but most importantly and most central to this show, it appears that a majority of Republicans don't know why we're doing this, or don't support it," he added. "A new war in the Middle East that looks a lot like the Iraq war. It looks a lot like the same people making the arguments for the Iraq war, and basically an argument that is mired in the past."
