Trump’s Iran War: When America First Became Israel First

This episode of Metamodernism Uncensored takes aim at what the hosts see as the widening gap between Donald Trump’s America First rhetoric and the reality of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. They argue that Trump’s recent statements about Iran and Israel sound less like independent presidential judgment and more like a repackaging of Israeli hardline talking points: regime change in Iran, alarm over nuclear weapons, invocations of October 7th, and vague promises to restrain Israel while Israeli settlements continue to make a Palestinian state functionally impossible. To the hosts, the issue is not merely Trump’s inconsistency, but the deeper humiliation of a superpower that funds Israel’s military while refusing to use that aid as leverage.The episode broadens into a harsh critique of America’s bipartisan loyalty to Israel, contrasting today’s unconditional support with earlier presidents like Eisenhower, Reagan, and George H.W. Bush, who were at least willing to pressure Israel when U.S. interests demanded it. The hosts frame this loyalty as the product of foreign lobbying, donor influence, and political fear, singling out figures like Miriam Adelson and arguing that massive campaign money has helped turn American foreign policy into something openly transactional. They also highlight Tucker Carlson’s claim that Netanyahu privately boasts about his influence over Washington, using it as evidence of what they see as a grotesque inversion of power.The hosts then turn to public opinion, arguing that the old consensus is cracking—especially among younger conservatives who no longer get their worldview from Fox News or establishment Republican media. Trump’s approval, they say, is being damaged by the Iran war, and younger Republicans are far less supportive of military escalation than older voters. The episode closes by attacking the American media’s reflexive defense of Israeli policy, its treatment of Palestinian suffering, and its tendency to smear dissent as antisemitism. Against that backdrop, the hosts praise Ro Khanna as one of the few politicians willing to say plainly that the American president—not Israel—should be directing U.S. foreign policy.