NEED TO KNOW

• Owens posted March 6 that troops should "not join or remain" in the military, calling Trump's war a betrayal "on behalf of Israel" — her most direct challenge yet to the president's wartime authority
• Trump himself once pledged to end wars, not start them; his current "America First" justification for Operation Epic Fury is being rejected by a faction of his own base using his own prior language
• A Reuters poll conducted after the strikes found only about a quarter of Americans approve of the Iran war — and only 55% of Republicans

WASHINGTON, D.C. (TDR) — The phrase "America First" has defined Donald Trump's political identity for a decade. On March 6, podcaster and commentator Candace Owens turned it into a weapon against him. In a post on X that drew immediate backlash and millions of views, Owens told her audience — which includes nearly six million YouTube subscribers — to abandon the US military entirely.

"Do not join or remain in the United States Military. Trump has betrayed America and expects you to die for Israel. There is no honor in being led by dishonorable men to your death." — Candace Owens, X, March 6, 2026

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The post followed her sharing of a Sky News clip in which former Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz declined to rule out American ground forces in Iran — an answer that echoed remarks made by both Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. The clip was originally shared by journalist Max Blumenthal, who captioned it as evidence of who is "calling the shots." Owens agreed, and added her call for military desertion.

When pressed for comment by Mediaite, Owens did not retreat.

"Americans should stop dying so Israel can expand its borders while our country continues to decline. This isn't complicated." — Candace Owens, statement to Mediaite

The Contradiction at the Center of the MAGA Split

The argument Owens is making is not new. It is, in structure, identical to the argument Trump himself made for years against US military interventionism — that American lives and treasure should not be spent on foreign wars, that the foreign policy establishment had dragged the country into endless conflicts that served other nations' interests, and that a true "America First" president would bring troops home rather than send them abroad.

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Trump used that argument to win the presidency twice. He is now on the other side of it. The anti-war faction of MAGA — led publicly by Owens, Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene and commentators including Megyn Kelly, Matt Walsh and the Hodge Twins — is using his prior statements to frame Operation Epic Fury as a betrayal of his own doctrine.

Greene captured the framing bluntly in a statement circulated online.

"And just like that we are no longer a nation divided by left and right. We are now a nation divided by those who want to fight wars for Israel and those who just want peace and to be able to afford their bills and health insurance." — Marjorie Taylor Greene

Carlson told ABC News the operation was "absolutely disgusting and evil" and predicted it would "shuffle the deck in a profound way."

On the pro-war side, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) celebrated the strikes as "the most historic change in the Middle East in a thousand years" and called the operation "necessary and long justified." Ben Shapiro and Sen. Ted Cruz aligned with the traditional hawkish conservative position, arguing that striking Iran's nuclear and military infrastructure served American security interests. Laura Loomer, a far-right activist with direct White House access, demanded that authorities investigate Carlson under foreign lobbying laws and called Owens' post an act of sedition.

"Candace Owens is now trying to weaken our US military by telling Americans to not join the US military anymore." — Laura Loomer

What the Backlash Revealed About the Coalition

The ferocity of the intra-MAGA response illustrated how much is at stake. White House spokesperson Davis Ingle dismissed Greene as "a former congresswoman, traitor, and a quitter." Trump himself had previously called Greene's ideas "those of a very dumb person." Columnist Kurt Schlichter of Townhall told Owens to "shut your mouth about our troops. You're a disgrace."

The backlash did not slow Owens. She has made more than a dozen posts arguing Israel goaded the US into battle, and her audience has grown through the controversy. A JPPI study using AI analysis found that both Owens and Carlson sharply increased anti-Israel content in recent years, with Owens showing a measurable rise in explicitly antisemitic messaging — a context that independent observers say complicates evaluating her "America First" framing at face value.

Research published in November 2025 by NPR documented a broader crack in conservative support for Israel before the Iran war began — a structural shift that the strikes have now widened into open fracture. The split matters beyond commentary. Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist influencer aligned with the anti-war faction, has called on supporters to vote Democratic in the 2026 midterms as a protest against the Iran operation.

The Polling and the Midterm Math

The numbers behind the split are significant. A Reuters poll conducted after the strikes found that only about a quarter of Americans approve of Trump's decision to go to war with Iran. More pressing for Republican strategists: only 55% of Republicans approve — meaning nearly half of the base is either opposed or undecided on an operation the White House has staked its foreign policy legacy on.

Six US Army Reserve soldiers were killed in an Iranian drone strike on a military installation at Port Shuaiba, Kuwait on March 1 — the first American combat deaths of the conflict. The soldiers, aged between 20 and 42 and drawn from an Iowa-based logistics unit, became the immediate human context for Owens' post. After their deaths, Trump told reporters that further casualties were likely.

"But in the end, it's going to be a great deal for the world." — President Donald Trump, on US troop deaths in Kuwait

That framing — casualties as acceptable cost for a "great deal" — is precisely what Owens and the anti-war faction say contradicts everything Trump claimed to stand for. The pro-war faction argues that allowing Iran to develop nuclear capability posed a greater long-term risk to American security than the cost of military action.

Both arguments are, in structure, versions of "America First." They have simply arrived at opposite conclusions about what that phrase requires.

The Question Owens Hasn't Answered

Owens' own record complicates the picture. She described herself as a "Christian Zionist" as recently as the US Embassy opening in Jerusalem and celebrated Israeli policy positions before her public break with the pro-Israel right. The Slate analysis of her output documented posts framing the war as a sacrifice of "goyim" and accusing unnamed figures of Jewish "filth" attempting to "collapse America" — language that critics on both left and right say crosses from geopolitical criticism into bigotry.

Erika Kirk, who now leads Turning Point USA following Charlie Kirk's death, has made a single public appeal to Owens.

"When you go after my family, my Turning Point USA family, my Charlie Kirk show family — when you go after the people that I love, and you're making hundreds and thousands of dollars every single episode going after the people that I love, because somehow they're in on this? No." — Erika Kirk

Whether Owens is leading a principled ideological correction inside the MAGA coalition or exploiting a wartime fracture for audience growth — and whether those two things are mutually exclusive — may be the question that defines how the Iran war reshapes American conservatism heading into the midterms.

Sources

This report was compiled using information from Mediaite, MEAWW, Yahoo News/The Atlantic, Al Jazeera, Slate, International Business Times UK, Jerusalem Post, prior TDR reporting on the Owens-MAGA split, and Reuters polling data via Al Jazeera analysis.

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