The stars of the conservative media movement have been duking it out – in extremely personal terms – over Donald Trump’s decision to enter the United States into a conflict with Iran.
While it can be hard to cleanly group the warring factions, much of the fighting has centered on disagreements about whether the US is too deferential to Israeli interests. Those arguing that position most prominently include former Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, while conservative media personalities like Mark Levin (a current Fox News host) and Ben Shapiro have strongly supported both the American intervention in Iran and collaboration with Israel.
“There are the classic neocons, there is the populist right, and there are the anti-anti neocons,” said Curt Mills, executive director of the American Conservative magazine.
On Tuesday, Shapiro defended Levin, called Kelly an “unbelievable coward” and accused her of eliding her criticism of Trump. “You don’t like President Trump? You don’t like what he’s saying? Just say his name, you coward,” Shapiro said. “You unbelievable coward. Tucker and Megyn both – unbelievable cowardice.”
Earlier this week, Levin called Kelly a “Crazy Grandma Groyper”, a term once primarily used to refer to those aligned with white supremacist Nick Fuentes, who sat for a friendly interview with Carlson last October that drew criticism from fellow conservatives. (Kelly had once spoken fondly of Levin, saying she had a “crush from afar” on him.)
Rightwing extremist and political influencer Laura Loomer went even further in attacking Kelly, calling her a “stupid bitch”.
In what he called evidence of a “Maga divide,” ABC News’s Jonathan Karl reported on Saturday that Carlson characterized Trump’s attack on Iranian leadership as “absolutely disgusting and evil”.
The tension between Carlson and Levin traces back to at least June 2025, when Carlson accused Levin of “lobbying for war with Iran” during a private lunch with Trump at the White House. Levin called Carlson a “maggot”, and Carlson referred to Levin as a “warmonger”. He used the same label for another former Fox News colleague, Sean Hannity. (This week, Kelly called her former colleague Hannity “a supplicant to Donald Trump” and said “he would never say anything other than to puff Donald Trump up”.)
During an interview on Katie Miller’s podcast this week, Hannity said that he “completely disagrees” with Carlson, who is “not the person that [he] knew” at Fox News – though he also said that he’s intentionally chosen to stay out of the conservative media infighting.
“If they all want to kill each other, have at it,” Hannity said on the podcast. “I’m way past the point in my career, Katie, that I care at all about what other people are doing or saying. I watch it because I have to be aware and I read so much news I can’t miss it. And, however, my interest in involving myself in it is zero. I don’t believe my success is predicated on tearing somebody else down, or their failure.”
For some, the split over Iran is a sign of a wider issue for conservative media. Jonah Goldberg, the editor in chief of the Dispatch, told the Guardian that the latest dust-up over Iran is part of the broader “unravelling of the Trump/Maga coalition,” a dynamic he said was also visible in conservative criticism over the Trump administration’s handling of Jeffrey Epstein-related documents. The clashes, which attract plenty of media attention, are also good for business, particularly for independent media personalities that need to build their brands and attract subscribers.
“I think there is real animosity and serious disagreement among the parties,” he said. “But the food fight has a reality TV dynamic to it as well. Conflict is good for eyeballs and clicks. I think Shapiro is trying to be a grown-up, but the rest of them see the vitriol as a feature, not a bug. There’s a lot of kayfabe in Trump world and the Maga right.”
