\n<\/p>\n
The stars of the conservative media movement have been duking it out \u2013 in extremely personal terms \u2013 over Donald Trump\u2019s decision to enter the United States into a conflict with Iran.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are the classic neocons, there is the populist right, and there are the anti-anti neocons,\u201d said Curt Mills, executive director of the American Conservative magazine.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Shapiro defended Levin, called Kelly an \u201cunbelievable coward\u201d and accused her of eliding her criticism of Trump. \u201cYou don\u2019t like President Trump? You don\u2019t like what he\u2019s saying? Just say his name, you coward,\u201d Shapiro said. \u201cYou unbelievable coward. Tucker and Megyn both \u2013 unbelievable cowardice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, Levin called Kelly a \u201cCrazy Grandma Groyper\u201d, 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 \u201ccrush from afar\u201d on him.)<\/p>\n
Rightwing extremist and political influencer Laura Loomer went even further in attacking Kelly, calling her a \u201cstupid bitch\u201d.<\/p>\n
In what he called evidence of a \u201cMaga divide,\u201d ABC News\u2019s Jonathan Karl reported on Saturday that Carlson characterized Trump\u2019s attack on Iranian leadership as \u201cabsolutely disgusting and evil\u201d.<\/p>\n
The tension between Carlson and Levin traces back to at least June 2025, when Carlson accused Levin of \u201clobbying for war with Iran\u201d during a private lunch with Trump at the White House. Levin called Carlson a \u201cmaggot\u201d, and Carlson referred to Levin as a \u201cwarmonger\u201d. He used the same label for another former Fox News colleague, Sean Hannity. (This week, Kelly called her former colleague Hannity \u201ca supplicant to Donald Trump\u201d and said \u201che would never say anything other than to puff Donald Trump up\u201d.)<\/p>\n
During an interview on Katie Miller\u2019s podcast this week, Hannity said that he \u201ccompletely disagrees\u201d with Carlson, who is \u201cnot the person that [he] knew\u201d at Fox News \u2013 though he also said that he\u2019s intentionally chosen to stay out of the conservative media infighting.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they all want to kill each other, have at it,\u201d Hannity said on the podcast. \u201cI\u2019m 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\u2019t miss it. And, however, my interest in involving myself in it is zero. I don\u2019t believe my success is predicated on tearing somebody else down, or their failure.\u201d<\/p>\n
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 \u201cunravelling of the Trump\/Maga coalition,\u201d a dynamic he said was also visible in conservative criticism over the Trump administration\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there is real animosity and serious disagreement among the parties,\u201d he said. \u201cBut 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\u2019s a lot of kayfabe in Trump world and the Maga right.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The stars of the conservative media movement have been duking it out \u2013 in extremely personal terms \u2013 over Donald Trump\u2019s 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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[2389,23619,84,205,3866,23078,14103],"class_list":{"0":"post-46103","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-conservative","9":"tag-coward","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-media","12":"tag-open","13":"tag-unbelievable","14":"tag-warfare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}