Five months into President Donald Trump’s second term, spring is looking like winter for the neoconservatives.
This might be best gauged right now looking at the back and forth war between conservative media giants, Tucker Carlson and Mark Levin.
When Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff said in an interview in May that, “the neocon element believes that war is the only way to solve things,” Levin took offense. The reliably neoconservative talk host blasted Witkoff and added, “By the way, neocon is a pejorative for Jew. Unbelievable.”
Carlson was perplexed by this statement. In an interview with comedian and libertarian activist Dave Smith, Carlson said, “So you have Mark Levin calling Steve Witkoff an anti-Semite. We’ve reached peak crazy, I mean, I think Witkoff is Jewish, right?”
That made Levin even more mad. On Thursday, Carlson shared a lengthy post on X that read, “Mark Levin was at the White House today, lobbying for war with Iran. To be clear, Levin has no plans to fight in this or any other war. He’s demanding that American troops do it. We need to stop Iran from building nuclear weapons, he and likeminded ideologues in Washington are now arguing. They’re just weeks away.”
Carlson reminded his audience what a farce this was.
“If this sounds familiar, it's because the same people have been making the same claim since at least the 1990s. It’s a lie,” Carlson wrote. “In fact, there is zero credible intelligence that suggests Iran is anywhere near building a bomb, or has plans to. None. Anyone who claims otherwise is ignorant or dishonest.”
A ten paragraph essay followed, dismantling some of the usual arguments neoconservatives make to push for war with Iran, with Carlson using Levin in particular to make his points.
On enrichment, Carlson observed, “[M]any Americans would die during a war with Iran. People like Mark Levin don’t seem to care about this. It’s not relevant to them. Instead they insist that Iran give up all uranium enrichment, regardless of its purpose. They know perfectly well that Iran will never accept that demand. They’ll fight first. And of course that’s the whole point of pushing for it: to box the Trump administration into a regime change war in Iran.”
The Quincy Institute’s Executive Vice President Trita Parsi shared Carlson’s post and echoed the importance of his enrichment comments.
“The most crucial part of Tucker's tweet is on enrichment,” Parsi noted. “He doesn’t just issue a generic warning against war. He addresses the impasse of the talks: The neocon red line of zero enrichment.”
Parsi added, “At a crucial moment, Tucker wisely advises Trump to drop this deal-killing demand. Huge!”
Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna (Calif.) also shared Carlson’s X post, writing, “No war with Iran. The war in Iraq was the biggest foreign policy blunder of the 21st century. Americans — right and left — do not want more dumb wars.”
Former Republican congressman Matt Gaetz (Fla.) shared Carlson’s post, adding a 100 percent emoji.
Senior Editor of The American Conservative Andrew Day shared and highlighted the dangerousness of having Levin around Trump at this moment. Carlson said from the beginning of his post that he believed Levin was at the White House to agitate for war.
“Mark Levin is the last person who should be whispering in Trump's ear at this stage of negotiations,” Day wrote. “I hope Vance and Gabbard are actively exerting a counter-influence.”
Vice President JD Vance and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard have been against a U.S. war with Iran.
Carlson finished his post, writing, “The one thing that people like Mark Levin don’t want is a peaceful solution to the problem of Iran, despite the obvious benefits to the United States. They denounce anyone who advocates for a deal as a traitor and a bigot. They tell us with a straight face that Long Island native Steve Witkoff is a secret tool of Islamic monarchies. They’ll say or do whatever it takes. They have no limits”
“These are scary people,” he concluded. “Pray that Donald Trump ignores them.”
I noted in an essay in late May that established neoconservative media voices on the right were beginning to be outshined by new conservative, libertarian and independent influencers, almost all of them antiwar.
Carlson is the largest figure on the American right this side of Donald Trump right now and he has been consistently against America’s involvement in any new wars, the mirror opposite of Levin.
As of this writing, Carlson’s Levin-Iran X post has over 5.4 million views.
Mark Levin has used his large platforms on talk radio and Fox News to promote neoconservative foreign policy for many years. Now Tucker Carlson appears to be using his arguably even larger platform on social media to shut that down.
Good.
