Conservative lawmakers buck Trump after Iran strikes

WASHINGTON (CN) — The Donald Trump administration’s move to carry out a unilateral military strike on Iran over the weekend is already putting the president at loggerheads with conservatives in Congress, some of whom have accused him of abandoning a key part of his 2024 campaign platform.

Iran’s Fordo nuclear facility was among the targets of a weekend airstrike carried out by the U.S. military and greenlit by Trump. A major escalation, the attack marked Washington’s formal intervention in the already-growing conflict between Tehran and Israel.

Some administration surrogates such as Vice President JD Vance have insisted that the U.S. is not formally at war with Iran and that the strikes were merely an effort to hamper the country’s ability to process nuclear material into a weapon. But Trump himself contradicted those claims, suggesting on Sunday that the White House wanted to overthrow Iran’s government.

“It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change???” the president wrote in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social.

Trump’s comments and his decision to approve military intervention in Iran appear in stark contrast to his approach to the subject on the campaign trail — and his apparent flip is drawing flak from some of his most ardent supporters in Congress.

In a lengthy statement posted to X on Monday morning, Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene expressed her frustration with the president’s new posture, arguing that his “MAGA” agenda had promised an end to foreign wars and regime change.

“Only 6 months in and we are back into foreign wars, regime change and world war 3,” the Republican wrote.

Greene slammed the Iran strikes as a “complete bait and switch” on Trump’s base and said the White House has already acknowledged it isn’t sure whether Tehran’s nuclear capabilities were destroyed in the weekend strikes — despite the president’s contention that there had been “monumental” damage.

“My children are 22, 25 and 27,” the Georgia lawmaker added. “And their future and their entire generation’s future MUST be free of American LAST foreign wars that provoke terrorists attacks on our homeland, military drafts and NUCLEAR WAR.”

But, following media reports on her comments, Greene on Monday afternoon appeared to dispute that there was any daylight between her and the president.

“The press and some other nasty people would love to write lying headlines and create dirty rumors that there’s a break between me and President Trump,” she said in a post on X. “WRONG.”

Greene finished her post by writing out Trump’s initials and hers separated by a red heart emoji.

Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie, a noted anti-interventionist, also criticized the Iran strikes, saying on CNN Sunday that they were not only a “bad move politically” but also raised legal and constitutional questions.

“The notion that this isn’t an act of war I find ludicrous,” Massie said. “This is a hot war. There are two nations — Israel and Iran — that have been trading volleys of missiles every night, every day, and we’re a co-belligerent now in this war.”

The 1973 War Powers Resolution requires the White House to inform Congress within 48 hours of any military action and blocks the president from committing troops for more than 90 days without a congressional declaration of war or authorization of military force. Lawmakers may also pass a resolution at any time forcing the administration to recall U.S. forces.

The Trump administration has said that it followed the law and notified Congress of the weekend strikes.

Massie, a Republican, meanwhile disagreed with assertions by the White House and House Speaker Mike Johnson that there had been an “imminent threat” from Iran which justified the attack, pointing out that the House had been on a weeklong recess as administration officials weighed whether to intervene.

“If Speaker Johnson thought that America was in danger imminently, he should have brought us all back to Congress — yet he did not,” the Kentucky Republican said, calling it an “abdication of our responsibility to debate matters of war.”

Ahead of the airstrikes on Iran, Massie and California Representative Ro Khanna, a Democrat, introduced a congressional resolution aimed at blocking the Trump administration from taking offensive military action against Iran without congressional support.

But House Republican leaders including Johnson have been vocally supportive of Trump’s decision, so a vote on such a measure seems unlikely.

Trump, for his part, was furious with Massie’s opposition to the Iran strikes, airing him out in a separate post on Truth Social, calling him a “lightweight” and proclaiming that he would back a primary challenger to oust the lawmaker from his seat in Congress.

“MAGA is not about lazy, grandstanding, nonproductive politicians, of which Thomas Massie is definitely one,” the president wrote on Sunday.

And Trump refreshed his call to remove Massie in a short post Monday morning.

“GET THIS ‘BUM’ OUT OF OFFICE, ASAP!!!” he said.

Iran offered its retort to this weekend’s strikes on Monday, launching a barrage of missiles at U.S. military targets in Qatar. But Tehran signaled that it viewed the reply as an off-ramp to hostilities — the New York Times reported that Iranian officials had informed the Qatari government that the strikes were imminent, and no U.S. personnel were hurt.

Trump appeared to accept the opportunity to deescalate, writing in a post on Truth Social Monday afternoon that Iran had carried out a “very weak response” to U.S. airstrikes and that the military had shot down all incoming missiles save for one that landed in a “nonthreatening direction.”

“Most importantly, they’ve gotten it all out of their ‘system,’ and there will, hopefully, be no further HATE,” the president said, thanking Tehran for “giving us early notice” and preventing loss of life.

Trump added that he would encourage Israel to pursue peace in its conflict with Iran, though he did not say exactly how.

The U.S. strikes on Iran this weekend came after weeks of open conflict between Tehran and Israel. Israeli forces have carried out bombing campaigns largely uncontested over Iranian airspace, hitting the country’s nuclear facilities and killing its top military commanders. Iran has responded by firing hundreds of missiles into Israel.

Both Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have warned that Iran is close to enriching enough uranium to build nuclear weapons.

But Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told Congress earlier this year that the U.S. intelligence community did not believe Tehran was currently developing a nuclear bomb — a fact which the president himself dismissed in the days leading up to the strikes.

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