A woman wearing a MAGA hat at a "Latinos for Trump" event in Kissimmee, Florida on January 16, 2020 (Image: Shutterstock)
After U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to wipe out a "whole civilization" in Iran in a Tuesday, April 7 post on his Truth Social platform, at least 50 Democrats in Congress called for him to be removed from office via the U.S. Constitution's 25th Amendment. But criticism of Trump in response to the war against Iran isn't limited to Democrats. Many people on the right are speaking out as well, including Never Trump conservatives like MS NOW hosts Nicolle Wallace and Joe Scarborough, journalist Charlie Sykes and The Bulwark's Tim Miller. And Trump is also drawing criticism from far-right MAGA figures like Infowars' Alex Jones, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and ex-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia).
During an appearance on The New Republic's podcast posted on April 8, The Contrarian's Jennifer Rubin — a Never Trumper and former Washington Post columnist — stressed that even "very fringe characters" like Jones are finding Trump's comments on Iran scary.
Rubin told host Greg Sargent — another former Washington Post columnist — "I think this is what happens when you fall out of the cult. Suddenly, everything becomes very clear. You're willing to abandon your idolatry. You're willing to assess his words as they are spoken or written. And that's what’s happened with these, frankly, very fringe characters. So, I don't want to attribute a great intellectual breakthrough in terms of democracy or tolerance or rule of law, but at least they see Trump for what he is. They can at least now be truth tellers about who he is, how deranged he is, and how dangerous he is."
Trump's "whole civilization" comment, according to Rubin, was so beyond the pale that even some MAGA extremists are calling him out.
Rubin told Sargent, "He wants their civilization to die. That is genocide. There's no excuse, there's no rationalization that they can come up with now for carrying out orders to decimate civilian neighborhoods, power plants, infrastructure. They clearly know what Trump's intent is, and they know what the results of that action would be. And there will come a time —maybe it will be a new set of Nuremberg trials, maybe it will be military discipline down the road — but there will be a time of reckoning where these people have to be held responsible for what they did and what they said. And they never should have crossed the line the first time when Trump ordered extrajudicial killings on the high seas. Had they said no then, we likely would not be where we are now."