GOP lawmakers privately admit Trump’s war 'is going sideways'

During Donald Trump's 2024 campaign, many MAGA Republicans attacked Democratic nominee Kamala Harris as a warmonger who, if elected, would escalate U.S. intervention in the Ukraine-Russia conflict. One of MAGA's outspoken critics of the Biden Administration's support for military aid to Ukraine was now-Vice President JD Vance, who argued that then-President Joe Biden and then-Vice President Harris needed to spend more time addressing problems in the United States and less time worrying about a far-off country like Ukraine.

But President Trump, since his return to the White House, has taken an aggressively interventionist turn — from overthrowing former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to wanting to buy Greenland to going to war with Iran. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Dakota), Fox News' Mark Levin and far-right MAGA conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer are applauding military strikes against Iran.

In an opinion column published on March 27, however, the New York Times' Michelle Goldberg highlights GOP lawmakers who are admitting, at least in private, that the Iran war is going badly.

"It is not just Democrats in Congress who fear that Donald Trump's war in Iran is going sideways," Goldberg observes. "After a classified Pentagon briefing on Wednesday, (March 25), Republican lawmakers on the House Armed Services Committee appeared shaken. 'We will not sacrifice American lives for the same failed foreign policies,' said Nancy Mace, warning about the possibility of American troops in Iran. The committee chair, Mike Rogers, complained that members aren’t getting nearly enough information about war plans. Troop movements, he said, should be 'thoughtful and deliberate.' The implication was that they might not be."

According to Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colorado), a Democrat serving on the House Armed Services Committee, GOP lawmakers are privately expressing misgivings about the Iran war "that they're unwilling to show publicly."

Crow told Goldberg, "This is the first week where I have felt that there's been really any resistance to this war from Republicans."

Goldberg warns that "the big question now is" if an "American ground invasion" of Iran "is imminent."

"Someday, perhaps, when we're picking up the pieces from yet another ill-conceived war, Republicans will explain that behind the scenes, they opposed it," the liberal Times columnist writes. "One of the biggest problems in Congress, said Crow, is the gap between what people say privately and their willingness to demonstrate 'the strength of their convictions' in public. 'I'm always trying to close that gap with folks, and I always remind people that it's never too late to do the right thing,' he said. He may be right, but the sooner the better."