Team Trump Opposed War With Iran. Then They Started One
Donald Trump, JD Vance, Tulsi Gabbard, Stephen Miller, and so many in MAGA claimed they would stop regime-change wars, not start them. We have the receipts.
Donald Trump has launched an illegal and baseless war on Iran in hopes of bringing about regime change – the exact type of Middle East conflict that the president and his top officials claimed he would never start.
It’s the second time Trump has chosen to launch illegal strikes on Iran, despite his pledge to be a “president of peace,” and his consistent promises to avoid dragging the US into dangerous conflicts in the Middle East.
His allies and top officials – ranging from Vice President JD Vance, to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, to White House policy chief Stephen Miller, to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to AI and crypto czar David Sacks – all made similar pledges.
Zeteo has the receipts:
Donald Trump:
From the start of his political career, Trump campaigned against the idea of regime change. Upon winning the presidency in 2016, Trump pledged: “We will stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about, that we shouldn’t be involved with.”
But even before then, Trump frequently spoke against the idea of war in Iran.
In 2012, Trump baselessly warned that Barack Obama would launch a war with Iran – to try to boost his poll numbers.
He later warned Obama could drag the US into World War III.
In 2019, during his first term, Trump tweeted that “GOING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE WORST DECISION EVER MADE.”
By 2024, he warned that his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, would take the US “into a Nuclear World War III!”
JD Vance:
VP Vance has frequently billed Trump as a “peace” president.
In supporting Trump’s 2024 campaign, Vance wrote Wall Street Journal column asserting that Trump “won’t recklessly send Americans to fight overseas.” Vance spoke out against the failed foreign policy consensus responsible for “starting world-historic catastrophes in the Middle East.”
He continued, “I prefer a different kind of statesmanship: one that stands athwart the crowd, reminding leaders in both parties that the U.S. national interest must be pursued ruthlessly but also carefully, with strong words but great restraint. Donald Trump’s presidency marked the first real disruption to a failed consensus and the terrible consequences it wrought. That fact, more than any single accomplishment, is the enduring legacy of Mr. Trump’s first term.”
That sure aged badly.
Later in 2023, Vance spoke out against the Iraq War, tweeting: “It was an unforced disaster, and I pray that we learn its lessons.”
Apparently not.
Tulsi Gabbard:
The competition is steep, but Trump’s war with Iran is probably more embarrassing for Tulsi Gabbard than anyone else in his administration.
Shortly before Trump won his second term, Gabbard declared: “A vote for Donald Trump is a vote for a man who wants to end wars, not start them.”
Just a few years before that, Gabbard was tweeting things like: “No War With Iran.”
And she was selling T-shirts with this as a slogan!
“Say no to war with Iran!” her campaign’s merchandise store read. “How many more American lives, how many more trillions of dollars will be wasted before we exit? It could be now, or it could be 10 or 20 years from now, but there is no American victory.”
She had a point!
Stephen Miller:
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who’s directing Trump’s war on immigrants, claimed in the past to oppose US wars abroad.
Miller even predicted this moment in time back in 2024 – that the US president would send Americans to war, launch an invasion of the Middle East, and potentially start World War III.
The only catch is he claimed Kamala Harris would do those things, not his boss Donald Trump.
He argued that Trump, unlike Harris, would “end and prevent war in the Middle East. He wants peace.”
Like most of what Stephen Miller says, these tweets aged like milk.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr:
Before he was the nation’s health secretary and regaling Americans with tales of snorting cocaine off of toilet seats, RFK Jr. was gunning for the big chair in the Oval Office.
During his presidential run, he released an impassioned video, filmed at an uncomfortably low angle, where he literally said, “I won’t send you abroad for regime change wars or oil wars.”
However, he never said he won’t support a “regime change war” if someone else is doing the sending!
David Sacks:
This must be an especially stressful time for Trump’s AI adviser, David Sacks. The crypto czar must be clutching his AI chips as he watches Iran’s retaliatory attacks land across the United Arab Emirates, where he visited in May to strike deals designed to boost China and help enrich the US president.
Back in March 2025, the Trump appointee shared his take on where wars in the Middle East lead. “They flip a country from bad-to-worse,” he tweeted, adding that regime change leads to nothing but “chaos, civil war, genocide.”
Why should this one be any different?
The GOP
The Republican Party is virtually synonymous with illegal wars at this point, but the GOP nevertheless went along with the sales pitch that the Trump-Vance campaign would be the “pro-peace ticket” during the 2024 campaign.
This has long been a cruel joke, but never more than on this day, right now.
Check out more from Zeteo:
Every accusation is a confession. MAGA is the walking epitome of hypocrisy personified.
Maybe they all pretend they don’t want war, buy stocks in weapons manufacturers, and then bombs away, they’re rich! They are all liars, they speak out of both sides of their faces. The corruption in Washington on both sides is disgraceful. USA will always be an evil colonizer unless the citizens stand up and say, “No more!”