Bannon: Fox News Betrayed Trump's Agenda!
Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, 2017. Photo courtesy of Michael Vadon under CC BY 2.0.
Steve Bannon isn't pulling punches — and his latest target isn't the left, the deep state, or even the Biden administration. It's Fox News.
On his "War Room" podcast, Bannon reportedly delivered a searing takedown of the Murdoch-owned network, claiming no one on staff qualifies as "true MAGA."
MAGA Versus MAGA?
The drama unfolding isn't just about cable news ratings or political endorsements. It's a visceral fight over who gets to define the MAGA movement in 2025.
Bannon, the former White House strategist turned right-wing media firestarter, accused Fox News of betraying Donald Trump after the 2020 election. On air, he argued that the network spent the post-election period boosting alternative Republican contenders like Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley while sidelining Trump. "When President Trump had the election stolen from him and had the White House taken away and he went back to Mar-a-Lago for that year of 2021, because everybody at Fox takes a paycheck from Murdoch, you all supported DeSantis and Nikki Haley and whoever else came along as an opportunity to replace President Trump," Bannon said, as reported by The Daily Beast.
Speaking plainly Bannon quipped, "So if you work at Fox by definition, you can't be true MAGA, it's impossible."
Tucker Carlson Joins the Fray
Bannon didn't go it alone. Joining him was none other than Tucker Carlson — the former Fox News host whose departure from the network became a media event in itself. Carlson is now a regular guest on "War Room," and the two have formed a populist tag-team, accusing their former colleagues of pushing for American involvement in foreign wars, especially in the Middle East.
The latest flashpoint? The spiraling Israel-Iran conflict.
Carlson and Bannon see this as a so-called test for Trump-era foreign policy. They accuse interventionist pundits — particularly Fox's Sean Hannity and Mark Levin — of encouraging another so called "forever war," precisely the kind of military entanglement Trump promised to end, according to the BBC. "Warmongers," Carlson called Hannity and Levin, according to Newsweek.
Bannon echoed the sentiment, arguing that Israel was trying to drag the US into offensive combat against Iran and saying, "you don't need us" and "make your own decision," according to Newsweek.
Foreign Policy or Political Sabotage?
But for Bannon, this isn't just about foreign affairs. He believes the push for U.S. involvement abroad threatens to derail Trump's core domestic agenda, including immigration enforcement and economic nationalism.
He argued that pushing the US toward war with Iran would fracture the coalition that brought Trump back to power, an alliance focused on immigration enforcement, economic nationalism, and pulling American troops out of the Middle East.
"If we get sucked into this war, which inexorably looks like it's going to happen on the combat side, it's going to not just blow up the coalition, it's also going to thwart the most important thing, which is the deportation of the illegal alien invaders who are here," as reported by BBC.
Carlson took it a step further, accusing Fox of turning up the "propaganda hose" to blind its elderly viewership into accepting interventionist policies, according to Newsweek.
The MAGA Split Widens
Bannon's rebuke wasn't limited to Fox. His podcast featured Laura Loomer, a self-described "proud Islamophobe" and fervent Trump supporter, according to the Independent, who called out tech titans like Elon Musk for pushing immigration policies she opposes.
But Bannon waved off suggestions that this represented a civil war inside MAGA. Musk and his allies aren't "tough enough" to pose a real threat, he claimed, according to the Independent, dismissing the tech oligarchs as too soft to handle a fight.
The real schism, according to Bannon, lies between isolationist nationalists like himself and Carlson, who want America focused inward, and interventionist conservatives like Loomer and Levin, who believe Trump must show strength abroad by backing Israel to the hilt.
And in the middle stands Donald Trump, navigating this internal chaos while the world watches.
What This Means for Trumpworld
The infighting exposes something deeper: MAGA's foundational ideology isn't as cohesive as it once appeared.
Should Trump embrace the non-interventionism that won him early grassroots support — or lean into the neoconservative instincts of some of his loudest defenders?
Fox News, once a reliable mouthpiece for Trumpism, now finds itself under siege from the very movement it helped amplify. Bannon's tirade signals a broader trend and a growing mistrust of legacy conservative institutions among the new MAGA elite.
In short, the revolution may now be eating its own.
References:Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon Lead MAGA Resistance to Iran War | Trump's Iran Dilemma Exposes Bitter Split in President's Circle | Steve Bannon Warns Iran War Will Break MAGA and 'Be the End of Israel!' | Steve Bannon Says There's No MAGA 'Civil War' Because Elon Musk Is 'Not Tough Enough' | Bannon Fans Flames of MAGA Civil War by Attacking Fox News
