In May 2025, President Donald Trump declared that the neoconservative era was over. This was of course not new rhetoric. He didn’t always live up to it, but Trump always made sure that bashing neocons and the Bush era and their endless wars were a staple in his long list of political excoriations. After all, Trump began his meteoric rise during the 2016 Republican debates when he said to Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, brother of George W., that “obviously, the war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake, all right?” “They lied,” he added, referring to the Bush administration’s insistence that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction. “They said there were weapons of mass destruction,” Trump blasted. “There were none, and they knew there were none.”
Presidential nominee Trump would later tell the 2016 Republican National Convention, “We must abandon the failed policy of nation-building and regime change that Hillary Clinton pushed in Iraq, Libya, Egypt and Syria.”
Yet today, this American president is knee-deep in a seemingly endless regime change war with Iran over that country’s alleged and illusive weapons of mass destruction. The conflict, which has even earned praise from his former nemesis Jeb Bush, could arguably become even more disastrous than Iraq in the long term.
What made Trump go full neocon ? Could it be that they are the only political faction left that still embraces his foreign policy?
It might be. Because increasingly, conservatives who aren’t reflexively hawkish are turning away . And polls keep showing that most Americans are not with him.
Three new surveys released this week now place Trump’s approval rating in the mid-30s. A Reuters-Ipsos poll shows it at 36%. A Strength in Numbers-Verasight poll has him at 35%. An AP-NORC survey says only 33% of Americans approve of Trump right now.
These numbers are all going down , not up, from surveys last week.
This poor standing mirrors George W. Bush’s slide during the Iraq war. “It was almost exactly this time 20 years ago that the bottom began to fall out on George W. Bush’s approval ratings,” CNN analyst Aaron Blake noted . “And as Bush’s numbers in most polls fell into the 30s for the first time in late winter and early spring, the culprit was clear: the Iraq war.” “History could be repeating itself with President Donald Trump in 2026,” he wrote. “Just swap Iraq with Iran.”
Interestingly Trump appears to be more neoconservative. While 2003 wasn’t the first time the U.S. attacked Iraq, the warhawks had been begging for war with Iran for decades. Trump chose to fight a battle that his predecessors rejected, and in so doing he gave Netanyahu’s Likud government, which had been arguing for direct U.S. intervention non-stop since Trump won office in 2016, exactly what it wanted.
President Barack Obama’s former Secretary of State John Kerry told CBS’s Stephen Colbert in an interview Tuesday, “I think it was about two weeks ago, the New York Times reported that Netanyahu personally went into the Situation Room and presented the case, why this was the right thing to do. It was reported that he had attempted this with previous administrations.” Colbert asked, “During the Obama administration, where you're secretary of state, did he make the same case?” Kerry replied, “yes.” Colbert then asked, “And what was the response at the time?” “No,” Kerry said emphatically. “I mean, I was part of those conversations,” he added. “I remember them well.”
Trump’s former debate opponent Jeb Bush is now pleased with Trump’s decision to attack Iran, saying in late February, “This is their time to take their country back.” Bush serves as chairman of United Against Nuclear Iran, a group that lobbies for regime change in that country. Bush even made a special video praising the war in early March.
Independent journalist Glenn Greenwald said Thursday that Trump seems to have morphed into the very thing he campaigned against: the government officials who lied and scaremongered over “mushroom clouds” and “yellowcake” uranium.
“Trump is now completely reliant for every answer on the same exact claim used to sell the Iraq War: They're getting nukes; they'll give them to terrorist groups; they'll take out our cities; be afraid; we have to bear whatever cost to stop their WMD program,” Greenwald wrote .
A reporter asked Trump Thursday what might happen if oil prices reach $200 per barrel.
Trump replied , “There is nothing worse than a nuclear weapon that takes out one of your cities.” Vice President JD Vance said something similar in March , suggesting if we don’t fight Iran then terrorists could show up in American cities with nuclear weapons in backpacks. While America First pundits, politicians, and formerly diehard Trump supporters like Tucker Carlson and ex- GOP Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene have become major critics of this president, today’s White House is much friendlier to neoconservatives like talk host Mark Levin and GOP Senator Lindsey Graham.
Carlson and Greene say they no longer recognize the man Trump has become. Levin, Graham and other Israel-friendly hawks have encouraged this significant shift in foreign policy by this president.
But how long do they stick around?
“It seems to me that Trump has three problems,” Washington Examiner magazine Executive Editor Jim Antle told RS.
“One is that his new friends were reluctant adopters of him at best and many were Never Trumpers in 2015 or 2016,” Antle said. “They will turn on him much faster than the podcasters did. Second, and relatedly, Trump is going to want to end the war before they are ready. They will cheerlead his bombing, but not his diplomacy. Finally, their audiences are primarily made up of people who are going to reliably turn out for Republicans in the midterms regardless.” “These are dead-enders, not persuadables or new voters Trump brought into the coalition,” he added.
Curt Mills, Executive Director of the American Conservative, also believed Trump’s neocon fan club might not be around for long.
“George W. Bush once remarked on the subject of legacy: ‘History? We don't know. We'll all be dead,” Mills said in an email. “Increasingly, that seems to be how this president rolls, as well. He has disappointed ideological true believers and made a pact with neoconservatives, a group that will abandon him in posterity as swiftly as they opposed him during his ascent.” Regardless, with Iran, Donald Trump is definitely losing support from the broader parts of his coalition. The war has sent him fleeing into the arms of those conservatives who he never purported to have anything in common with in the first place. It may be a fair-weather arrangement for both sides, but for the rest of us it is dark days ahead as long as these war pushers hold sway over the president’s foreign policy.