Even before President Trump took to talking up war on Tuesday, June 17, the signs of fury in Trump’s base at the prospect of direct U.S. involvement in Israel’s illegal war on Iran were multiplying.
Monday night, June 16, One America News Network (OAN), long a staunch bastion of Trump support, advertised clips from former Congressman Matt Gaetz’s show on their platform that night, with the all-caps message: “Matt Gaetz: ‘The Last Time America Listened to Netanyahu Based on False Claims of WMD’s, we Ended Up Pouring Cash and Blood All Over the Sands of Mesopotamia, and in the end, we only made Iran stronger!’” Continuing to quote Gaetz, but in lower case, OAN added: “The regime change war in Iraq cost our great nation treasure, credibility, and the blood of our bravest patriots. It resulted in broken limbs, broken families, and broken minds. It also resulted in a broken Iraq, which, ironically, has now become a vassal state of, wait for it … Iran!” Within 12 hours of its posting, the OAN clip had garnered 1.7 million views—and the numbers are still rising.
Gaetz was hard-nosed. He showed clips of Bibi Netanyahu and George Bush in 2002 pressing for the U.S. to take out the Iraqi regime because it had the WMD, juxtaposed to candidate Trump in a campaign debate fiercely denouncing the Iraq war as an utter disaster.
