MAGA Loyalty

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☀️ Exclusive: MAGA solar surprise

Illustration: Rebecca Zisser/Axios

A majority of President Trump's coalition backs solar power, especially if the panels are U.S.-made without Chinese materials, polling shared exclusively with Axios' Ben Geman shows. Why it matters: The Trump administration is making it harder and more expensive to build renewable energy projects. 📊 By the numbers: Top Trump strategist Tony Fabrizio's firm — Fabrizio, Lee & Associates — polled what it calls a "GOP+" sample of Republicans, GOP-leaning independents, and Trump voters. 51% favored utility-scale solar (large plants feeding electricity into the grid), while 30% oppose it. Support soars to 70% if the panels are made in domestic factories, using U.S. materials. 68% agree with the statement: "[W]e need all forms of electricity generation, including utility solar, to be built to lower electricity costs." Keep reading.

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🎙️ MAGA media's great unraveling

Photo illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Photos: Getty Images The architects of MAGA's media empire are in open revolt against President Trump, disgusted by his threat to destroy Iran's "whole civilization," Axios' Zachary Basu writes. Why it matters: At the start of Trump's second term, his coalition of podcasters, streamers and activists was unified, powerful and certain. They had just delivered him the White House and believed he would deliver for them. Now the movement's most powerful voices are working to keep Trump in check if not bring him down outright, accusing him of betraying the "America First" promises that built the movement. 🔬 Zoom in: Each defection, taken alone, could be dismissed. Together, they could represent an existential threat to MAGA: Tucker Carlson delivered a 43-minute monologue Monday framing Trump's Iran rhetoric as morally corrupt and even "evil." He expressed personal outrage at Trump's Easter post threatening to bring "hell" to Iran. Marjorie Taylor Greene, once among Trump's most devoted GOP allies in Congress, called his rhetoric "evil and madness" yesterday and demanded his removal via the 25th Amendment. Candace Owens, another disillusioned Trump loyalist with millions of podcast followers, called the president a "genocidal lunatic." Between the lines: The revolt extends beyond MAGA purists, to the constellation of podcasters, comedians and "manosphere" influencers who helped Trump with younger, less ideological voters in 2024 including Joe Rogan, Theo Von, Tim Dillon and Sneako. 🐘 Reality check: The criticisms above are almost entirely from MAGA's elite influencer class — people with large platforms and strong opinions. Rank-and-file Republican voters tell a different story: Roughly two-thirds of Republicans still express confidence in Trump's handling of Iran, even as broader public trust has eroded, according to a new Wall Street Journal poll.

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MAGA feuds

The right-wing media ecosystem that has long served as a useful bullhorn for President Donald Trump unraveled into disarray this week over the war with Iran. Some of his most prominent allies squabbled publicly, and the president labeled them “losers.” ps:If you recall he's already called them losers in his interviews with Bob Woodward and also if you recall he didn't have much better to say about Christians either!! But it seems no remembers all the insults, not because they don't want to, but because they want to!!!!!

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🤖 Scoop: MAGA allies tell Trump to vet AI

Photo illustration: Lindsey Bailey/Axios. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

A group of more than 60 loyal allies of President Trump is urging him to test and approve the most powerful AI models before they're released, according to a new letter shared first with Axios' Ashley Gold. Why it matters: The letter — signed by Steve Bannon and conservative anti-AI activists Amy Kremer and Brendan Steinhauser — puts a vocal faction of the MAGA base at odds with the White House's hands-off approach to AI. Bannon, a first-term Trump official who hosts the influential "War Room" podcast, has been warning MAGA for more than a year about possible job devastation from AI. "This letter takes us next level," Bannon tells Axios. "The letter lays out we must have mandatory testing and government approval." The letter — organized by Humans First, a conservative group whose tagline is "technology should serve humans … not replace them" — compares AI to nuclear systems and aviation. Read the letter, see the signers ...

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MAGA Exiles Declare War on Trump: ‘He Betrayed Us All’

“There’s going to be a third party, and I’m going to do everything I can to bring that about,” Tucker Carlson vowed.

More trouble is brewing for Republicans in the midterm elections as a crew of high-profile Donald Trump defectors announced they’re joining forces to launch a new political “movement” to oppose the current president and his supporters.

Trump “betrayed us all,” former Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted on X Saturday, alongside a photo of the newly organized Trump opposition team meeting in Tucker Carlson’s hunting lodge-like Maine home.

“We said no more foreign wars and we meant it and supported Donald Trump because he made that promise. But he’s betrayed us all,” Greene continued. “Our commitment is America First for all Americans, right, left, and center. The movement has begun.”

The post was seen by more than 5.5 million people and racked up nearly 10,000 comments, with some defending Trump and others attacking him.

Several comments wondered why Trump’s supporters could have been so delusional to begin with. “Everything Trump said was a lie,” noted one response. “The only good question is why anyone believed him in the first place??”

“You’re a fraud… a terrible judge of character,” another tweeted to Greene. “Why should anyone listen to your assessments on anything now?”

Kentucky GOP Rep. Thomas Massie, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center Joe Kent, and Greene’s conservative journalist husband, Brian Glenn—whom she married just days ago in Las Vegas—were among those at the gathering.

Greene, who resigned from Congress in January following several high-profile clashes with Trump, had hinted earlier about starting a new political movement or party that would attract activists from both the “right and the left.”

Carlson told the Columbia Journalism Review last month: “There’s going to be a third party, and I’m going to do everything I can to bring that about.” He has apologized to his followers for previously backing Trump.

In a scathing Bloomberg interview with journalist Mishal Husain in July, Carlson blamed the “weak” president for tying the U.S. to a no-win war with Iran simply to serve Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s drive for regime change in the Middle East.

Kent resigned his position in March because of Trump’s war, saying in a statement then: “Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”

Massie lost his primary race after clashing with Trump over the war and the administration’s refusal to release all the Epstein files.

Trump has called Greene a “traitor,” Carlson a “low IQ person,” Kent a “sleazebag,” and Massie “weak and pathetic.”

New movements challenging the two-party system typically struggle. Yet this new movement could siphon votes away from Republicans in the midterms, which are already expected to be difficult for the GOP.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/maga-exiles-marjorie-taylor-greene-and-tucker-carlson-declare-war-on-trump-he-betrayed-us-all/?