Charlie Kirk thinks President Donald Trump’s recent bombings in Iran exposed the “greatest fault line” in the GOP.
Charlie Kirk thinks President Donald Trump’s recent bombings in Iran exposed the “greatest fault line” in the GOP.
While on “The Megyn Kelly Show” Wednesday, Kirk broke down turmoil he’s witnessed within the Republican Party following the weekend’s attack on Iran. While some, like Tucker Carlson, spoke out against any attack or escalation, Kirk remained a stalwart supporter of the president – while acknowledging foreign policy is the biggest divider on the right.
“There is no greater divide on the American right than foreign policy,” Kirk said. “It’s like we’re largely in agreement on immigration. We’re actually really in agreement on the trans stuff, but the greatest fault line of the conservative movement is foreign policy. And I was really worried that this was going to bring it to a very unpleasant moment.”
He continued: “Turns out, I was partially right, because no one has liked to see what we’ve seen on X the last week and a half, it’s just been seeing a lot of our friends fight. It’s been really kind of nasty. I’m taking a different tact, which is, let’s just keep it about ideas.”
Perhaps the biggest dust up about the escalation came from a conversation between Carlson and Ted Cruz last week. Carlson confronted the Texas senator about wanted to attack Iran without knowing much about the country.
“How many people live in Iran, by the way?” Carlson asked. “I don’t know the population at all … I don’t know the population,” Cruz replied.
“You don’t know the population in the country you seek to topple?” Carlson asked before clarifying that Iran currently has an estimated population of 92 million. “How could you not know that?”
“I don’t sit around memorizing population tables,” Cruz responded.
“Well, it’s kind of relevant, because you’re calling for the overthrow of the government,” Carlson retorted.
Kirk went on to add that some of the dissent came from younger voters. He explained to Kelly that they are tired of wars and worried Trump was putting the U.S. into the thick of things too much.
“Allow me to try to introduce one element, which is the younger voters that I represent on college campuses,” he said. “They are war weary. They don’t want foreign conflict. They don’t want foreign intervention, and so just please keep that in mind when you’re going about this.”
Watch the full segment, in which Kelly referred to the tensions as a mounting “civil war” within the Republican Party, below:
