Don Jr. Urged Trump Against Iran War, The Atlantic Reports

Donald Trump Jr. opposed his father's war with Iran from the day it started, and he told the president so, according to a report published Oct. 20 by The Atlantic.

Two people who have spoken directly with Trump Jr. about the conflict told the magazine he has criticized the military campaign over and over in private while saying nothing about it publicly. He made his position clear to his father when the war began, the report said.

"Don has kept his views on the subject private, as he would never publicly break with his dad on an issue like this, but I can't imagine anyone who knows Don would be surprised by his personal views on the subject," a person close to Trump Jr. told The Atlantic.

A spokesperson for Trump Jr. declined to comment to the magazine. The White House did not address his reported objections, though an official said in a statement that Iran "has been decimated, and one way or the other, the conflict in Iran will be over very soon."

The April 2024 post

In April 2024, with Iran launching attacks on Israel and Joe Biden still in office, Trump Jr. posted on X: "Remember when they said Trump would get us into a full-blown war with Iran?"

"Times like these should make us all realize how lucky we were to have Trump, his strength and his resolve," he wrote in the same post.

The war he was mocking as a fantasy of his father's critics broke out on Feb. 28 of this year. It has now run for close to eight months with no end in sight.

Trump Jr.'s skepticism of foreign intervention is not new. People familiar with his thinking described it to The Atlantic as a longstanding belief that the United States should stay out of another Middle East conflict, not a reaction to the polling. One source familiar with his opposition put it bluntly to the magazine: "Don Jr. is the most MAGA of them all."

The Charlie Kirk connection

Trump Jr. was one of the closest friends of Charlie Kirk, the Turning Point USA founder who was killed in September 2025, months before the war began.

Kirk had spent years warning Trump against starting a major conflict with Iran, The Daily Beast reported.

It is not clear whether the disagreement has strained the relationship between father and son. Neither the private conversations nor any resulting tension has been described publicly by either man.

Others in the coalition broke in public

Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson, both former loyalists, have since broken with the president over the war in public, questioning why an "America First" president teamed up with Israel in a conflict that has pulled U.S. service members overseas and driven up prices at home.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has gone further than most Republicans still in leadership. He publicly told Trump to "wrap it up" in Iran, and he started saying so as far back as July.

The polling that has Republicans sweating

A Pew Research Center poll released Oct. 8 found that 65 percent of Americans disapprove of the way Trump is handling the war in Iran.

Trump's overall approval rating hit 31 percent in a Reuters-Ipsos poll released Oct. 19, a record low for his presidency.

On Sept. 22, CNN political director David Chalian said on air, "This war is nothing short of a political disaster for Donald Trump." He pointed to polling showing approval of the president's handling of the conflict had slid from 33% in March to 26%, with a 13-point drop among Republicans.

Those numbers land two weeks before the Nov. 3 midterms, which is why the report about Trump Jr. landed the way it did. The president's eldest son is not a cabinet official who can be fired or a senator who can be primaried. He is family, and he is one of the loudest voices in the base his father built.

Gas prices are doing the political damage

Average gas prices had topped $4 a gallon on a record 158 days this year as of Oct. 14, according to GasBuddy, following the supply disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz.

The price surge pushed U.S. inflation to a three-year high of 4.2 percent in May. California's average stood at $6.26 a gallon on Oct. 14, AAA said.

Polling from Politico suggests the damage may already be locked in. Just 10 percent of undecided voters told Politico's pollsters that a $1 drop in gas prices would make them more likely to vote Republican, and 29 percent said it would make no real difference.

Trump says the job is almost finished

On Oct. 18, endorsing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of Israel's Oct. 27 elections, Trump said Iran had been "systematically destroyed, both militarily and financially," and that "we will soon finish the job."

A day later, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth traveled to Israel for a meeting with Netanyahu, Axios reported. Trump and Netanyahu are discussing the possibility of restarting strikes on Iran as the deadlock over the Strait of Hormuz drags on.

The administration has used nearly identical language for months. The official statement given in response to questions about Trump Jr. repeated it: Iran has been decimated, and the conflict will be over very soon.

Tehran is not acting like a deal is coming

Reuters reported Oct. 20, citing three senior Iranian officials and an Iranian insider, that Tehran expects another round of U.S. and Israeli strikes rather than negotiations.

"Iran is preparing for renewed Israeli and US attacks, not for a deal with America to end the war," one of the officials told Reuters. "The clerical establishment is determined not to give Trump a political victory."

An Iranian economist and political analyst cited by the news agency said the stalemate looks deliberate, timed to the American midterms. "Iran is influencing the US election without taking any unlawful action," the analyst said.

What Don Jr. has actually done in public

Nothing, which is the whole point of the story. Trump Jr. has not criticized the war on his podcast, on X, or at a rally. He has not signed on to the complaints from Greene or Carlson.

He remains a central part of the family-run political operation behind his 80-year-old father's second term, and the people who described his views to The Atlantic said he has no plan to go public with them.

That restraint is doing a lot of work. The anti-interventionist wing of the Republican coalition has spent months watching an "America First" president run an eight-month war in the Middle East while gas sits above $4. The president's son agrees with them, according to the people who have talked to him, and he is not going to say so out loud.

The war began Feb. 28. Voters go to the polls Nov. 3.