Stephen Caraway, 40, was driving house in Ohio on Saturday evening when he noticed the information that america struck three Iranian nuclear websites.
Caraway, a Republican who voted for Donald Trump in 2024, applauded the president on his “decisive management.”
“I’m actually happy with our army and grateful that the operation was successful and everyone seems to be secure,” he instructed ABC Information hours after the assault.
ABC Information interviewed greater than a half dozen People who voted for Trump within the 2024 presidential election after U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear websites on Saturday however earlier than Iran launched missiles at Qatar on Monday, concentrating on the American Al-Udeid Air Base.
President Donald Trump and Secretrary of State Marco Rubio within the Scenario Room, on the White Home in Washington, June 21, 2025.
@WhiteHouse/X
Most, like Caraway, indicated help for the U.S. strikes, referred to as Operation Midnight Hammer, and stated they trusted Trump to guard and pursue American pursuits, together with stopping Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, whereas retaining the U.S. out of a chronic regional battle.
“I’m not involved a couple of long-term struggle, as a result of President Trump is not going to put up with it,” Caraway defined.
In a Washington Publish ballot performed Wednesday, 46% of Trump voters stated they’d help airstrikes, with 26% opposed and 28% not sure.
All through the 2024 marketing campaign, Trump touted that he was “the one president in generations who didn’t begin a struggle” and pointed to the necessity to keep away from participating in “endless wars” — a pledge that some non-interventionist Republican leaders have now accused him of betraying.
Whereas many Republicans have praised Trump’s actions, some distinguished lawmakers and conservative figures against army motion continued to criticize the strikes on Monday.
“I didn’t sleep higher after neocons and warmongers talked this administration into coming into a sizzling struggle that Israel began,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., stated in an interview on former Trump strategist Steve Bannon’s “Battle Room” program Monday.
“MAGA is just not for international wars. We’re not for regime change. We’re for America First,” Greene stated.
This satellite tv for pc picture supplied by Maxar Applied sciences reveals a better view of craters and ash on a ridge at Fordo enrichment facility in Iran after U.S. strikes, June 22, 2025.
Satellite tv for pc picture 2025 Maxar Applied sciences
Two voters instructed ABC Information they have been disenchanted by Trump’s resolution to assault.
“Trump broke his promise,” stated Sean Savage, 81, from Illinois. “I’m fearful this might flip actually massive.”
Nevertheless, Savage nonetheless stood by his vote for Trump in 2024. “There was no different alternative for me. I like most of what Trump has finished, however that is one factor that I don’t approve,” he stated.
Different Trump voters instructed ABC Information they believed that the airstrikes ordered by Trump didn’t battle together with his America First agenda.
“I feel you may as well see it as placing our army pursuits and our international belongings and strategic pursuits first as effectively,” defined Andre Boccaccio, a 19-year-old from Arizona.
Trump “needs peace, and I feel our nation has to again him,” stated Lauren, a 59-year-old from California who declined to share her final identify.
Lauren additionally instructed ABC Information that Iran’s nuclear program may result in even higher threats to the U.S. sooner or later.
“Am I fearful for the long run? Effectively, sure. However I feel that if we do not disarm international locations which have the power to create harmful warfare … it may well escalate, and our nation and our progress can be in massive bother,” she stated.
Based on the Wednesday Washington Publish ballot, 22% of People seen Iran’s nuclear program as a right away and severe risk, and 48% noticed it as a considerably severe risk.
Elana Pritchard, a 43-year-old Texan, instructed ABC Information she noticed the weekend strikes as preventative, not provocative.
“I actually do assume that he was simply throwing a giant punch,” she stated. “They have been making an attempt to preemptively cease what may have been extra of an escalating disaster between Iran and Israel, which most likely would have dragged america into the battle anyway.”
Almost everybody contacted by ABC Information defended Trump’s resolution to proceed with out Congress’ approval, rejecting the argument made by a number of lawmakers that the army motion was unconstitutional.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Workers Air Pressure Gen. Dan Caine discusses the mission particulars of a strike on Iran throughout a information convention on the Pentagon, June 22, 2025 in Arlington, Virginia.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Photographs
“The method of declaring wars is outdated,” stated Ronald Barron, a 46-year-old voter from Georgia, saying that “it’ll be manner too late” by the point Congress completed voting.
“There is a very clear precedent that has been set by commanders-in-chief” who have to “act promptly and swiftly” to guard American security, stated Caraway, the Ohio Republican. “And let’s be trustworthy with each other, Congress would not do something promptly and swiftly.”
In the end, Trump’s supporters within the final election defaulted to trusting the president to do what was finest for the nation, with many pointing to the truth that he has entry to nationwide safety intelligence that almost all People aren’t aware about.
Whereas Boccaccio described the motion as “sudden,” he stated he believed “there’s a motive behind what we’re doing.”
Earlier than the strikes, Barron, the Georgia voter, instructed ABC Information that the Trump administration had been “horrible on the international aspect” within the early months of the president’s second time period, and described Trump’s calls for for Iran to give up final week as “warmongering.”
However in a followup interview after the strikes, he was extra optimistic about Trump’s technique.
“He is going about it in like a mafioso, “American Gangster”-type manner,” he stated. “For the final 150 years, they have been having firm guys which have been toeing the corporate line … So possibly we attempt one thing unconventional, one thing that is not even within the books, which may work.”
Freddie, a 65-year-old from Virginia, instructed ABC Information she had combined emotions concerning the assault, and whether or not Trump made the best name to order the strikes.
“I do not know what the leaders know, and I’m not meant to know what the leaders know, so I can solely wait and see,” she stated.
Both manner, she defined that her view of Trump was formed extra by his home agenda somewhat than the battle in Iran.
“When the struggle involves your soil, you get a bit of bit extra concerned in it,” Freddie elaborated. “However that’s midway around the globe. It’s simple for me to say I do not care about that.”
