The key narratives political creators are driving about Iran
Rubio creates a rift, evangelicals prepare for rapture, Charlie Kirk remains a reference + tons more
I’m not a conspiratorial person, except for one thing: If I go on vacation, you can bet your ass an unprecedented news event will go down.
We had a decent sense going into last weekend that something simmered in Iran by way of the Situation Room — or, more accurately, the makeshift, curtain-walled, analog, baseball hat-topped, JD Vance-less, Mar-a-Lago Situation … Fort. Of the children’s bedsheet variety. So, consider me unsurprised upon receiving the notification that war had begun.
On the way home, my boyfriend asked if I felt stressed facing the surely daunting twin tasks that are #1: getting up to speed on the facts of a massive geopolitical story while also #2: cataloguing the unsettled inflections of political creators driving opinion online.
Fortunately for me (and you!), my experience in slaying that particular two-headed beast is exactly why I started this Substack. And because of the nature of our subject matter today, you’re gonna get a look at how my brain sorts key creator factions in real time. (The usual haranguing will return later this week.)
BELITTLE MARCO
The topline: Sec. of State Marco Rubio trotted out in front of the press Monday afternoon with the same combative energy — “I don’t understand what the confusion is” — exhibited by most of the administration throughout the weekend.
The statement:
“The president made the very wise decision. We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action, we knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties … and then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn’t act.”
The post: The Rapid Response 47 account will only clip and amplify an admin official’s statement if it 100% aligns with the White House’s narrative. When they posted this soundbite from Rubio, it served as a direct endorsement of this version of the story — that Israel was the precipitating force, not Iran. The post has 14M views on its own, with millions more accumulating on the backs of outraged quote tweets.
The reaction: Our Recount team made a great video summing up the response from key voices on the right like Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly. I’ll add some color from across the spectrum, right to left:
Ian Carroll, Candace collaborator: “We’re at war for Israel confirmed 👍 So how about them Epstein files 🤔”
Bradley Martyn, Manosphere podcaster: “So Isreal determines what the US does” (yes, that is his typo)
Piers Morgan, host: “What? So the ‘preemptive threat’ was based on prior knowledge that (presumably) Israel was going to attack Iran? This is nuts.”
Saagar Enjeti, Breaking Points host: “3 days ago it was an antisemitic conspiracy theory to say Israel was dragging the US into war with Iran. Today the Secretary of State said Israel was going to strike no matter what and that the US had to join the war”
Michael McFaul, former Amb. to Russia: “An alternative course of action would have been to persuade the Israelis not to strike.”
Matthew Yglesias, Slow Boring : “Israel made us do it” is just an absurd thing to say — and can’t possibly be true anyways.”
The Crooked Media crew: Ben Rhodes, Dan Pfeiffer, Jon Favreau all weighed in echoing the same sentiments
Michael Paarlberg, former Bernie advisor: “Can’t remember another time in history that an imperial power publicly admitted it lets a client state dictate its foreign policy”
Mehdi Hasan, Zeteo: “This is the most insane and absurd definition of an ‘imminent threat’ I have ever heard in my life. Our ally and proxy, Israel, that we arm and fund, was about to illegally attack Iran so we joined in the attack because that illegal attack would have led to an attack on us”
A deeper look: Matt Walsh, who I view as the furthest-right host at The Daily Wire, was displeased before the Rubio comment: “The idea that we are obligated to just assume it’s a good move because Trump decided to do it is asinine” + “The messaging on this thing is, to put it mildly, confused.”
His take on Rubio: “This is basically the worst possible thing he could have said.”
His take on Netanyahu discussing Iran’s nuclear capabilities on Fox: “It cannot be the case that the program was both obliterated and also close to being “immune” to attack. That is a logical impossibility … It makes no sense.”
OPPORTUNITY CROSS
I never expected the Rapture to be such a frequent topic of Who Broke It. And as much as that sentence has a total “lol” undercurrent, its truth is a testament to the dominance of religious influence in our government right now. Evangelicals inhabit a very unique state of mind in all this chaos. A type of calm reserved only for the armageddon-awaiters among us.
The topline: Many prominent evangelical influencers view the war in Iran as the perfect opportunity to spread the word of Jesus, and some have jerryrigged this series of events to align with the prophetic calendar that delivers believers to heaven (through the Middle East).
Trump’s spiritual advisor Paula White reposted a clip going viral on their side of the internet, featuring a now-deceased South African “prophet” Kim Clement predicting in 2015 that “hundreds of thousands of Christians will be free in Iran.”1
The prayers:
Allie Beth Stuckey, queen of the modern tradwives: “Pray that the gospel spreads like wildfire throughout the nation and the Middle East.”
The Gospel Coalition, popular new-age church: Praying for “opportunities for Christians to show non-believers that we are seeking a city that is to come.”
Rasma Sedra, part of a megachurch influencer family: “Every knee will bow. Whether they like it or not, every tongue is going to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”
Janet Parshall, syndicated Christian radio host: “What an opportunity for the Gospel.”
Sean Feucht, controversial Christian singer2 whose team of missionaries is facing an onslaught of missiles in Iraq: “We know that God has called them to be there for such a time as this … God’s gonna use them to reveal a kingdom that cannot be shaken.”
A deeper look: Greg Laurie, a very popular former leader of a megachurch currently being sued for sexually abusing and trafficking children, posted a YouTube video laying the end times out.
“Iran is not simply a political talking point. It’s “a land of biblical significance” that’s “considered a major player in end times prophecy.”
His view is based on the biblical Battle of Gog and Magog, the latter of which he interprets to be modern-day Russia
The order of events is as follows: the Rapture, the rise of the Anti-Christ, seven years of tribulation, the Battle of Armageddon, the second coming of Christ, then the millennial reign of Christ, then heaven and Earth become one
A TURNING POINT, BUT WHICH WAY?
Here’s a thought I had as I dove deep into the continued Charlie Kirk Of It All: At some point, our politics will move into places unreachable by his finite stockpile of opinions. When will the day come when the entire right-wing won’t be able to retroactively attribute a political stance to him beyond the grave? Who knows. How will his followers cope with that sadness? We’ll find out.3
But his TPUSA cohort seems to have more than enough to work with for now, as their founder’s name is being invoked everywhere I look. Pro-Iran intervention or anti. There’s truly something for everyone.
He would’ve loved this: The less-flashy names that sit atop the bill on Turning Point’s various media programs have mostly fallen into this camp. They’ve used a video from two years ago to anchor their argument, sharing it on both the TPUSA and Kirk’s personal account. I wonder who is running that. Erika? Maybe.
Tyler Bowyer, COO TPUSA: Charlie wouldn’t have turned on the President.
Mikey McCoy, Chief of Staff: To use his voice to actually cause chaos ... to cause hatred of President Trump ... it’s not what he would want
*The comments on both of the posts heavily disagree
He would’ve hated this: Are you really surprised to find Candace Owens in this category? She shares a video of Kirk from last year railing against the idea of regime change.
Owens adds, he “was the one person who stood between Trump and war last year” after convincing Trump “it would ruin his legacy.”
Ends with: That’s why Trump and Bibi “colluded to have that obstacle eventually removed.”
MONITORING THESE SITUATIONS:
Trump has been shopping war timelines around to different media outlets (insane)
The White House put out a video set to the tune of The Beach Boys “Barbara Ann” with the lyrics changed to “Bomb Iran” (insane)
Andrew Tate continues to post his usual barefoot Dubai debauchery content, except now with the added element of missiles flying around
Sana Saeed (a great follow) put together a thread of Gulf influencers making some state propaganda content about safety, mainly in UAE4
Kalshi is reminding its bettors that they don’t do payouts for death, so …
Wagers before Khamenei died will be paid out on the “last-traded price before his death”
They will “fully reimburse your cost of entry” for wagers post-death
Two things I’m monitoring from Dems: many using the phrase “war of choice” (Buttigieg, Ossoff) and some starting to tie the war to affordability (Gallego, Garcia)
#SendBarron going to super viral across platforms, including Truth Social — a South Park writer made a whole website in support of drafting him (insane)
TX Gov. Greg Abbott with a tough tweet and delete, after thinking that a video from WWII video game “War Thunder” was footage from Iran
This note from a top CENTCOM officer to the 50,000 troops involved in the Iran attack is worth reading
LOOSE ENDS:
📝 Word I learned today: avuncular
1 : suggestive of an uncle especially in kindliness or geniality — see reference here
📰 Something you should read today:
🕵️ Someone you should know today: Patrick Bet-David, podcast host + business leader
First place I headed when I heard the news break, because of his perspective as an Iranian expat with a close relationship to Trump
End of recording, reports that it was the biggest livestream on YouTube that hour, with 500k viewers joining over an hour
Mentions something Trump said to him in the past about the need for “staying fluid” on missions, views Trump as being much stronger on this than in July operation
Tried to thread the needle between being vaguely anti-war and ecstatic over the move
Yesterday reported that former Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s team had reached out to him directly to report that he’s still alive — huge proof of the outsized role creators are taking in covering this story
🥹 Something to make you smile today: To my absolute elation, I discovered that Mexico provides a home to these bizarre and adorable raccoon lemur things called coati. I didn’t get a photo of the one we saw but … amazing.
There is so much to unpack about this Kim Clement … found some good stuff in this old Reddit post — of specific interest to me was his relationship with Trump ally Lance Wallnau
It apparently will not include consulting Erika
Interesting tidbit here: the majority of those videos are set to a remix/cover of Papaoutai, a song every French speaking person will know. It’s about Stromae losing his father in the Rwandan genocide … which makes it a bizarre choice to retrofit to videos glorifying the leaders of Gulf nations