WASHINGTON (Dispatches) -- “Mossad agents” and “warmongers” are pushing the U.S. into a conflict with the Islamic Republic of Iran, some of U.S. President Donald Trump’s closest media allies and supporters say. 
Last week, conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson featured a senior Pentagon official who he claimed was ousted because he was seen as an obstacle to hostile U.S. measures against Iran.
Dan Caldwell, a top advisor to Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, was removed from earlier this month on charges that he allegedly leaked classified information about Hegseth’s use of a Signal chat, according to several media outlets.
Not so by Carlson’s telling, who has unparalleled access to Trump.
“You did make maybe one career mistake by giving on-the-record interviews describing your foreign policy views…that are out of the mainstream among warmongers in Washington,” Carlson said to Caldwell, adding, “Then I read all of a sudden that you are a traitor.”
On Sunday, another conservative podcaster, Clayton Morris, a former Fox News anchor, said pro-Israel voices were “working overtime” to destroy the “anti-war team” that Trump has assembled at the Pentagon.
“We’ve learned here at Redacted that former Israeli Mossad agents are working overtime on social media and behind the scenes trying to discredit Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth,” Morris said, referring to his show. He didn’t name the so-called former agents. 
Trump’s administration is divided between more traditional Republicans like U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national security advisor Mike Waltz, and “America First” isolationists like White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
Some of Trump’s most vocal defenders in the media, who exercise
 unprecedented influence in communicating his worldview, are media figures like Carlson and former advisor Steve Bannon.
The firing of Caldwell and two other senior Pentagon officials appears to have energized America First isolationists. Their slamming of the pro-Israel voices and former Mossad agents is unprecedented within the Republican Party. It reflects just how far Trump has taken the party from its traditionally hawkish worldview. 
Pro-Trump media personalities have singled out Merav Ceren, who was nominated to head Iran and Israel at the White House National Security Council, for criticism. 
Ceren was born in Haifa, and worked in the Israeli war ministry. On his show, Morris, who co-hosted a Fox morning news show with Hegseth, said that, “Neo-con Mike Waltz has now hired basically a dual citizen and former IDF official to work under him.”
The coverage reflects a growing trend in the U.S. to view Israel with skepticism, which has intensified since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 operation in southern settlements, which sparked the Israeli invasion of Gaza and a simmering war. 
According to a Pew Poll published in April, 53 percent of Americans now express an unfavorable opinion of Israel, up from 42 percent in March 2022.
The shift in negative sentiment has been notable among young Republicans under 50, who are more likely to tune into podcasts like Morris’s Redacted and Carlson’s show.
The criticism comes as Trump tries to square his muscular foreign policy instincts with his pledge to refrain from starting new Middle East wars. On Iran, Trump’s closest envoys have been left contradicting themselves. 
Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy who has emerged as his go-to global troubleshooter, suggested earlier this month that Washington would allow Iran to enrich uranium at low levels. After backlash from pro-Israel voices, he flipped, saying that Tehran “must stop and eliminate” its nuclear enrichment program fully.
This week, Secretary Rubio said the U.S. could re-enter a deal that sees Iran keep a civilian nuclear program - so long as it halts enrichment, and instead ships it in from abroad. 
American and Iranian technical teams met in Oman on Saturday for their third round of talks. Trump told reporters on Monday that the talks are going “very well” and that “a deal is going to be made there”.
“We’ll have something without having to start dropping bombs all over the place,” he said.