On Deadline: White House, Angelo Carusone discusses the “confusion and chaos” playing out in right-wing media over the Iran war
Carusone: “They don’t really have clarity as to what the goal and the objective is”
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From the March 31, 2026, edition of MS NOW's Deadline: White House
NICOLLE WALLACE (HOST): I guess the other problem, Angelo, with the ground invasion is it's not clear what they would do. I mean, the Iran deal, much maligned by Republicans, was about the nuclear program. Marco Rubio's list of objectives didn't even talk about it. Marco Rubio there said, "We are there for the destruction of the navy. We are there for the destruction of the factories where they make weapons, and we are there for a reduction in missile launchers." Those are the stated military objectives. Trump is talking about troops on the ground and it doesn't even align with what the secretary of state articulates as the objectives of the war that's ongoing.
ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): Yeah, and I think that, you know, this latest round of escalating critiques from newer voices -- even Bannon is beginning to say some things that are waffling. But the Ingraham thing comes at a very specific time that we can't ignore the context of, because it gets to your question, which is that it comes right after he does an announcement telling everybody to watch Fox News' Mark Levin, who gets out there and makes a very vigorous case as to why, you know, boots on the ground, troops need to be sent into Iran to secure all the nuclear material and then get out.
And Trump tells everybody to watch this, and that to me is the catalyst for this latest round of critique, and it gets to the point that you were all discussing before about trying to walk him back or stop him from doing this. The mere fact that he said, hey everybody, watch this thing because it explains the thing I'm really thinking about doing, was a warning shot to everybody, like, maybe we need to start being more, you know, aggressive about pushing back against Mark Levin.
And then it gets to this broader issue that you're seeing play out, and this is one of the sharp critiques that Megyn Kelly has, is they don't really have clarity as to what the goal and the objective is because what Trump is saying is really different than what you laid out from Marco Rubio, and it's really different from what the right-wing media wants, and it's certainly very different from what Pete Hegseth wants, who's the single biggest cheerleader of this. And I think that is partly what Ingraham was trying to play on as well. But it is leading to the chaos, to the confusion.
The last thing I'll just say is that part of the benefit that Trump has had, we've talked about this, is that he has this massive media machine that can backfill or carry the narrative for him, but even if they were all in sync, they still couldn't do that under these circumstances. Even if they fully agree that this was a good thing, they couldn't do it because there is not even the slightest bit of consensus as to what story they're even telling right now, and Trump is the center of that confusion and chaos.