Democrats Claim 'America First' From Trump on Iran
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- Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive Michigan Senate candidate who campaigned with Bernie Sanders and AOC last weekend, called himself "the most America First candidate in the country, proudly," framing the label as keeping U.S. money at home rather than funding foreign wars.
- Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), weighing a 2028 White House run, has used the phrase — reintroducing a gasoline export ban bill in April and declaring on the House floor in February that "another war in the Middle East is not America First."
- Dan Osborn, a union leader running for Senate in Nebraska as an independent against the GOP incumbent, wrote Friday that the U.S. should be "putting America first, not Israel first" and warned against compromising military independence for "an untrustworthy" ally.
- Tucker Carlson, who introduced Trump at the 2024 Republican National Convention, lobbied the president against attacking Iran and has since apologized for "misleading people" about Trump — a notable right-wing defection on the war.
- Kamala Harris, weighing a 2028 bid, told Arkansas Democrats in April that public dollars should fund "affordable housing and healthcare and childcare, not...reckless foreign wars" — echoing Trump's own 2024 line against "stupid foreign wars."
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also considering 2028 bids, said at a Memphis event this month that "all that money we're spending on bombs abroad could be spent on schools right here."
- Sens. Mark Kelly and Cory Booker, both potential 2028 contenders, introduced the Make More in America Act in June to rebuild domestic manufacturing and "reduce our dependency on foreign adversaries" — extending the label's logic into industrial policy.
Why it matters: Trump's signature slogan is being claimed by his potential 2028 opponents as the Iran war alienates populist voters from both parties — at least four Democratic contenders have moved to embrace the label he once monopolized, and the article notes the politics that produced it now 'appear bipartisan, and here to stay.'
