A familiar cast of Hollywood liberals has rushed to denounce President Donald Trumps military strikes on Iran, reacting with fury to an operation that appears to have eliminated the regimes Islamist supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
According to Breitbart, many of the usual entertainment-world activists immediately defaulted to their preferred political refrain: impeachment. Impeach the SOB, horror novelist Stephen King declared on social media, echoing the same hostility he has directed at Trump for years. Actress Mia Farrow chimed in with her own blunt demand, writing, Mad man in the WH [White House] / Impeach Trump, a post she published just minutes before casually sharing her Wordle puzzle results on Bluesky.
Rosie ODonnell, who has long fantasized about leaving the United States over Republican presidents, resurfaced to circulate old Trump quotes about peace, pairing them with a familiar accusation. [H]e lies only and always #impeachtrump, she wrote, using the Iran strikes as yet another pretext to revive the impeachment narrative that failed to remove Trump from office. The tone from these entertainers suggested less a sober assessment of foreign policy than a reflexive, almost ritualistic denunciation of a president they have opposed from the moment he entered politics.
Another recurring theme among the celebrity critics centered on the recently released Epstein files from the Department of Justice, which include both lurid, unverified claims about Trump from non-credible sources and, more inconveniently for the left, primary documents showing Epsteins inner circle expressing open contempt for the populist president and investigators confirming that Trump cooperated with law enforcement in the 2006 probe of the notorious sex trafficker.
Actor John Cusack tried to tie the Iran operation directly to those disclosures, branding the strikes a wag the dog war to distract from Epstein and to do Netenyahu s [sic] bidding. The suggestion that a major U.S. military action was launched merely to divert attention from court documents reflects a conspiratorial mindset that has become common in progressive circles.
Comedienne Kathy Griffin, still best known politically for posing with a mock severed Trump head, shared a meme that read: Trumps response to his name being cited in the Epstein files 38,000 times Bomb Iran. The meme, however, omits that the bulk of those references are automated news alerts to Epsteins inbox, not evidence of wrongdoing, a nuance that undercuts the narrative but did not slow its spread. Producer, actor, and podcaster Tim Heidecker went further, posting a video in which he sarcastically proclaimed: Its good to be able to move on from any indication that the president is a pedophile who raped underage girls in the not too distant past.
Actor Diedrich Bader, of Office Space fame, added his own dramatic flourish on BlueSky, invoking the Iraq War as a parallel. Remember that time there was part of a file so incriminating it wasnt redacted[;] it disappeared and then we went to war? Thats now, he wrote, implying a shadowy cover-up without offering any evidence. The Epstein fixation allowed these entertainers to recycle old accusations and conspiracy theories while ignoring the documented record that Trump had, in fact, aided investigators years before entering the White House.
A separate cluster of celebrity reactions focused on Israel, casting Trumps Iran policy as little more than a proxy effort on behalf of the Jewish state. We are at war because Netanyahu told Trump to crush them. Israel has long wanted to dominate Iran, Mia Farrow asserted, adding, Make no mistake, this is not about nukes and its not for America. Disney-Marvel actor Mark Ruffalo similarly claimed that Trump dispatched his Jewish son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to negotiate with Tehran to make sure we went to war, a remark that played into long-standing progressive suspicions about both Israel and Kushners role in Middle East diplomacy.
Other entertainers opted for a more generic anti-war or anti-Trump posture, recycling talking points that have been standard on the left since the early 2000s. Two and a Half Men star Jon Cryer mocked the administrations stated objectives, writing: But but I was told that Donald Trump had obliterated Irans nuclear program. What are they preventing? Actress Daryl Hannah, known for Kill Bill, offered a glib slogan instead of analysis, quipping: oxymoron much / indefinite bombing for peace.
Some performers tried to redirect the outrage toward broader geopolitical targets while still blaming the United States. Buckaroo Banzai actress Ellen Barkin wrote on X: Unfortunately this regime change war is focused on the wrong regime, a line that leaves little doubt she views the Trump administration as the true villain. The White Lotus star Carrie Coon added a somber note, remarking: Department of War. They werent kidding about that, a jab at the Pentagon that ignores the constitutional responsibility of the federal government to defend American interests.
CNN host and comedian Michael Ian Black, who has used his platform to push progressive politics, responded with a series of sardonic posts that evoked the Iraq invasion. And now, surely, they will greet us as liberators Hang the Mission Accomplished banner, folks! he wrote, suggesting that any U.S. action in the Middle East is inherently doomed and illegitimate. Duncan Jones, director of Warcraft and son of David Bowie, reduced Trumps motives to crude self-interest, speculating that the presidents primary concern was his cut of oil revenues from Iran.
Even within the left, some entertainers turned their fire on fellow progressives who flirted with the idea of regime change in Tehran. Bill & Teds Excellent Adventure star Alex Winter scolded those on his own side, declaring: Anyone talking about regime change, no matter how much they criticize this admin in the process, is a complicit child murderer. Ethan Embry of That Thing You Do! adopted a more emotional tone on BlueSky, writing: I feel sick. This deeply saddens me. The horror we allow the broken men who lead us to commit. The direction this could easily go. If the world didnt flinch from our most recent atrocities, Im afraid of what that means we will allow to happen now.
The reaction was not confined to adult entertainers; even childrens content creators weighed in. Kids YouTube star Ms. Rachel posted a stark white image on Instagram bearing the words: Stop killing kids, and elaborated in the caption: Cant we all agree in this life not to kill children? I HAVE said the Iranian government needs to stop killing children, too everyone, everywhere stop killing, starving, bombing, taking kids hostage & violating childrens human rights. Her message, while couched in universal terms, implicitly equated the actions of a terrorist-sponsoring regime with those of a U.S. administration responding to threats.
Some celebrities descended into near-stream-of-consciousness tirades that blended grievances, buzzwords, and non sequiturs. On Threads, Kathy Griffin previewed the Trump-Epstein meme she later posted on Instagram with a jumble of accusations and references that ended with an inexplicable nod to the American heartland: Trumpstein files. Ice ABDUCTIONS & MURDERS. Cuba. Gaza. Midterms. Compromised SCOTUS. Kansas. Rock musician Jack White posted one of the lengthiest rants, pairing a screenshot of Trumps video announcing the operation with a sneering commentary on the presidents appearance and motives: Dont you love seeing him declare war on a country while wearing a trucker hat that says USA on it? Behold the leader of the Board of Peace. For the next war announcement donny, may I suggest having your feet up on the Resolute desk while eating a Big Mac in a velvet track suit? Venezuela, Greenland, Iran, Cuba, whats the difference right? don jr. and barron wont have to fight or die, just other peoples children, soinvade and bomb away! New sign ups for the board of peace starting at one billion dollars! Can you believe donny hasnt received a real Nobel Peace Prize yet? Unfair! Maybe in his third term hell get one.
While Hollywood and the progressive entertainment class largely responded with outrage, sarcasm, and conspiracy theories, the political reaction on the left was more complicated. Several Democrat lawmakers, including Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), Rep. Don Davis (D-NC), and Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH), have publicly praised the Trump administrations actions, signaling that even within the presidents opposition party there is recognition of the threat posed by Irans Islamist regime.
Their stance underscores a reality that many celebrities seem unwilling to acknowledge: whatever their personal animus toward Trump, the United States retains both the right and the responsibility to confront hostile actors abroad, and serious policymakers cannot afford to treat national security as just another stage for partisan performance.
Login