MAGA backlashes after Hegseth announces Qatar Air Force site in Idaho

quote, betrayed fierce backlash tonight from the MAGA base after this surprising announcement with great fanfare from the Trump administration.

I'm also proud that today we're announcing or signing a letter of acceptance to build a Qatari Amiri Air Force facility at the Mountain Home Air Base in Idaho. The location will be host a contingent of Qatari F-15s and pilots to enhance our combined training, increase lethality, interoperability.

He's sitting next to a member of the Qatari royal family there, just to be clear. It's an announcement that caught everyone off guard. The administration green-lighting a plan for Qatar to build an Air Force facility in Idaho. And Trump's base is livid about it. Far-right activist Laura Loomer, who has Trump's ear,

highly influential in MAGA world, lashing out. One of her posts, she says, what the hell is going on? Why are we trying to train more Muslims how to fly planes

on U.S. soil? Didn't we already learn our lesson? Why are we encouraging more Islamic infiltration of our country by the founders of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood? This is very bad for our national security." And by the way, she had a lot more where that came from.

Laura Loomer, in fact, has fired off about 40 more posts on X, slamming the decision. 40 posts on this today. Watch them populate the screen. They're mad. At one point, writing,

this is where I draw the line. I am not voting in 2026. And then Steve Bannon came out and told Newsweek there should never be a military base of a foreign power on the sacred soil of America. Now to clarify, Qatari is building a facility to house a squadron of F-15 pilots and teams. I mean that's a lot of Qatari military personnel on an existing U.S. base. And maybe there are serious

security concerns with that, but there are concerns. There are when it comes to corruption. For one, this is the same country that gifted Trump

the luxury jet. Remember the jet? Reported price tag on it was $400 million. The jet that Trump wants to use as Air Force One, right? That was Qatar. And by the way, when it comes to money,

because it always does, Trump's family and the Qataris are business partners now. Eric Trump recently unveiled plans for a new golf course and a beachside resort in Qatar. And Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has raised billions of dollars

from several Middle Eastern countries, including Qatar. Qatar is also central to Trump's Middle East crypto strategy, which is now the bulk of his net worth. He helped make his children billionaires. Most recently, Qatar also made sure to stay in Trump's good graces by rolling out the red carpet for the president during his visit as president. Fighter jets escorted Air Force One into the airspace of Qatar. On the ground, the spectacle had cybertrucks, horses, and camels. A welcome for a royal.

But on top of all of that, there is this. Trump just signed an executive order defending Qatar's security, giving NATO-level security guarantees to Qatar.

Which, by the way, just to be clear about what that could mean, I mean, it should be obvious, but I guess I should also note that Qatar has been hit with missiles from Iran and Israel, both in the past three months. It's an incredible series of events. I mean, by the way, in any case, it's an incredible series of events to lay all that out.

I can't even believe I'm saying it, and this is real, but it is. Trump actually said in the past on the record about the Qataris before they showered him with gifts and money.

The nation of Qatar, unfortunately, has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level.

And that right there is a big part of why MAGA is breaking with Trump over this Qatari Air Force facility in the state of Idaho. But by the way, this is not the only crack splitting the MAGA world. This was today, but Joe Rogan has spoken out, tearing into Trump's immigration policy.

Let's just talk about the immigration thing. The way it looks is horrific. It looks, when you're just arresting people in front of their kids and just normal, regular people that have been here for 20 years, that — everybody who has a heart can't get along with that. No. Everybody who has a heart sees that and goes, that can't be right.

That can't be right. That can't be the only way to do this.

Tucker Carlson going after the administration for using Charlie Kirk's assassination to try to silence critics.

Because if they can tell you what to say, they're telling you what to think. There is nothing they can't do to you because they don't consider you human. They don't believe you have a soul.

And when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein, Marjorie Taylor Greene slamming a statement by the White House that labeled any support for the release of the Epstein files as a, quote, hostile act.

The hostile act has been against these women for so many years now. The hostile act is covering up for Jeffrey Epstein and everyone else that's been involved

in this. And that's been involved in this.

And that's the real Hostile Act.

Kristen Holmes is out front live outside the White House. And you know, Kristen, obviously we're putting in the context of so many issues where there are fault lines. But tonight, real, real anger in MAGA world about this latest announcement. What are you learning?

Yeah, there is real anger about that. I do want to talk about the cracks overall, because I actually think what we just learned moments ago, which is not about the Air Force base, but actually about these federal worker layoffs, is going to cause real strain on the relationship

between the administration and a lot of Republicans on Capitol Hill, because we've just learned in a court filing that more than 4,000 federal workers were laid off today. And just to give you an idea of what that looks like, it's about 315 workers at the Department of Commerce, 466 workers at the Department of Education, 187 at the Department of Energy.

That list goes on and on. A couple of things to point out here. There were already reservations among Republicans as to how this shutdown was being handled. We have heard them speak out about it, the fact that the House has not been called into session, the fact that these workers' pay was being threatened. We heard President Trump saying some workers didn't deserve to get paid, and at one point saying they were going to look at the law differently, the law he signed in 2019, to

say that they wouldn't have to pay those furloughed workers. But now you have a complete restructuring of the federal workforce. Of course, we know that the president has extended powers during a government shutdown, but it's really unprecedented to use this – use them in this way to restructure the government essentially in your image, because what we know from Russell Voth, the head of the Office of Management and Budget, and from President Trump is that they want to cut Democratic

programs. They want to cut programs that don't align with President Trump. And now we're learning how many people lost their jobs just today. And that was a real point of contention for a lot of Republicans. They didn't like the threats about money. They didn't like the threats of layoffs. And now you're seeing the actual layoffs.

And how this impacts the framing of this shutdown is really going to be what's interesting to watch because it does not seem as though any side is backing down, even though you've got watch because it does not seem as though any side is backing down, even though you've got this real uneasiness among Republicans when it comes to this kind of behavior.