Peter Thiel, Major Trump Donor, Says in Leaked Lecture Audio the US 'Should Not Have Done' Iran War

Peter Thiel, the PayPal and Palantir co-founder and one of Donald Trump's earliest big-tech backers, says the United States should not have gone to war with Iran.

The remarks came at a private lecture in Nashville on Oct. 12. Decoded by POLITICO obtained the audio and published it Wednesday, Oct. 21.

"I'm skeptical of [the war], I think we should not have done it," Thiel said. "There were a lot of mistakes that were made."

He then questioned whether the country has the capacity to see it through. "Maybe we don't have the hard power. Maybe we're going to lose the soft power war."

Who Thiel is to this White House

Thiel backed Trump in 2016 and spoke at that year's Republican National Convention. He later financed the super PACs behind JD Vance's 2022 Senate run. Vance worked for Thiel's venture capital firm, and Thiel introduced Trump to his future running mate at Mar-a-Lago in 2021.

Vance himself voiced skepticism about a U.S. attack on Iran before the war began.

Politico described Thiel's comments as his most explicit public statements on the war to date. Thiel is 59.

Still backing Trump, with a warning about The Hague

Thiel did not walk away from the president. According to Politico's account of the lecture, he reiterated his support for Trump while attacking neoconservatives and U.S. military interventions in the Middle East.

Much of the lecture was about the International Criminal Court. Thiel spent time on what he called the court's unchecked power, drawing on Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.

He said he reads "the Cheney family's Trump derangement syndrome as an attempt to buy favor with the [International Criminal Court] and avoid prosecution. Probably too late."

Then he turned to the current administration. "I have come to suspect that the threat of an ICC arrest warrant is the sword of Damocles hanging over the Trump administration as it tries to persecute this war in Iran."

That is Thiel's own suspicion, offered in a lecture. He cited no evidence of a pending warrant, and none of the available material shows one has been sought. The court has recently been the target of U.S. sanctions, according to Anadolu Agency.

So his position has two parts. He thinks the war was a mistake. He also appears to worry about legal exposure for the president who launched it.

The political backdrop

The timing is awkward for Republicans. Midterms are less than two weeks away, and the party is trying to hold its congressional majorities.

The cost of the war is showing up at the pump. AAA puts the national average for gasoline at $4.27 a gallon and diesel at $6.31. The Labor Department reported that September inflation rose faster than expected, driven largely by gasoline prices.

Polling is rough for the president. A CNN/SSRS survey found 27 percent of Americans approve of Trump's handling of the economy. Two-thirds of respondents, including about a third of Republicans, said his policies have made economic conditions worse. Trump's overall approval has fallen into the low 30s, according to the Daily Beast's summary of recent polling.

The RealClearPolling average gives Democrats an eight-point lead on the generic congressional ballot.

What Thiel's argument puts on the table

Thiel's "hard power" line goes to the core of the question. A war is only as defensible as the country's ability to finish it and pay for it. Whether the U.S. has the force, the munitions and the political patience for a prolonged fight is an open question that Thiel has now raised publicly, if indirectly.

He is also not an anti-Trump figure by any measure. He is a donor and an architect of the alliance between Silicon Valley and the Trump coalition, and he is saying a defining decision was wrong while staying on the team.

Neither Thiel's representatives nor the White House responded to requests for comment on the audio. The administration has not publicly addressed his remarks. Voters will give their own answer on the war's costs when the midterm ballots are counted.