President Trump is taking fire over his posture toward Iran from an unlikely critic in the media: Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Trump attacked Carlson directly late Monday, marking a major departure from what has for months been a rosy relationship between the pundit and president.
The rift is underscoring GOP divisions on how the U.S. should respond to the escalating crisis in the Middle East and highlighting Trumps’ willingness to spar with even his most reliable allies.
Here’s what to know about the Trump-Carlson spat.
Trump and Carlson built a quick and public alliance
When Fox fired Carlson in 2023, Trump criticized the network’s decision, saying he was “shocked” by the move and that the firebrand host has “been terrific to me.”
When Carlson launched his new media company the follow year, Trump was running for president again and skipped the first Republican debate, hosted by Fox, to instead sit for an exclusive live interview with Carlson.
The two formed a close relationship that summer. Carlson hosted Trump during a ticketed speaking tour and served as one of the nominee’s guests when he eventually secured the Republican nomination at the party’s convention.
On his social media and internet-based commentary show, Carlson regularly hosts Trump-supporting guests and sings the president’s praises on issues from immigration to crime and the economy.
He has advocated for many of Trump’s “America First” policies during his first few months in office and attacked Democrats, media figures and other mutual political enemies.
But as Trump signaled support for Israel and the possibility of U.S. involvement, Carlson’s view on the president’s decision making has appeared to sour.
Carlson breaks with Trump on Iran
After Israel launched a missile offensive against Iran last week, Carlson called Trump “complicit” in the escalation and warned the president’s legacy was on the line depending on “what happens next.”
Carlson has for years been critic of Republican leaders, diplomats and others who have advocated for military intervention in the Middle East.
He last week railed against so-called “warmongers,” including his former colleagues at Fox and those in the party who he says are nudging Trump toward a needless war.
“The real divide isn’t between people who support Israel and people who support Iran or the Palestinians,” Carlson wrote on social media last week. “The real divide is between those who casually encourage violence, and those who seek to prevent it.”
It was the first time in years Carlson has publicly broken with Trump, but a stance that has apparently not resonated with the pundit’s most loyal and powerful viewer.
Trump hits back
“I don’t know what Tucker Carlson is saying. Let him go get a television network and say it so that people listen,” the president told reporters during a meeting with the British prime minister at the Group of Seven summit on Monday, an even he left early due to the ongoing crisis in the Middle East.
It was a less than subtle dig at Carlson from Trump, who is known for his consistent consumption of cable news. Trump has elevated several former Fox News hosts to key positions in his administration.
The president went a step further later on Monday, dubbing the former prime time host turned internet commentator, “kooky Carlson” and insisting “IRAN CAN NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON,” in a post on his Truth Social account.
The sniping with Carlson came just weeks after the president publicly sparred with billionaire Elon Musk over a congressional spending bill, before the two eventually reconciled.
‘America First’ crowd comes to Carlson’s defense
After Trump launched his attack at Carlson, a number of so-called “MAGA” Republicans and media personalities appeared to side with the commentator over the commander in chief.
“Tucker Carlson is one of my favorite people. He unapologetically believes the same things I do. That if we don’t fight for our own country and our own people then we will no longer have a country for our children and our grandchildren,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.) wrote in a post on the social platform X, adding “foreign wars/intervention/regime change put America last.”
“That’s not kooky,” she said responding directly to Trump. “That’s what millions of Americans voted for. It’s what we believe is America First.”
Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist and another Trump supporter popular on the right, wrote in a post of his own he was “proud that Tucker Carlson is standing his ground against the psychotic war mongering neocons that have brought the world to the verge of thermal nuclear Armageddon.”
Steve Bannon, a former top strategist for Trump who has built a following with his “War Room” podcast, echoed that sentiment in an interview with Carlson published just minutes before Trump’s Truth Social missive attacking him.
“The rise of Trump is from the Iraq war and the 2008 financial collapse,” Bannon told Carlson during the more than hourlong segment. “We were lied to … and that’s what happening here, we’re not being told it straight.”
Carlson, who has sparred online with other right-wing media personalities that have advocated for a stronger U.S. defense of Israel, meanwhile seems undeterred by Trump’s digs at him as the situation in the Middle East reaches a fever pitch.
“The last thing I want to do is fight with Ben Shapiro or Mark Levin, I’d rather fight George Soros, or Gavin Newsom or something,” he told Bannon about the escalating crisis in the Middle East.
“But I feel like these people are making it impossible to sit back in silence as they wreck the country.”
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