Tucker Carlson declared on a podcast last Thursday that he is leaving the Republican Party after 35 years as one of its most prominent defenders — saying the GOP has proven itself disloyal to the United States by prioritizing Israeli over American interests in the Iran war.
The remarks came during a Canadian-exclusive appearance on Can’t Be Censored, hosted by former CBC journalist Travis Dhanraj and former broadcast journalist and communications strategist Karman Wong. The episode aired on June 18 but did not gain widespread attention until Monday, when a Democratic opposition X account posted the relevant clip.
Carlson said he would not support the Democratic Party either and acknowledged he did not know what he would do next.
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Carlson said the Republican Party backed the Iran war under pressure from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — putting a foreign government’s security interests ahead of American lives and resources — and that no party willing to do that deserved his support.
Related: Is Qatar Behind Tucker Carlson’s Recent Anti-War Stance On Iran?
He called the position “immoral” and said the US was fighting a conflict it had “effectively lost already.” “I’m out,” he said. “And if I’m out, then I think a lot of other people are out.”
Fox News fired Carlson in April 2023, after which he built an independent media presence across X and the Tucker Carlson Network. He was a prominent early supporter of Trump’s 2024 campaign, and his audience — large, loyal, and concentrated on the populist right — gives him continued influence over Republican voter sentiment even outside the party structure.
Related: Tucker Carlson ‘Tormented’ by Past Trump Endorsement, Apologizes For Misleading People
The break highlights divisions widening inside the coalition Trump assembled, with the Iran war and US-Israel policy splitting commentators and voters who were previously aligned. Carlson is not the first prominent right-wing voice to express discomfort with the war, but he is the most prominent to make a public and unconditional break with the party over it.
Trump has repeatedly denied that Netanyahu or Israel drove the decision to go to war with Iran.
2 Responses
The war and the resulting higher oil prices are for Putin. Everything else just hides this
Careful going after you know who, they will cancel you