Tucker Carlson has quashed any hopes of him running for president in the 2028 election as the conservative media personality makes big waves in the MAGA movement with his views on the Iran war.
During a new interview with The Economist, Carlson laughed at the suggestion that he run to be America’s next president, saying he would “of course not” make a bid.
Carlson doesn’t think his endorsement for whoever does run for president in 2028 would be helpful, as he said he’s been “so slandered as a bigot—which I’m not.”
Shortly after the U.S., along with Israel, began launching strikes against Iran nearly three weeks ago to “eliminate Iran’s ability to threaten Americans,” as U.S. Central Command leader Admiral Brad Cooper put it, Tucker called the war “absolutely disgusting and evil” in a statement to ABC News’ Jonathan Karl.
Donald Trump later told Karl, “Tucker has lost his way” and accused him of being “not MAGA,” referring to the president’s “Make America Great Again” base.
Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican who resigned from the House of Representatives after a public falling out with Trump over several issues, including foreign affairs, defended Carlson when he was attacked by Trump.
“Trump doesn’t even know what MAGA is anymore and turned it into MIGA. Trump is not America First, he’s donor first. Tucker would beat Trump if he ran for President and Trump tried to violate the constitution and tried to run again for a third term,” Greene wrote on X.
Trump has floated the idea of running for a third term several times, despite it being illegal.
During his interview with The Economist, Carlson said it was Trump who betrayed one of the pillars of the MAGA movement, known as “America First.”
Trump ran his 2024 presidential campaign on “America First,” which has widely been understood to mean putting the interests of the American people ahead of foreign issues and typically has been associated with opposition to new wars.
Carlson said the idea behind the war “is not only contrary to America First, it may be its inverse,” adding that the strikes were “something that [Trump] promised he wouldn’t do, not once, but countless times.”
During his 2024 election victory speech, Trump said, “I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.”
In Trump’s rant against Carlson, he claimed, “MAGA is saving our country. MAGA is making our country great again. MAGA is America First, and Tucker is none of those things.”
The former Fox News host recently said on his podcast, “This is Israel’s war. This is not the United States’ war. This war’s not being waged on behalf of American national security objectives — to make the United States safer or richer. This war isn’t even about weapons of mass destruction, nukes.”
Trump has claimed Iran posed an “imminent” threat to Americans due to its “nuclear ambitions” and development of long-range missiles. He has also insisted it was the U.S. that may have forced Israel’s hand with the war, not the other way around.
Tucker had Joe Kent, the now-former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, on his show Wednesday. Kent resigned this week over Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran, claiming the Middle Eastern country posed “no imminent threat” to the U.S. and the strikes had started “due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”
Kent suggested on Tucker’s show that Trump needs to “very forcefully and probably with a new team of diplomats, go to the Israelis and say, ‘You’re done. We will defend you. However, you are done going on the offense.’”
Source: independent.co.uk