Tucker Carlson has ripped into President Donald Trump over his weird comments about ruling a new country.
Trump flew to Connecticut on Wednesday to attend the Coast Guard Academy graduation ceremony, and before he took off from Joint Base Andrews he told the press that he was so popular in Israel that he liked the idea of being its prime minister.
“I’m right now at 99 percent in Israel,” he said. “I could run for prime minister, so maybe after I do this, I’ll go to Israel, run for prime minister. I had a poll this morning. I’m 99 percent, so that’s good.”
The comments infuriated Carlson, who lobbied against the war with Iran, advocates for close ties in the Middle East, and questions the U.S. alliance with Israel.
“The president of the United States bragging about his popularity in a foreign country: ‘I’m 99 percent in Israel,’” the former Fox News host said on The Tucker Carlson Show on Wednesday night. “Unmentioned is the fact that he’s 35 percent in the United States. Thirty-five percent support from Americans, the people he pledged to represent, to fight for, whose side he promised to take in every conflict, foreign and domestic.
“And yet, there he is, bragging about how popular he is in a foreign country, the same country that got us into the war that is causing, to some extent, his unpopularity in this country, speaking of cold-hearted globalist betrayals.”
Carlson’s acrimonious break with Trump was precipitated by the joint war with Israel on Iran, which began in February. Carlson says it deeply offends his and many Trump voters’ America First sensibilities.
“Now, you could say, ‘That’s just Trump searching for affirmation where he can. Unpopular at home, he retreats into the fantasy of his popularity in another country.’ Well yes, true,” Carlson said. “But it’s not a one-time exhibition of this. That president has spent the last year looking outward toward the approval of other nations. That president has spent the last year fighting for people who are not his voters and in many cases, not even American, and allowing his own country to languish.”
Carlson, along with other MAGA politicians and commentators such as former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, former Fox News host Megyn Kelly, and podcast bros like Theo Von and Joe Rogan, backed Trump on his promises to avoid foreign wars and solve problems at home.
Trump ran on a ticket full of pledges to restore manufacturing, raise wages, and lower prices.
Instead, his loyalists have been met with a globalist presidency, with a heavy bent toward foreign policy.
They’ve also encountered soaring prices, epitomized by gas at the pump nudging toward $5 a gallon, thanks to the war.
Iran has closed the vital Strait of Hormuz, cutting off around a fifth of the world’s oil supply and sparking a global energy crisis.
“The last year has not made America great again,” Carlson said. “The last year has diminished American power at a rate some of us thought was unimaginable.
“We couldn’t have foreseen, less than a year and a half ago… the damage that this administration—led by that president, for whom we campaigned and liked personally—could do to this country.”
Trump has not taken kindly to Carlson’s turn against him, calling the former Fox News host a “Hand Flailing” fool in an April Truth Social post. Carlson, Trump wrote, “couldn’t even finish College, he was a broken man when he got fired from Fox, and he’s never been the same — Perhaps he should see a good psychiatrist!”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
