Conservative commentator and podcaster Tucker Carlson says he plans to help launch a new political party after breaking with President Trump and the Republican Party over the war with Iran.
“I’m going to help build a third party,” Carlson told the Columbia Journalism Review in an interview published Wednesday. “There should be a good-faith effort to figure out what benefits the country.”
The former Fox News host said the nation’s two major parties are effectively aligned on what he considers the most important issues facing Americans — “war and finance” — arguing that Democrats and Republicans “are in lockstep solidarity with each other.”
“That’s not a democracy,” Carlson said. “That’s a one-party state posing as a democracy, and it needs to be broken, and there’s going to be a third party, and I’m going to do everything I can to bring that about.”
Carlson’s remarks follow comments he made last month on the “Can’t Be Censored” podcast, where he said there was “no chance” he would continue backing the GOP because of the Iran war.
Describing himself as a lifelong Republican, Carlson accused the Trump administration of having “betrayed the US” by entering a conflict with Iran under “pressure” from Israel.
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“At this point … how could I or any American voter support a political party that’s not loyal to the United States, that puts the interests of a foreign country above those of its own citizens?” he said. “It’s not possible to vote for people like that.”
Carlson indicated that the political movement he wants to build would put “the welfare” of Americans at the center of its agenda.
“I mean, if you make sixty thousand dollars a year, you’re degraded. Your life expectancy has gone down, and the promise of your children’s lives is likely gone. No one seems to care. It’s not even a factor,” he told CJR. “‘What about Hamas?’ I officially don’t care about Hamas.
“The US government should have, as its first priority, the welfare of its own people.”
Carlson, however, suggested his supporters shouldn’t expect to see him on the ballot any time soon.
“I don’t want to be a candidate,” he said, joking that in an earlier interview he was “very tempted to say ‘I am running — on the pro-patriarchy ticket’ … just to make sure I gain no new fans.”
Since his break with Trump, the president has referred to Carlson as a “nut job” and a “hand flailing fool.”
“He was a broken man when he got fired from Fox, and he’s never been the same,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in April. “Perhaps he should see a good psychiatrist!”
