Updated July 2, 2026, 1:40 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON – Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson said he plans to help launch a new political party after breaking with President Donald Trump and other Republicans over the U.S. war in Iran.
Carlson, the former Fox News host who now has a weekly political podcast, said in an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review published July 1 that the Democratic and Republican parties “are in lockstep solidarity with each other” on foreign policy, war in the Middle East and other matters.
“We need a third party,” said Carlson, a onetime close Trump confidant. “I’m going to help build a third party. There should be a good-faith effort to figure out what benefits the country.”
“If you make sixty thousand dollars a year, you’re degraded,” Carlson added. “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. ‘What about Hamas?’ I officially don’t care about Hamas. The U.S. government should have, as its first priority, the welfare of its own people.”
The 57-year-old Carlson, who lives in Maine and is often speculated as an outside-the-box presidential contender, made clear that he doesn’t want to run as a candidate in his new third party, however.
“I don’t want to be a candidate,” Carlson said.
The commentator turned increasingly critical of Trump after the president began airstrikes in February on Iran that turned into a months-long war against Tehran. Hostilities continue even after Trump announced a preliminary peace deal in June. Carlson also condemned Israel’s war in Gaza that began after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.
“There’s going to be a third party, and I’m going to do everything I can to bring that about,” Carlson said.
Carlson says he hasn’t spoken to Trump since start of war in Iran
Carlson, who remains influential in conservative circles even after his exit from Fox News, met with Trump at the White House on three occasions in January, weeks before America initiated the war in Iran. Trump pledged on the 2024 campaign trail not to start so-called “endless wars.”
But Carlson said he hasn’t spoken to Trump since then.
“I haven’t spoken to him since the regime-change war began. I’m not interested in talking to him,” Carlson told the Columbia Journalism Review. “I feel sorry for him. He’s not a man in charge of his own life at this point. I feel sorry for anybody who’s enslaved, including him.”
During the pre-war visits with Trump, Carlson said he warned the president, “You’re not gonna see the rise of a democratic, pro-Western government in Tehran. The best you’re gonna see there is just this suppurating wound.” And he said, ‘I know.'”
Trump in April lashed out at Carlson and other MAGA influences, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens and Alex Jones, who turned against him over the war in Iran, calling them “losers” in a Truth Social post. He said “MAGA agrees with me … not Hand Flailing Fools like Tucker Carlson, who couldn’t even finish College.”
“Somebody please explain to kooky Tucker Carlson that,” IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on June 16.
In addition to Carlson, another former Trump ally is also pondering a third party. Former Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said this week she’s in talks about starting a third party that she described as a “true America-focused party that doesn’t fall into the traps of Democrats or Republicans.”
Launching a viable third party faces several logistical hurdles that are to achieve: recruiting candidates, meeting state guidelines to make it on ballots, strong financing and building party infrastructure to compete with the two major parties.
Mounting a new third party is often discussed but not executed.
In 2025, tech executive Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, vowed to launch a third party called the “American Party” after his dramatic falling out with the president. But Musk and Trump later mended fences, and Musk never followed through on his plans.
Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.
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