Tucker Carlson Says He’s Done With the Republican Party

Longtime conservative Tucker Carlson says he is now no longer a Republican. The fed-up former Fox News star offered the update during a Thursday podcast appearance that gained traction online Monday. ‘I’m out,’ Carlson said at a point during the sit-down with hosts Travis Dhanraj and Karman Wong. ‘And if I’m out, then I think a lot of other people are out.’ The pundit had been in the midst of fielding a question about the rapidly approaching midterms – specifically, whether it would offer a glimpse at ‘how the American people are feeling towards [Donald] Trump’. He prefaced that recent polls ‘tell a pretty clear story.”I would not support the Republican party. There’s no chance I would support the Republican party,’ he suddenly asserted, before arguing that members ‘betrayed’ their base by backing Israel and invading Iran in February. ‘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? ‘It’s not possible to vote for people like that, and I’m not going to.’ Carlson, 57, conceded that he wasn’t ‘going to support the Democratic party’ either after nearly four decades as a conservative. ‘I think I’ve voted Republican my entire life,’ he told Dhanraj and Wong, recalling his stints at Fox News and CNN and MSNBC before that.’I’ve been a consistent defender for 35 years, of the Republican party. I mean, a very consistent defender. ‘But there’s no defending this because it’s immoral and it’s exactly the opposite of what a political party in a democracy is charged with doing – which is representing its own voters, its own citizens, its own nation. ‘And they’re not doing that,’ Carlson concluded. Cracks began emerging within the GOP following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in September, after which figures like Carlson and Megyn Kelly found themselves aligned with an emerging free-speech-first faction of the party. Others like Ben Shapiro and Fox host Mark Levin shamed the other side for failing to condemn conspiracies about Israel and Kirk’s killing.The rift grew in February when the US struck Iran alongside Israel – a decision Carlson and Kelly quickly decried as strong supporters of Trump’s ‘America first’ approach to foreign policy. Carlson has been highly critical of the commander-in-chief ever since. He chided him for ‘bragging about his popularity’ amongst Israelis late last month. ‘Unmentioned is the fact that he’s 35 percent in the United States,’ Carlson said after playing a clip of Trump telling reporters he has a a 99 percent approval rating in the far-flung country and should thus consider a ‘run for prime minister.’ ‘The people he pledged to represent, to fight for, whose side he promised to take in every conflict, foreign and domestic,’ Carlson said. Carlson was fired from Fox News in April 2023 after 14 years.