Foreign conflicts are fracturing Trump’s base. Can Tucker Carlson capitalise? 

Compared to his first term, Trump’s second administration has been marked by a relative lack of turnover in personnel. Beyond the departures of Elon Musk from the Department of Government Efficiency and homeland security chief Kristy Noem’s recent firing, the president’s inner circle has remained somewhat constant. But a more protracted fracture now surrounds Trump – the increasingly public split between interventionists and isolationists within his Maga movement. In the latter camp, no voice is louder than Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host-turned-podcaster. After being fired by the Murdoch family for his personal conduct and role in spreading misinformation about the 2020 election, Carlson established himself as a hugely popular new media upstart promoting a hardline Maga take. But as Trump’s foreign policy has become more adventurist, Carlson’s broadcasts to his approximately 20 million followers have increasingly espoused a virulent isolationist, anti-war and anti-Israel worldview. 

Then, a few weeks ago, following vociferous criticism of Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran, Carlson was officially cast out of the Maga movement by its leader. “Tucker has lost his way,” said Trump on ABC News. “Maga is America first and Tucker is none of those things.” Much of Trump’s ire stems from the fact that the joint US-Israel attack on Iran is both unpopular with many Americans and was undertaken without congressional approval. “Absolutely disgusting and evil,” was how Carlson characterised the war after the first bombs began falling on Tehran. In subsequent podcasts he has suggested that US actions reveal Israel’s stranglehold on Trump. Unsurprisingly, the war is deeply unpopular with Democrat-supporting Americans but Trump’s base initially supported the strikes. However, as the war drags on, affecting inflation even in the energy-secure US, Trump voters have begun to express disquiet. According to current polling, a majority of Americans do not support the campaign, believing that it has made their country less safe.

Carlson’s isolationism is nothing new. Back in the early 2000s he was one of the only right-wing media personalities to express reservations about the war in Iraq. More than two decades later, he possesses a level of influence that few could have imagined back then, allowing him to easily exploit public uncertainty to help push the White House to end the campaign in Iran – a war whose fuzzy aims make it ripe for quagmire status. In the short term this might answer the question, “What does Carlson want?” But there is now serious uncertainty over who might succeed Trump in 2028, leaving room for Maga disruptors such as Carlson to make the case for an alternative direction. Might he be making a play for the Oval Office himself? 

Such a move would have been considered highly improbable in the past. But the 2024 putsch that saw Kamala Harris oust Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination rewrote the rules of presidential succession, meaning that a social-media fuelled Carlson campaign cannot be discounted. Much depends on how long the war with Iran lasts and how deep its damage is to the US economy. If the US were to get mired in another costly and bloody Middle Eastern war, then Carlson would be able to claim that he has been on the right side of history twice. Styling himself as a prophet defending the American people’s isolationism and best interests, Carlson is likely to further inflame a president he once vocally championed. For now, he is not demanding that his many followers choose between the Maga establishment in Washington and its rebels across the country. But nothing is ever certain in Trump’s America – and no figure has yet shown the potential to threaten the president’s support quite like Carlson. 

Christopher Taylor is a New York-based journalist. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.