{"id":403626,"date":"2026-04-21T15:52:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T15:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/403626\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T15:52:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T15:52:11","slug":"tucker-carlson-says-he-regrets-backing-donald-trump-and-is-tormented-by-it-tucker-carlson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/403626\/","title":{"rendered":"Tucker Carlson says he regrets backing Donald Trump and is \u2018tormented by it\u2019 | Tucker Carlson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tucker Carlson<\/a>, a conservative podcaster, has said he is \u201ctormented\u201d by his support of Donald Trump<\/a>, issuing in an extraordinary mea culpa that called for \u201ca moment to wrestle with our own consciences\u201d.<\/p>\n

Carlson delivered that comment in a conversation with Buckley Carlson, his brother and a former Trump speechwriter, on The Tucker Carlson<\/a> Show on Monday that reviewed the sidelining of traditional conservative values in a Republican party now dominated by the president.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, we\u2019ll be tormented by it for a long time \u2013 I will be,\u201d Tucker Carlson said. \u201cAnd I want to say I\u2019m sorry for misleading people. It was not intentional, that\u2019s all I\u2019ll say.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Carlson in 1999 had referred to Trump as \u201cthe single most repulsive person on the planet\u201d, he beat most pundits in calling for Trump to be taken seriously before he won his first presidency in 2016.<\/p>\n

Then, as Trump successfully ran for a second presidency in 2024, Carlson supported him throughout the race, speaking<\/a> at a campaign event for him just five days before election night.<\/p>\n

But the podcaster has now been at odds with the president over US support for Israel and the war the two countries started in Iran in late February. Carlson called Trump\u2019s language on Iran \u201cvile on every level\u201d \u2013 and said he took personal responsibility for the president\u2019s return to power.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou and I and everyone else who supported him \u2013 you wrote speeches for him, I campaigned for him \u2013 I mean, we\u2019re implicated in this for sure,\u201d Carlson said. \u201cIt\u2019s not enough to say, \u2018Well, I changed my mind\u2019 \u2013 or like, \u2018Oh, this is bad \u2013 I\u2019m out,\u2019\u201d he told his brother.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson at the Republican National Convention on 15 July 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Photograph: Andrew Harnik\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cIn very small ways, but in real ways, you and me and millions of people like us are the reason this is happening right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carlson\u2019s revisionism comes soon after Trump issued a stinging attack on him as well as other rightwing media personalities who were hardliners in his Make America Great Again (Maga) movement, including Megyn Kelly<\/a>, Candace Owens<\/a>, Alex Jones<\/a> and others.<\/p>\n

Trump recently published a social media post calling Carlson \u201ca Low IQ person \u2013 Always easy to beat, and highly overrated!!!\u201d And the president threatened to produce \u201ca list of good, bad, and somewhere in the middle\u201d Maga supporters.<\/p>\n

Carlson\u2019s rejection of Trump comes after years of public support for the president.<\/p>\n

During Trump\u2019s 2016 election campaign, while Carlson was working as a Fox news contributor and his brother as a speechwriter, he referred to the candidate\u2019s \u201cstrange charisma\u201d.<\/p>\n

By 2020, he was openly extolling Trump\u2019s \u201cAmerica first\u201d agenda, and later echoed Trump\u2019s false claims that the election was somehow \u201crigged\u201d for Joe Biden.<\/p>\n

In 2024, Carlson was fully onboard the Maga train, campaigning with Trump in Arizona five days before the election and praising Trump as a \u201cnational leader\u201d at the 2024 Republican National Convention, where he said Trump had been transformed by the attempt on his life in Butler, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

However, it was revealed during the discovery phase of the 2023 Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against Fox News over election fraud claims that Carlson had privately disparaged the first Trump presidency as a \u201cdisaster\u201d in a text to a colleague two years earlier.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights. I truly can\u2019t wait,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI hate him passionately \u2026 I can\u2019t handle much more of this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carlson was fired from Fox News soon after the claim was settled, which cost the outlet $787m.<\/p>\n

Carlson\u2019s latest statements come after he told Newsmax earlier in April: \u201cI\u2019ve always liked Trump and still feel sorry for him \u2013 as I do for all slaves. He\u2019s hemmed in by other forces. He can\u2019t make his own decisions. It\u2019s awful to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, Carlson asked<\/a> himself on his podcast whether Trump was \u201cthe antichrist\u201d after the president launched a series of verbal attacks on Pope Leo XIV, who was born in the US and is an Iran war critic. The US president also posted to social media an AI image of himself as Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s mocking Jesus. He\u2019s making fun of Christianity. The central figure of the religion is being held up for mockery,\u201d the Tucker Carlson Show host said. \u201cCould this be the antichrist? Well, who knows? At least that\u2019s my conclusion. Who knows?\u201d<\/p>\n

In his latest comments, Carlson repeated his criticisms of the war in Iran, saying Trump \u201cclearly had no plan for [it], wasn\u2019t enthusiastic about [it], was fully aware of the risks, fully aware that it was a betrayal of his explicit promises for 10 years not to do this \u2013 he did it and did it against his will.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carlson\u2019s rebuke of Trump on Monday came after he was fired from Fox News in 2023 following a 14-year run at the cable network.<\/p>\n

He soon launched his own media company; and in October, he stoked controversy by interviewing Nick Fuentes, an antisemitic white supremacist<\/a>, on his podcast.<\/p>\n

Other controversies that Carlson has invited over the years came after he promoted testicle tanning \u2013 while he was still at Fox \u2013 as well as his enthusiastically exalting the quality of a grocery store in Russia that he visited in 2024, two years after the country\u2019s military invaded Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tucker Carlson, a conservative podcaster, has said he is \u201ctormented\u201d by his support of Donald Trump, issuing in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403627,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-403626","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}