Tucker Carlson, once one of Donald Trump’s most influential media allies, sat across from his brother on his podcast Monday and did something few expected from the combative former Fox News host. He apologized. He begged for forgiveness. And he said the weight of what he helped create will haunt him for years.
“I do think it’s like a moment to wrestle with our own consciences,” Carlson said on the April 21, 2026, episode of The Tucker Carlson Show. “You know, we’ll be tormented by it for a long time.”
The episode featured Carlson in conversation with his younger brother Buckley, a former Trump speechwriter the family calls “Uncle Buck.” Together, the two retraced their roles in Trump’s political rise and accepted what they called personal responsibility for helping return him to the White House in 2024.
'We're Implicated in This for Sure'
Carlson, 56, did not hedge. He pointed directly at himself and his brother as bearing a share of the blame for where the country finds itself.
“You and I and everyone else who supported him, you wrote speeches for him, I campaigned for him, I mean, we’re implicated in this for sure,” Carlson told Buckley. “It’s not enough to say, ‘Well, I changed my mind,’ or like, ‘This is bad. I’m out.’ It’s like, in very small ways, but in real ways, you and me and millions of people like us are the reason this is happening right now.”
He went further, offering a direct apology to his audience: “I want to say I’m sorry for misleading people. It was not intentional.”
Carlson also acknowledged there had been warning signs about Trump’s character that he and others chose to ignore. “Was this always the plan? You don’t want to be a conspiracy nut, but clearly, there were signs of low character,” he said. “We knew that. But there are tons of people of low character who outperform it.”
The Iran War That Broke MAGA Apart
Carlson’s break with Trump did not happen overnight. It has been building for months, fueled by the president’s decision to launch Operation Epic Fury, a joint U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran that began on Feb. 28, 2026. The 38-day air campaign assassinated Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and destroyed over 85% of Iran’s defense industrial base before a ceasefire on April 7.
Carlson has called the operation “absolutely disgusting and evil” and condemned it as a betrayal of MAGA voters who supported Trump specifically because he promised to keep the United States out of foreign wars. He previously called Trump’s Easter morning social media post threatening Iran “vile on every level” and accused the administration of carrying out the war solely at Israel’s behest.
Buckley Carlson went even further during the podcast, calling Trump an “out of control, megalomaniacal, destructive president” and suggesting Congress should “consider” invoking the 25th Amendment.
Trump Fires Back With Familiar Insults
The president has not taken the criticism quietly. In a 485-word Truth Social post on April 9, Trump branded Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones as “stupid people” with “low IQs.” He singled out Carlson as “a broken man” who “couldn’t even finish college” and was “never the same” after being fired from Fox News, adding that the podcaster should “see a good psychiatrist.”
White House spokesperson Davis Ingle, when asked for comment on the podcast apology, simply replied with a link to that same Truth Social post.
Carlson responded to Trump’s attacks in a newsletter headlined “Is Israel Blackmailing President Trump?” in which he suggested the president deserves “some grace” because he may be acting under pressure from Israel. “He is facing a level of pressure that is dark enough to make him abandon his campaign promises and morph into the precise kind of politician he once vowed to destroy,” Carlson wrote.
A Pattern of Private Doubts and Public Support
Critics have been quick to point out that Carlson’s regret is not new, even if the public nature of it is. Private text messages revealed during the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit showed that just two days before the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, Carlson wrote that he “hated Trump passionately” and called him “a demonic force, a destroyer.”
Fox News settled that lawsuit for $787.5 million. Days later, Carlson’s show was dropped from the network. He launched his own podcast and then, despite those private admissions, endorsed Trump for president in 2024 and campaigned for him.
Hosts on The View showed no sympathy. Sara Haines said Carlson “will literally do, say anything for money, for clicks, for power. That man just needs to disappear.” Joy Behar quipped that Carlson has “what they call liar’s remorse.”
A UMass Lowell poll conducted in late March showed Carlson’s favorability among Republicans has dropped to 31%. His podcast episode has drawn more than 500,000 views. Carlson is not alone in his break from Trump. Alex Jones, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Joe Rogan, and Candace Owens have all, in varying degrees, publicly criticized the president over the Iran war and other issues. But none have gone as far as Carlson in accepting personal blame for putting Trump back in power.
