Tucker Carlson wants to spearhead a new political party — one that prioritizes U.S. citizens over foreign relations.
A vehemently anti-war believer, Mr. Carlson told the Columbia Journalism Review in a Wednesday interview that he will help build that third party.
“There should be a good-faith effort to figure out what benefits the country,” he said.
He highlighted economic anxiety felt by working-class Americans with a $60,000 annual income — near the lower end of the Pew Research Center’s middle-income range and below the national median household income of $84,000.
“The U.S. government should have, as its first priority, the welfare of its own people,” he said.
What concerns Mr. Carlson is that “no one seems to care.”
“It’s not even a factor. ’What about Hamas?’ I officially don’t care about Hamas,” he said, referencing the Palestinian group based in Gaza that the U.S. designates as a foreign terrorist organization and that has been at war with Israel since October 2023.
He said that war and finance go hand in hand.
“Where does the money come from? Where does it go? And who gets killed? And on those questions, the parties are in lockstep solidarity with each other. That’s not a democracy,” he said. “That’s a one-party state posing as a democracy.
“It needs to be broken, and there’s going to be a third party, and I’m going to do everything I can to bring that about,” he said.
Mr. Carlson said that if someone voted for President Trump, who pursued U.S.-Israel joint strikes against Iran, and if Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer — who criticized the administration but voiced support for the strikes’ goal of stopping Iran’s nuclear program — is “strongly behind Trump’s foreign policy,” then “we need options. Or else let’s just give up and be ruled by the most unscrupulous people. And I’m just too young to accept that. We need a third party.”
Mr. Carlson, 57, said he doesn’t want to be a candidate.
Referencing a May interview with The New York Times, in which Mr. Carlson publicly broke with Mr. Trump over foreign policy, he said someone told him, “They’re going to ask you if you’re running for president.”
“I was very tempted to say ’I am running — on the pro-patriarchy ticket.’ Just to make sure I gain no new fans,” he said.
Before he was fired as host on Fox News in 2023, a large coalition of Republicans followed Mr. Carlson’s political commentary. But last month, he quit the GOP.
“There’s no chance I would support the Republican Party. Not going to support the Democratic Party. I don’t know what I’m going to do,” he said on an episode of the “Can’t Be Censored” podcast.
He questioned how he or anyone could support a political party “that’s not loyal to the United States, that puts the interest of a foreign country above those of its own citizens,” referring to the Trump administration’s alliance with Israel.
Mr. Carlson wields considerable influence as a major podcaster who has Mr. Trump’s phone number, but he believes his influence is “overstated.”
“I don’t seem to have influence at all. I couldn’t stop Trump from attacking Iran,” Mr. Carlson said, adding that his wife, Susan Andrews, joked he was “Mr. Powerful Influential Guy” after the Iran war started despite his protests.
“What matters is the ability to affect outcomes. And I have no demonstrated ability to do that. None,” he said.
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