Tucker Carlson says he will help build new US political party

Tucker Carlson, the rightwing broadcaster and podcast host, has said he intends to help build a new political party in the United States, though he offered little detail on any concrete plans.

"I'm going to help build a third party. There should be a good-faith effort to figure out what benefits the country," Carlson said in an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) published on 1 July 2026.

Carlson, a former Fox News host, argued that the Republican and Democratic parties operate as "a one-party state posing as a democracy" on questions of war and finance, adding that "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 made clear he would not seek office himself. "I don't want to be a candidate," Carlson told CJR.

Carlson, 57, who lives in Maine, also criticised the economic condition of ordinary Americans. "If you make sixty thousand dollars a year, you're degraded," he said, adding that life expectancy and prospects for the next generation had declined. He said the government's priority should be "the welfare of its own people" rather than foreign conflicts, adding: "I officially don't care about Hamas."

His comments contradict an earlier interview with the New York Times in May 2026, in which he said of building a party: "Am I going to build it? Absolutely not." Carlson has a habit of thinking aloud, and it remains unclear whether he was describing an active project or simply floating the idea.

A break with Trump over Iran

Carlson's remarks follow a public rupture with President Donald Trump over the war in Iran. Trump pledged during his 2024 campaign to avoid "endless wars", but authorised airstrikes on Iran in February 2026 that escalated into a prolonged conflict, with a preliminary peace deal announced only in June.

Carlson said he met Trump at the White House three times in January 2026, shortly before the war began, and warned him against pursuing regime change in Tehran. "I haven't spoken to him since the regime-change war began. I'm not interested in talking to him," Carlson told CJR, adding: "I feel sorry for him. He's not a man in charge of his own life at this point."

Trump has responded critically, branding Carlson and other MAGA-aligned critics, including Candace Owens and Alex Jones, "losers" in an April Truth Social post. On 16 June, Trump wrote that "kooky Tucker Carlson" should understand that "Iran can not have a nuclear weapon."

Wider discontent on the right

Carlson is not alone in exploring a break from the Republican Party. Former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has said she is in talks about starting a rival party, describing it as a "true America-focused party that doesn't fall into the traps of Democrats or Republicans."

Third-party efforts have a poor track record in US politics. In 2025, tech executive Elon Musk vowed to launch an "American Party" after his own falling-out with Trump, but never followed through after the pair later reconciled.

Analysts note that any new party would face significant hurdles, including candidate recruitment, state ballot-access rules, financing and infrastructure.

Carlson has also become a prominent voice for the nationalist-isolationist wing of the right, criticising US support for Israel and calling for an end to immigration, citing job losses to artificial intelligence.

He has increasingly embraced Christian nationalist rhetoric, and has said he does not consider his approach calculated. "I'm not strategic in any way," he told CJR. "I make almost all decisions on the basis of smell and instinct."