The long bromance between President Donald Trump and MAGA supporter and right-wing podcaster Tucker Carlson is apparently ending in a spectacularly public explosion of hateful bitterness and spite as the pair continue trading barbs and vitriolic insults.
Trump is the latest to lash out, firing the latest salvo over Carlson’s bow in a post on X on Tuesday, April 21, calling the former Fox News host “a guy nobody ever heard of” and implying he should be prepared for “prison.”
The message follows a shocking admission from Carlson during a podcast with his younger brother Buckley, released on Monday, April 20.
During the recording, an unrecognizably humble Carlson apologized for supporting Trump and told his brother he’s “tormented” by it.
“You and I and everyone else who supported him, you wrote speeches for him, I campaigned for him, we’re implicated in this for sure,” Carlson said as his brother agreed.
“It’s not enough to say, ‘Well, I changed my mind.’ Or like, ‘Oh, this is bad. I’m out.’ It’s like … you and me and millions of people like us are the reason this is happening right now,” the podcaster said, referring to Trump’s reversal on a campaign promise not to take the U.S. into any foreign wars or conflicts.
Trump caused a fracture in his MAGA base, especially among Carlson and other MAGA media stars, on Feb. 28 when he launched an unapproved war on Iran. The splintering also comes amid Trump’s tanking poll numbers and disapproval of how he’s handling the affordability crisis.
More and more Americans disapprove of how he’s handling the economy and his war on Iran, according to NBC News.
“So, I do think it’s like a moment to wrestle with our own consciences,” Carlson, a longtime vocal Trump ally, continued before surprisingly apologizing for supporting the president.
“You know, we’ll be tormented by it for a long time. I will be, and I want to say, I’m sorry for misleading people. It was not intentional. That’s all I’ll say,” he sheepishly admitted.
An enraged Trump pounced on Carlson’s mea culpa, hitting back the next morning on April 21.
“So now Tucker Carlson a guy nobody ever heard of before is saying he regrets voting for Trump. Interesting!” a furious Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, before minimizing Carlson’s support for him.
“He didn’t help me get elected, not even a little big. I won BIG, all on my own, with millions and millions of great American patriots. The people LOVE Trump!” the president bragged before insisting that those saying Carlson never really supported him could be “FAKE NEWS.”
But then he wrote something bizarre about Carlson.
“What he should be doing is worrying about himself, maybe getting fitted for a nice prison suit. Sad!” Trump ominously concluded.
Social media erupted in a frenzy of outrage and disgust.
Writer and cartoonist Oliver Marcus Malloy called Trump out on Threads, “Trump is big mad that Tucker Carlson apologized for ever supporting Trump. ‘The people LOVE Trump!’ Who the f-ck talks like that about themselves in the third person? A narcissistic psychopath. That’s who.”
“This is the guy Trump is calling a nobody,” another Threads user posted above a picture of Carlson and Trump laughing and having fun at a sports event.
Plenty of posters had no sympathy for Carlson at all.
“Tucker is a two faced rat!! We haven’t forgot how he was chumming it up with Trump at Mar-A-Lago during election year !! He is nothing but a phony liar,” X user Monique Martinez proclaimed.
This X user agreed, “’I’m sorry for misleading the people but it wasn’t intentional’ is one of the funniest oxymorons ever after everything he said.”
High-profile previously loyal right-wing media personalities like Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones, to name a few, all turned on Trump over his military campaign against Tehran, calling out the president and repeatedly criticizing him over the attack and reminding him of his campaign promise.
In a Truth Social post earlier this month, Trump said Carlson and others “have one thing in common, Low IQs.”
“They’re stupid people, they know it, their families know it, and everyone else knows it, too!” Trump raged in the post
After Carlson lambasted how Trump has handled his war on Iran in early April, Trump told the New York Post that Carlson is “a low-IQ person” and has “absolutely no idea what’s going on.”