Tucker Carlson gives a speech on the first day of Turning Point USA and America Fest 2025, at the Phoenix Convention Center on December 18, 2025Laura Brett/Zuma
Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.
Tucker Carlson would very much like you to forgive him for backing Donald Trump all these years.
“It’s not enough to say ‘I changed my mind’ or ‘this is bad, I’m out,’” Carlson said on his news podcast The Tucker Carlson Show on Monday. “I want to say I’m sorry for misleading people.”
Carlson said he will “be tormented for a long time” for promoting Trump in his campaign for presidency. The podcast episode featured his brother Buckley, who, according to the show’s notes, wrote speeches for Trump in 2015 and “can fully understand how painful the current betrayal is.”
Carlson, it must be noted, claimed his support for Trump “was not intentional.”
But it certainly looks intentional. Carlson consistently misled over 3.5 million viewers on his Fox News show. During the lead-up to the 2020 election, Carlson boasted a nightly audience of over 5 million.
Carlson repeatedly spread Trump’s propaganda, including unsubstantiated claims of “meaningful voter fraud” in Georgia following the 2020 election. He also made racist and anti-immigrant remarks, including voicing support for the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, which promotes the fictional idea that nonwhite people are brought to the US to replace white voters and decimate the GOP fundraising base.
Carlson’s breaking point came when Trump invaded Iran and went on a genocidal online crash out by posting a series of religious posts on religious Truth Social posts earlier this month. Carlson said the whole ordeal made “a mockery of Christianity.”
Carlson has been sowing the seeds of redemption for weeks now. After Trump went on several verbal tirades against Pope Leo XIV, who himself criticized the US’ role in the Iran War, Carlson condemned Trump publicly saying on his April 15 show: “Could this be the antichrist? Well, who knows? At least that’s my conclusion.”
So here is my conclusion: Carlson is one of many conservative commentators who now want you to believe they were sold a fake bill of goods. From Marjorie Taylor Greene to Candace Owens, Alex Jones, and Megyn Kelly, right-wing commentators see Trump’s MAGA base defecting. Are these right-wing ideologues suddenly principled defenders of conservative values? Not a chance. They’re all just hucksters who sense a good business opportunity.
These fake outrage artists are even using Trump’s playbook to do it. Call it the latest iteration of the art of the deal.
