CNN WIRE &#8212; Trump blasts his former cheerleader Tucker Carlson

Analysis by Aaron Blake, CNN

(CNN) — Twenty-one months ago, Tucker Carlson told the 2024 Republican National Convention that Donald Trump’s survival of an assassination attempt amounted to “divine intervention” — that God had chosen to save Trump because he had a plan for him to lead the country.

“Something bigger is going on here,” Carlson said.

Today, Carlson is offering an almost polar-opposite argument about Trump. He seemed to intimate during his show Monday that Trump might be the antichrist.

That rhetorical flourish capped Carlson’s harshest public criticism of Trump to date. While the former Fox News host has been highly critical of the Iran war before — and somewhat more gently critical of Trump the man, at least publicly — the gloves were off on Monday like never before.

The result was perhaps the biggest break thus far between Trump and a leading conservative influencer.

And for a party that has done its best to forestall these kinds of splits as Trump’s poll numbers have plumbed new depths, that’s an inauspicious sign.

That doesn’t mean Carlson will suddenly equally divide Trump’s base. But it’s not helpful for a GOP that is increasingly riven over the Iran war and other issues.

Carlson’s comments were a lot to take in. And they were, characteristically for him, often highly suggestive and conspiratorial.

Here are some of the highlights:

He said Christians should have reconsidered their support for Trump when the president said he had invaded Venezuela for oil. (“… That’s unacceptable for Americans or any civilized people because taking other people’s stuff by force cannot be allowed.”)
He called Trump threatening Iran’s civilian infrastructure “a war crime, a moral crime,” and said it would lead to “mass suffering and death.”
He suggested the Trump administration might have bombed an elementary school in Iran on purpose. (A preliminary military investigation and other evidence suggested the US accidentally struck the school.)
He called Trump’s vulgar Easter morning social media post that threatened Iran “vile on every level.” He criticized Trump’s post for mocking Islam, saying that amounted to mocking all religion. (“A lot of his positions are the right positions, but you cannot support that. That is evil.”)
He suggested Trump might soon hit Iran with a nuclear bomb and even warned people around the president to block him from using the nuclear codes. (“Figure out the codes on the football yourself because everything hangs in the balance right now.”)
He criticized Trump for not placing his hand on the Bible during his inauguration and concluded that it was intentional. (“… Because he affirmatively rejects what’s inside that book. And what’s in that book are limits on human behavior.”)
He then suggested Trump could be engaging in a more complex spiritual assault. (“Is it possible that what you’re watching is a very stealthy yet incredibly effective attack on what, from a Christian perspective, is the true-faith belief in Jesus? … Is it possible the president sees this in bigger terms? Sees this as the fulfillment of something, or the elevation to some higher office beyond president of the United States?”)

It’s all incredibly harsh stuff from Carlson, even as he never says he no longer supports Trump.

The president hit back Tuesday morning. In comments to the New York Post, he called Carlson “a low-IQ person that has absolutely no idea what’s going on.” He also said he didn’t “deal with” Carlson anymore.

Of course, it’s not a huge surprise that Carlson might feel this way about Trump. Not only are they increasingly at cross purposes over the Iran war and foreign policy generally, but this has long been an apparent marriage of convenience.

And nowhere was that made clearer than when we got a peek at Carlson’s private messages about Trump after the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. The messages were released as part of the Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against Fox News, where Carlson then worked.

He said in those messages said Trump was “only good at destroying things” and that “I hate him passionately.” He also said Trump’s first term was a bust.

“We’re all pretending we’ve got a lot to show for it, because admitting what a disaster it’s been is too tough to digest,” Carlson said. “But come on. There really isn’t an upside to Trump.”

Carlson also criticized Trump early in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, as many conservative commentators did back then.

But it’s also no small thing for a prominent figure on the right to come directly after Trump like this. As recently as two weeks ago, Carlson in an interview with the Economist was still doing what lots of conservatives do when they want to differ with Trump: casting him as a victim of nefarious people around him (in this case, Israel).

So what does it all mean?

It’s difficult to get a beat on Carlson’s influence these days. He used to be the most-watched host on the most prominent conservative cable news channel. Today, after he was ousted from that job and has gone independent, his sway is harder to measure.

A 2025 Pew Research Center study, for instance, showed just 9% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said they often got their news from the Tucker Carlson Network.

And if you were to select an issue on which Republicans might break with Trump, respect for Islam probably wouldn’t be very high on that list, if it were on there at all.

But Carlson is often mentioned as a potential presidential candidate in his own right. He was instrumental in getting JD Vance selected as Trump’s running mate in 2024, and he’s long had one of the most popular right-wing podcasts. About 7 in 10 Trump voters liked him in a 2024 national poll. And the media ecosystem is more segmented these days.

The Iran war has also emerged as a growing weakness for Trump. While self-described MAGA supporters are overwhelmingly on board, the rest of the president’s base is increasingly on a different page. A CNN poll last week showed 25% of Trump 2024 voters disapproved of him on “foreign affairs,” 28% disapproved on Iran and 45% disapproved on gas prices (which have risen due to the war).

The danger for the president in Carlson’s comments is that it gives Trump supporters skeptical of the war license to tilt into outright opposition to him— or to stay home in November’s midterm elections.

And there is a significant chorus of conservative influencers who have come out against the war, including not just fellow former Fox host Megyn Kelly, but also more apolitical podcast hosts like Joe Rogan and Tim Dillon. It also includes more conspiratorial and extreme hosts like Candace Owens, Nick Fuentes and Alex Jones.

In fact, Jones on Monday floated invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office.

And when Jones is floating Trump’s removal and Carlson is floating Trump as the antichrist on the same day, that feels like a significant moment in the evolution of the political right.