Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has usually stood by President Donald Trump, but broke with him Monday for calling former Fox News host Tucker Carlson “kooky” — after the right-wing pundit criticized America’s alleged involvement in Israel’s attack Friday on Iran.
Carlson opposes doling out U.S. tax dollars for Israel’s latest conflict and called for America to “drop Israel” in a newsletter Friday to let them “fight their own wars.” Trump insulted Carlson in an interview on Monday, prompting Greene to speak out.
“He unapologetically believes the same things I do,” Greene wrote Monday on X, formerly Twitter, about Carlson. “That if we don’t fight for our own country and our own people then we will no longer have a country for our children and our grandchildren.”
She continued, “And foreign wars/intervention/regime change put America last, kill innocent people, are making us broke, and will ultimately lead to our destruction. That’s not kooky. That’s what millions of Americans voted for. It’s what we believe is America First.”
Israel on Friday deployed warplanes and drones it smuggled into Iran to kill top generals and scientists, mere days before negotiations between Iran and the U.S. regarding nuclear de-escalation were set to take place, prompting Iranian retaliatory strikes on Tel Aviv.
Trump said last month that he “warned” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to strike Iran, as the U.S. was “very close to a solution,” but said Friday that he knew about Israel’s unprovoked attack beforehand, which Carlson argues “is not America’s fight.”
“At an absolute minimum, the United States continuing to insert itself in this conflict will further whip up the radical Islamic world’s hatred for the West and fuel the next generation of terrorism. The worst case?” the conservative pundit wrote Friday in his newsletter.
“Thousands of immediate American deaths, all in the name of a foreign agenda that has nothing to do with our country,” he continued. “It goes without saying that neither of those possibilities would be beneficial for the United States.”
Leo Correa/Associated Press
Carlson argued that continued U.S. military aid to Israel isn’t “America First,” a policy espousing non-interventionism, and accused Trump of being “complicit” in Israel’s attack. The president slammed Carlson on Monday while speaking to reporters.
“Somebody please explain to kooky Tucker Carlson that, ‘IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!’” Trump added on social media, later adding: “AMERICA FIRST means many GREAT things, including the fact that, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON.”
Carlson, who has expressed regret over supporting the Iraq War during his time on Fox News, joined Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast Monday and told the former Trump adviser, “You’re not going to convince me that the Iranian people are my enemy.”
Bannon appeared to agree that U.S. involvement in the conflict was a bad idea.
“Again, we’re going down this, ‘Here’s who you are required to hate,’” Carlson continued at the time. “It’s Orwell, man. I’m a free man. You’re not telling me who I have to hate. I’ll decide who I like and don’t like based on my values and interests. It’s all so fake.”
