Top MAGA defector says Trump's US 'not a democracy'

According to conservative commentator Tucker Carlson — who used to be among President Donald Trump’s closest allies — the U.S. is “not a democracy,” and he’s now working to “help build a third party” that will uphold the “America first” values he says Trump has betrayed.

Carlson made these assertions via an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review, which he gave following his announcement that he had left the Republican Party. While he says that he was a “consistent defender” of the party for 35 years, he now argues he can no longer support the way it has changed under Trump.

Central to his criticism of both president and party was the war in the Middle East. While Carlson was instrumental to Trump’s success during the 2016 and 2024 campaigns, explains the New York Times, “he broke sharply with the president after the United States started the war with Iran in late February, declaring Mr. Trump was violating a core campaign promise to avoid foreign conflicts. By April, Mr. Carlson said he was ‘tormented’ by his past support for the president. He told the Columbia Journalism Review that he had not spoken to Mr. Trump since the start of the war.”

“I’m not interested in talking to him,” said Carlson.

While Carlson has in the past attempted to maintain a public perception of alliance with Trump, texts revealed in 2023 during a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems showed his true feelings. “I hate him passionately,” texted Carlson in 2020, just two days before Trump spurred on the January 6 insurrection. A few days later, he texted that the president was “a demonic force, a destroyer.”

Trump regained Carlson’s loyalty — or at least his willingness to fake it — in time for the 2024 election, but then over the course of the following year, growing daylight could be seen between their policy positions. Then Trump launched conflict with Iran, which Carlson said betrayed the “America first” ethos as well as blatant promises to start “no new foreign wars.” Speaking with the Columbia Journalism Review, Carlson said that there was no longer any contrast between “war and finance.”

“That’s not a democracy,” asserted Carlson. “That’s a one-party state posing as a democracy, and 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.” While some have suggested that he may be preparing for a presidential run himself, Carlson has rejected this idea, saying, “I’m not a politician, that’s for sure. I’m not a rival to Trump for power. I have no power. I’m someone who knows Trump, and I know him well, and I’ve known him for a long time.”

Carlson isn’t the only prominent figure from the MAGA movement to lose faith in Trump. Former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene had her own dramatic falling out with the president, and on Wednesday announced plans to create a new political party specifically to oppose the MAGA agenda.