Tucker Carlson plans new political party while accusing Israel of ‘apartheid’

After split with Trump administration and the GOP, Tucker Carlson announces plans to form a new political party.

By David Rosenberg, World Israel News

Tucker Carlson accused Israel of maintaining an “apartheid situation” and said he would help build a new political party, following his break with the Republican establishment and the Trump administration.

Carlson, the former Fox News host who now runs an independent podcast, told the Columbia Journalism Review in an interview published on Wednesday that he had avoided criticizing Israel for much of his career because the issue was “too personal” and because he believed “the unwritten rule is that criticism of Israel is criticism of all Jews.”

While the far-right pundit has begun to openly voice criticism of Israel since the Hamas invasion of October 7, 2023, Carlson claimed that he has been “offended” by what he described as the “apartheid situation” there for two decades.

“I’ve been to Israel a lot, so I’m fully aware of the apartheid situation in Israel,” Carlson said. “I’ve been offended by it going back 20 years.”

Carlson said his decision to speak more openly about Israel was driven by the 2025 war with Iran, which he described as “the first salvo in a regime-change effort led by Israel.” He said he had warned President Donald Trump for years against seeking regime change in Tehran.

“I certainly did not anticipate talking about Israel,” Carlson said. “From my perspective, I got pushed into it.”

Carlson said he had not spoken to Trump since the war began and expressed sympathy for the president while also accusing him of betraying the political movement he led.

“I feel sorry for him,” Carlson said. “He’s not a man in charge of his own life at this point.”

The former Fox News host said he had visited Trump at the White House three times in the month before the war and told him that Iran would not produce “a democratic, pro-Western government” after regime change. Carlson said Trump replied, “I know.”

Asked about aligning with other anti-war voices, Carlson said both major parties were united on the issues he sees as most important: war, money and who bears the cost of both.

“Where does the money come from? Where does it go? And who gets killed?” Carlson said. “And on those questions, the parties are in lockstep solidarity with each other. That’s not a democracy. That’s a one-party state posing as a democracy, and it needs to be broken.”

He then announced plans to support a new political party.

“There’s going to be a third party, and I’m going to do everything I can to bring that about,” Carlson said.

Carlson said the lesson of recent months was that voters who backed Trump to avoid foreign military entanglements had instead ended up with another war.

“If you vote for Trump and you still wind up in a regime-change war—if Chuck Schumer is strongly behind Trump’s foreign policy, which he is—then we need options,” Carlson said. “We need a third party.”

Asked whether he would run as a candidate for the party, Carlson said he did not want to seek office.

“I’m going to help build a third party,” he said. “The US government should have, as its first priority, the welfare of its own people.”

Carlson also dismissed allegations that his criticism of Israel, Jewish theology, and of Orthodox Jewish groups such as Chabad reflected antisemitism.

“No. I’m not an antisemite; if I was an antisemite, I would just say so,” Carlson said. “I don’t have an employer. I don’t have investors. I don’t even have any creditors, so I can say whatever I think is true, and I plan to.”