On a podcast episode released April 20, 2026, Tucker Carlson delivered an emotional admission alongside his younger brother Buckley, telling listeners he was wrestling with his conscience over the role he played in returning Donald Trump to the presidency. The 56-year-old former Fox News host, once among Trump’s fiercest media defenders, said he felt tormented by what he helped create.
“I want to say I’m sorry for misleading people. It was not intentional,” Carlson said during “The Tucker Carlson Show.” He spoke candidly with Buckley, a former Trump speechwriter known in the family as “Uncle Buck,” about accepting personal responsibility for their respective contributions to Trump’s 2024 victory.
The combative broadcaster didn’t mince words when assigning blame. “You and I and everyone else who supported him, you wrote speeches for him, I campaigned for him, I mean, we’re implicated in this for sure,” Carlson told Buckley. “It’s not enough to say, ‘Well, I changed my mind,’ or like, ‘This is bad. I’m out.’ It’s like, in very small ways, but in real ways, you and me and millions of people like us are the reason this is happening right now.”
The catalyst for Carlson’s public break with Trump has been Operation Epic Fury, the U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran that launched Feb. 28, 2026. The 38-day air campaign eliminated Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and obliterated over 85% of Iran’s defense industrial base before ending with a ceasefire on April 7. Carlson branded the operation “absolutely disgusting and evil” and condemned it as a betrayal of MAGA supporters who backed Trump precisely because he vowed to avoid foreign military entanglements. He also accused the administration of waging the war exclusively to serve Israel’s interests and previously described Trump’s Easter morning social media threat against Iran as “vile on every level.”
During their conversation, Carlson acknowledged that red flags about Trump’s character existed all along. “Was this always the plan? You don’t want to be a conspiracy nut, but clearly, there were signs of low character,” he said. “We knew that. But there are tons of people of low character who outperform it.”
“I do think it’s like a moment to wrestle with our own consciences,” Carlson said on the April 20, 2026, episode of “The Tucker Carlson Show.” “You know, we’ll be tormented by it for a long time.”
Buckley Carlson escalated the criticism even further, labeling Trump an “out of control, megalomaniacal, destructive president” and floating the idea that Congress should “consider” invoking the 25th Amendment.
Trump responded with characteristic fury. In a 485-word Truth Social post dated April 9, the president attacked Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones as “stupid people” with “low IQs.” He described Carlson specifically as “a broken man” who “couldn’t even finish college” and was “never the same” after his Fox News termination, suggesting the podcaster should “see a good psychiatrist.” When asked about Carlson’s podcast apology, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle simply provided a link to that Truth Social post.
The apology rang hollow to many observers who recalled that Carlson’s private misgivings about Trump were exposed years earlier. Text messages disclosed during the Dominion Voting Systems defamation case revealed that on Jan. 4, 2021, just two days before the Capitol attack, Carlson wrote “I hate him (Trump) passionately” and on the day of the attack itself called him “a demonic force, a destroyer.”
Fox News ultimately paid $787.5 million to settle that lawsuit. Carlson’s program was dropped from the network days afterward. Following his departure, he started his own podcast and proceeded to endorse and campaign for Trump in 2024 despite those previously revealed private sentiments.
On The View, hosts showed no sympathy. Sara Haines declared that Carlson “will literally do, say anything for money, for clicks, for power. That man just needs to disappear.” Joy Behar quipped that Carlson has “what they call liar’s remorse.”
A late March UMass Lowell poll found Carlson’s favorability among Republicans had plummeted to 31%. The podcast episode has garnered more than 500,000 views. While other prominent figures including Alex Jones, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Joe Rogan, and Candace Owens have all publicly criticized Trump over the Iran war and various other matters, none have matched Carlson’s willingness to shoulder personal culpability for restoring Trump to office.