Tucker Carlson, Who Broke With Trump, Plans to 'Help Build a Third Party'

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/02/us/politics/tucker-carlson-third-party.html

Tucker Carlson, Who Broke With Trump, Plans to ‘Help Build a Third Party’
The influential conservative commentator’s relationship with the president and the G.O.P. fractured over the war with Iran. Now, he says he is charting a new course.
By Tim Balk
July 2, 2026, 11:39 a.m. ET

Tucker Carlson, the influential conservative media commentator, said in an interview that he planned to help start a new political party after leaving the Republican Party, but that he had no interest in running for office.

Mr. Carlson, a former close ally of President Trump who has broken with the Republican Party over the war with Iran, told the Columbia Journalism Review that he was “going to help build a third party.”

“There should be a good-faith effort to figure out what benefits the country,” Mr. Carlson said in an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review published Wednesday.

He outlined his plans at a moment of upheaval for both parties: The insurgent left appears ascendant in the Democratic Party as the base has grown angry over the party leadership’s stance on Israel since the war in Gaza. The Republican Party has been fractured by Mr. Trump’s handling of the war with Iran.

Mr. Carlson, a popular podcaster and former Fox News host, said last month that he was leaving the Republican Party. He described himself on a podcast episode as a “consistent defender” of the party for 35 years, but said that he believed the party had lost touch with “America first” principles under Mr. Trump.

In the Columbia Journalism Review interview, he described some of the policies that might animate his new party, saying he supports “ending all immigration.” A longtime nativist and immigration hard-liner prone to conspiratorial views, Mr. Carlson said immigration drives unemployment. (Many economists say it does not.)

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