Trump hits back at Tucker Carlson for accusing him of abandoning ‘America First’ by supporting Israel

President Trump rejected rightwing pundit Tucker Carlson’s criticism that he is abandoning America First principles with his support for Israel amid its military campaign against Iran.

Carlson, an ardent Trump ally, fumed at Israel’s preemptive strike on Iran last week, dubbing the US “complicit in the act of war” and arguing that, “politicians purporting to be America First can’t now credibly turn around and say they had nothing to do with it.”

Trump said he wasn’t familiar with Carlson’s critique but contended that, as a pioneer of the modern America First movement, he’s the final arbiter of what it means to put the US first.

“Well, considering that I’m the one that developed ‘America First,’ and considering that the term wasn’t used until I came along, I think I’m the one that decides that,” Trump told The Atlantic in response.

“For those people who say they want peace—you can’t have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon. So for all of those wonderful people who don’t want to do anything about Iran having a nuclear weapon—that’s not peace.”

Initially, the Trump administration had drawn distance from Israel’s aggressive posture towards Iran. Ahead of the strikes, Trump told reporters that “I don’t want them going in because I think it [an attack] would blow” the US nuclear negotiations with Iran.

Right after Israel struck Iranian nuclear sites, took out top scientists and killed top military brass, Secretary of State Marco Rubio put out a statement underscoring that, “We are not involved in strikes against Iran.”

Trump later took to Truth Social, reminding Iran that it had blown past the 60-day deadline he gave to make a deal and urged the theocratic regime to cut a new pact on its nuclear program.

Carlson had long been a skeptic of foreign policy hawks drumming up hostility towards Iran and was adamant that the US should avoid war with Tehran at all costs.

“While the American military may not have physically perpetrated the assault, years of funding and sending weapons to Israel, which Donald Trump just bragged about on Truth Social, undeniably place the U.S. at the center of last night’s events,” the former Fox News host wrote in a newsletter following the strikes.

“Washington knew these attacks would happen. They aided Israel in carrying them out,” he added. “Politicians purporting to be America First can’t now credibly turn around and say they had nothing to do with it.”

The US has assisted Israel in defending itself from the retaliatory strikes. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that last week’s strikes were “just the beginning.”

Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, vowed that “Life will be dark for them.”

“They started it. They started a war.”

Israel’s preemptive strikes on Iran come at a moment of perceived weakness in Tehran. Iran’s proxy forces have taken a huge drubbing over the past two years, with the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, Israel mounting a stunning pager attack that wiped out top Hezbollah leaders and Hamas’s leadership being decimated during the war in Gaza.

Prior to Israel’s attack, the US and Iran had been expected to have another round of talks about the regime’s nuclear program Sunday in Oman. Those talks were cancelled in the wake of the strikes.

Trump has since publicly reiterated that the US was not involved with the attack and Iran and warned the regime not to attack American assets.

“The U.S. had nothing to do with the attack on Iran, tonight,” Trump wrote on Truth Social midnight into Sunday.

“If we are attacked in any way, shape or form by Iran, the full strength and might of the U.S. Armed Forces will come down on you at levels never seen before. However, we can easily get a deal done between Iran and Israel, and end this bloody conflict!!!”