President Donald Trump responded to critics saying support of Israel's strikes against Iran's nuclear program is antithetical to his America First agenda, and that includes onetime critic turned supporter Tucker Carlson.
"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 an interview Saturday morning.
Trump was responding to questions of Carlson's criticism of "warmongers" urging Trump to support Israel's attacks on Iran's burgeoning nuclear weapons program.
"The real divide isn't between people who support Israel and people who support Iran or the Palestinians," Carlson wrote Friday on X. "The real divide is between those who casually encourage violence, and those who seek to prevent it — between warmongers and peacemakers.
"Who are the warmongers? They would include anyone who's calling Donald Trump today to demand air strikes and other direct US military involvement in a war with Iran.
"On that list: Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Rupert Murdoch, Ike Perlmutter, and Miriam Adelson.
"At some point they will all have to answer for this, but you should know their names now."
But Trump stood firmly for his advisers against critics like Carlson, noting that while he is calling for peace, the United States would not be a pacifist against the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism – one that is dangerously pursuing a nuclear weapon amid decades of supporting chants of "Death to Israel" and "Death to America."
"For those people who say they want peace — you can't have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon," Trump added to The Atlantic.
"So for all of those wonderful people who don't want to do anything about Iran having a nuclear weapon — that's not peace.
"I think we have done very well."
Carlson, who joked about eating Vladimir Putin's lunch in Chadwick Moore's book "Tucker" two summers ago, has long sided with Putin narratives, including criticism of the Ukraine war being a territorial dispute.
Notably, Putin and Russia have forged a defense pact with Iran, potentially setting up a World War III-like showdown between Western powers led by the United States and the aligned axis powers of the East in Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea.
Trump has admitted Putin is taking calls and sharing support for Trump and Iran to seek a diplomatic resolution to their nuclear weapons talks, but Israel's bold and complex strikes on Iran's nuclear program – including taking out Islamic Republican Guard Corps leadership and nuclear scientists – could eventually force Putin to decide just how much Russia will stand with Iran against Trump and the U.S. allies of the West.
While Carlson's positions ultimately fear that eventuality, Trump's U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee argued Israel's security against Iranian nuclear aspirations remains in America's national interest.
"Seven hundred thousand Americans live in Israel," Huckabee wrote to supporters. "That is a full congressional district, but Tucker doesn't care."
Huckabee continued, with sarcasm, "He knows more about the Middle East than anyone.
"I learned long ago that the most dangerous man in the room is the guy who doesn't know what he doesn't know. He will get you killed. That's Tucker."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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