It was just two years ago that Newsmax shamelessly tried to make a play for Fox News’ much larger audience by publicly courting Tucker Carlson after the conservative cable giant unceremoniously fired the far-right star.
Now that Carlson is leading a MAGA insurgency against Donald Trump amid the ongoing crisis in the Middle East, however, Newsmax is telling its audience – and one viewer in particular – that the former Fox News primetime host has “jumped the shark” and is no longer relevant.
In fact, the network’s guests have even gone so far as to float the notion that Carlson is getting paid by foreign adversaries to oppose America’s involvement in the burgeoning war between Israel and Iran.
Carlson was once the top-rated personality in cable news in April 2023 when Fox shockingly dumped him just a week after the Murdoch-owned channel paid $787.5 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems.
Though it still isn’t clear exactly what led to the network parting ways with its biggest star, the timing of his departure so soon after Fox essentially admitted to peddling pro-Trump election lies sparked a MAGA revolt against the network – leading to a short-lived ratings slump. Newsmax, meanwhile, brazenly looked to take advantage in an effort to peel away some of Fox’s conservative cable market share.
In the days after Carlson’s termination, Newsmax mentioned Carlson’s name on the air hundreds of times and devoted dozens of segments to the situation, which generally featured conservative guests railing against Fox News for letting him go. With Newsmax suddenly seeing a spike in ratings, the network even ran an “urgent poll” asking viewers if “it was right for Fox News to fire Tucker Carlson” and whether they “want Tucker back on cable TV.”
The implication, of course, was clear. And behind the scenes, the network’s CEO and founder Chris Ruddy was apparently making a full-court press to get Carlson on Newsmax’s airwaves.
According to TMZ, Ruddy wasn’t just offering Carlson his own primetime show, but he also floated the idea of having the nationalist commentator program the entire channel in order to sweeten the deal. TMZ added that the network’s executives made it clear to Carlson’s people that “they would basically give him a big say in rebranding their channel.”
In the end, nothing came to fruition as Carlson decided to launch his own right-wing media company, which largely revolves around his successful podcast.
In that role, he also found himself – especially during the 2024 presidential campaign – part of Trump’s inner circle, and was influential in getting Trump to choose JD Vance as his running mate.
Despite no longer hosting a cable news show, Carlson’s influence in the right-wing media ecosphere makes him a direct competitor to television networks such as Newsmax, which has staked its entire business model and identity around Trump’s cult of personality.
This brings us to the present, which sees Carlson – the undisputed leader of MAGA’s isolationist wing when it comes to foreign policy – at loggerheads with the president over the specter of the United States directly involving itself in yet another Middle Eastern war that could have lasting impacts in the region and world.
Having warned Trump for months about bombing Iran and raging against “crazy” former Fox News colleagues for egging the president on, Carlson blasted the president as being “complicit” in Israel’s strikes on Iran while saying a war could “end Trump’s presidency” and the “American empire.” He also took aim at Fox News for “turning up the propaganda hose to full blast” in pushing for war and regime change in Iran.
With other MAGA luminaries such as Steve Bannon and Marjorie Taylor Greene siding with Carlson, the president eventually returned rhetorical fire, labeling his longtime ally as “kooky Tucker” while mockingly dismissing the ex-Fox star’s opinions due to him no longer being on cable news.
“I don’t know what Tucker Carlson is saying,” Trump seethed at this week’s G7. “Let him go get a television network and say it so that people listen.”
Newsmax hosts and pundits, meanwhile, have rallied around the president while taking potshots at Carlson, insisting that the former Fox News primetime anchor is uneducated about the conflict and is just searching for relevancy by attacking Trump.
“I think Tucker Carlson has now jumped the shark,” conservative radio personality Jeff Kuhner declared on Newsmax’s morning show The National Report on Monday. “The big distinction, and I think Trump made it very clear, is that Israel is at war with Iran – not the United States.”
Throughout the day on Monday, former Fox News reporter James Rosen – who now serves as Newsmax’s chief White House correspondent – delivered lengthy on-air reports laying out the back and forth between the president and Carlson. These dispatches would then lead into panel discussions, which featured the network’s personalities and guests criticizing Carlson.
“People trying to stay relevant, perhaps,” anchor Bianca de la Garza said on her program Newsline. “I mean, let’s just be clear, President Trump is not a warmonger. He has given Iran so many olive branches, and he is seeking to end wars.”
Newsbusters editor Tim Graham, a frequent contributor on Newsmax, added that while Carlson ripped his former Fox News colleagues such as Sean Hannity and Mark Levin for consistently being “warmongers,” Carlson “hasn’t been consistent on anything” before suggesting that is why Fox got rid of him.
“It is kind of befuddling, and maybe this is why he got driven out of Fox in the first place,” he declared while de la Garza wondered if “this is why” the Dominion texts that found Carlson blasting Trump in private “surfaced in the first place.”
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Later that afternoon, de la Garza would join four other hosts and pundits to once again discuss the Carlson-Trump feud, and this time around her criticism was far more strident, especially when anchor Krysia Lenzo said Carlson “appeared to have flip-flopped” on his anti-war position with Iran.
“It’s also all about Fox people, a lot of this, where he used to work. So it could be a combination of that and also, we talked about this earlier on Newsline, maybe just to stay relevant,” de la Garza asserted. “President Trump is not a warmonger! Everything happening right now… is going to ensure peace in the world!”
After she claimed it was likely just “sour grapes” on Carlson’s part, Rick Leventhal – another former Fox News reporter turned Newsmax host – continued the pile-on. “I’m surprised Tucker has taken this position, first and foremost,” he said, adding: “Tucker’s entitled to his opinions, of course, as everyone else, but in this case I think the president made his position pretty clear.”
While other pundits insisted that “Trump is the only one who defines America First and MAGA at the end of the day,” de la Garza claimed that Carlson “maybe just needs a little time to catch up” on the current situation between Israel and Iran.
Though the network’s primetime slate essentially took a more hands-off approach, mostly sticking with promoting the president’s clapbacks at Carlson, host Rob Finnerty did bring on Daily Wire podcaster Andrew Klavan to react to the intra-MAGA feud. Klavan, a fervent pro-Israel conservative, suggested that there could be some ulterior motives at play for Carlson.
“It’s strange that it hasn’t happened before since we know that Tucker Carlson was secretly sending in-house emails at Fox, calling Trump virtually demonic and saying he has no power to do anything but destroy,” Klavan said. “I want to know at this point, and I…don’t want to sound conspiratorial, but I want to know exactly who pays people to say that we should not be involved in any way in any fight that supports Israel, and we should put Israel and Iran on some kind of moral parity.”
Asked for clarity about his accusation, Klavan conceded that he didn’t have any confirmation that Carlson was getting compensated to criticize Israel before doubling down on the suggestion anyway.
“I don’t know, it’s just a guess,” Klavan chuckled. “Well, I’m not saying I have any information about it, but I’m starting to wonder about it because it doesn’t make any sense, and it does not support America First.”
He concluded: “It just doesn’t make any sense. So I want to know what sense does it make. I’m not making an accusation because I don’t have the facts, but I have begun to wonder because it just doesn’t hold together.”
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