I've reached out to several of the president's most prominent supporters in his movement to get the reaction to this momentous decision to launch a wide scale attack on Iran. I just heard back from Tucker Carlson and his answer. He told me if president, that president's decision is, quote, [00:00:17] absolutely disgusting and evil. As you can imagine, Donald Trump did not take kindly to that statement from Tucker Carlson. And so as a result, he is retaliating against the former cable news host [00:00:32] and is booting Tucker Carlson out of the Maga club thanks to his aggressive criticism of this war against Iran. On behalf of Israel. Now, before we give you his full statement, take your $0.02. So who's going to join Tucker in this rebellion against Trump on Maga? [00:00:51] And who's going to win that argument? Well, there is evidence on both sides. But first let's give you the details of this fight. So ABC's Jonathan Karl posted on X this afternoon, writing that in a lengthy conversation just now, President Trump hit back at Tucker Carlson, who called the [00:01:08] Iraq war absolutely disgusting and evil. Quote. Tucker has lost his way, Trump told me. I knew that a long time ago. And he's not Maga. Maga is saving our country. Maga is making our country great again. [00:01:23] Maga is America first. What a lie. And Tucker is none of those things. And Tucker is really not smart enough to understand that. Look delusional. Like absolutely delusional in every way, shape or form. How is fighting a war on behalf of a foreign country? [00:01:40] America first. And you're going to call Tucker Carlson dumb? Look, as much as you know, members of our audience might disagree with Tucker Carlson, and I totally respect that. You can't call the guy dumb. He's not a dumb guy. And he is absolutely correct on the issue of Israel and Iran. [00:01:58] But I'm curious what you think, Jake. Yeah. So it's now open warfare. Before, you know, Tucker is saying some nice things. He still says something nice afterwards about Trump. We'll get to that in a minute. But Trump is saying that I said I'm done with Tucker Carlson. I'm done with Megyn Kelly. He's done with Marjorie Taylor Greene. [00:02:15] He's done with Tom Massie. But those are four of the most, you know, I was going to say true blue, but I guess true red, right. Conservatives, right wingers, Maga America first there is. So he's based Trump is putting in his lot with the neocons and with the [00:02:32] establishment and with the donor class. And so can he win that war? Well, and so far, the polling indicates that among people who still call themselves Maga, he has huge support. Okay. But among Trump voters who don't call themselves Maga, [00:02:52] and there might be more of them now, now calling themselves Maga, his support is down to 63%, which is unprecedentedly Lo for him with his own voters. So I would I would differentiate the two different factions in the Republican base, [00:03:08] not as Maga or not Maga. It's either America First or same old neocon traditional Republican slop, right? So the America First crowd is really upset. And that crowd significantly sides with Tucker Carlson. [00:03:26] But one other thing that I've noticed in the polling, Jake, as it pertains to Republican voters, is that prior to entering this war against Iran, a higher percentage of Republicans were against taking military action against Iran. But once Trump made the decision, a lot of them turned around [00:03:43] and decided to fall in line. Now, what does that mean for the future of the Republican Party? I don't know, and I'm not even going to attempt to predict it, but I think that someone like Tucker Carlson has managed to cobble together a bit of a coalition. [00:03:59] You know, the type of coalition that Trump succeeded at building in the lead up to the 2024 presidential election. And I say that as someone who has noticed, like just looking at his audience and the type of people who tend to watch his show, there's a pretty good mix there now, whereas before it used [00:04:14] to be just straight up right wingers. I'm noticing a lot of independents have flocked to his program, because these are the independents who voted for Trump, because they didn't want to get dragged into forever wars, especially on behalf of Israel. And so it's really interesting to see, and I do think that, you know, [00:04:32] this ongoing realignment is still happening to some extent. I don't know what it means for the Democratic Party, and I'm very curious to see how this all plays out for the next presidential election in 28. Yeah, I think I'm pretty sure. So look, there's the terms are confusing because they used to all be united [00:04:50] around the term Maga. But now if you go online, there's tons of America First people going Maga is dead. We're done with Maga. Maga is just like the dead enders supporting Trump. And so there's a cleave there. And then American first gets confused because sometimes Nick Fuentes uses it [00:05:08] and then you're like, wait, wait, wait. Not that America first, right? And so, so I think that what it really breaks down to is establishment versus the populist. And when you look at it that way, within the Republican Party now and among the voters, that's not a contest. The populists are going to win. We already had that. [00:05:25] It was Trump versus Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis. How'd that turn out? I mean, it was. - Yeah, that's a good point. - It was a slaughter. - That's a good. - Point. - Right. - And and there's more. So on Monday, Trump hit back for the first time at both Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly. To your point earlier, Jake, who had expressed concerns about Trump's [00:05:45] decision to go to war with Iran. And so Trump said of the two pundits, I think that Maga is Trump. Maga is not the other two. Maga wants to see our country thrive and be safe. And Maga loves what I'm doing, every aspect of it. [00:06:00] This is a detour that we have to take in order to keep our country safe and keep our, our country safe, frankly. So I guess in the second part of that, he's referring to the United States and Israel. Again, it bears repeating Iran did not pose any type of security issue [00:06:19] for the United States. This is all about Israel. And Tucker Carlson has been repeatedly saying that, which I'm sure Trump is not a fan of. And then he continues to say, Trump. Megan was opposed to me for years when I ran the first time and nothing stopped me. And so, you know, some people are against and they always come back. [00:06:38] She came all the way back. But now I guess she maybe doesn't like the idea of this war, but I do, because I have to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of the Iranians. Now, I gotta say, this is not a great time [00:06:53] for the nuclear disarmament crowd because we now have multiple case studies that show nuclear weapons tend to serve as a pretty good deterrent. Okay. It could have been a deterrent when it comes to Russia invading Ukraine, but Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons at our behest in the 1990s. [00:07:12] And then you look at Iran, do you really think Iran would have been invaded by the United States? Would it be bombed by the United States and Israel knowing that they have a nuclear arsenal? Probably not, although the Israelis are a little crazy, so who knows? [00:07:27] Don't forget Noble Mobile saving you a ton of money. So a lot of people are signing up now and beginning to realize, what the hell? Why am I paying so much to Verizon and AT&T? So your bill is only $50 a month, but it can actually be less because they give you money back if you don't use your data. So if you're paying more than $50, there's no reason to not switch. [00:07:44] It's crazy not to switch because same phone, same number, same contacts. Literally nothing changes. Titcomb. Titcomb. All right. We'll be right back. But as for Tucker, Trump insisted that his criticism doesn't bother him at all. Carlson can say whatever he wants. It has no impact on me. [00:08:03] And after Trump's attack on Tucker today, Marjorie Taylor Green came out in passionate defense of Carlson, saying that she supports Tucker. Trump doesn't even know what Maga is anymore and turned it into Mmegha, meaning make America make Israel great again. [00:08:20] Trump is not America first, he's donor first. I know you love that Jake Tucker would beat Trump if he ran for president, and Trump tried to violate the Constitution and tried to run again for a first time. For the third time, Tucker himself wasn't willing to go nearly as far. [00:08:38] In fact, he told reporter Oliver Darcy the following. There are times I get annoyed with Trump right now, definitely included, but I'll always love him no matter what he says about me. Tucker does this thing. I don't know if it's disingenuous or not. To me, it kind of comes across as disingenuous where he'll like pretty [00:08:56] viciously trash someone, but then he'll be like just the nicest guy. He's the nicest guy, you know. He's a vicious warmonger and has committed war crimes and should probably be tried at The Hague. But he's the nicest guy I've ever met in my life. - I've known him my whole life. - Yeah. [00:09:11] No. I got to admit, I. I don't believe Tucker when he says that. So, look, it's okay. We agree on war in Israel. And and now donors and a bunch of things and wonderful will take [00:09:27] it still plenty we disagree on. And. Yeah. No, I don't think he loves Donald Trump. I think he's just being political there and fine, whatever. People are allowed to be political. But okay, so a bunch of clarifications that are important. So, you know, Anna said this is a little side one, but Megha, you know, [00:09:43] it means make Israel great again. And that's versus Maga. But Trump once said, oh, no, it means make Iran great again. And the mainstream media, Anna, I've now seen articles thinks that that's what it means. No, it doesn't mean that at all. God, they're so clueless. [00:10:00] Anyway. Small point. And another one that's a little tangential, but important in that statement that Anna read you about Trump saying, oh yeah, this war is for us. I mean, it's a little detour and it's for us and other countries. Wait, there's two huge admissions there. One, he said it's a detour. [00:10:18] A detour, by definition, means not the road we were going on, not the path we were on, clearly. Right. So and then the second part is, he says us and other countries. So he's admitting, yeah, this is definitely at a bare minimum [00:10:36] also for other countries, meaning of course, Israel. So Trump is not likely to say that, right? I mean, that's those are confessions for him. And just because it's so true that even he can't help but say it. So we're asking on Titcombe, who do you think is sticking to the Maga policies [00:10:53] more Donald Trump or Tucker Carlson? It's kind of funny to ask, you know, left leaning and independent and now some right wingers watching this too. For sure. But I am curious what you guys think because it isn't about whether you're right wing or not. [00:11:09] It's about, hey, we all have eyes and ears. I remember I'm old enough to remember a year ago when Trump was saying anti-war and America first, and he is most clearly not doing that. I think I think a really important part of actually making America Great Again [00:11:25] is trying to get back to a place, because I do think this existed at some point. I think I remember it getting back to a place where both sides can just be honest and then engage in good faith policy debates. You can't do that when one side or both sides are lying. [00:11:44] So in this case, Trump is just trying to lie to us. How are you supposed to take that seriously? How are you supposed to make the country better and unite fellow Americans when one side and one leader is being, like, viciously dishonest about what? The motivations for war with Iran happened to be. [00:12:02] So that's the distinction that I draw. Because, look, if a right winger who's in favor of the war with Iran comes to me and wants to get into a debate and is at least honest about what the motivating factors, the real drivers of this war happen to be. Okay, great. I can have a conversation with you. [00:12:19] We might get into a heated debate, there's no question. But I can't take people seriously when they lie to your face. And there are a lot of people in the Trump orbit who are very happy to lie in our faces. Yeah. Look, last thing on that is, as always, you know, we're fair on both sides. [00:12:37] And what really set me off yesterday was a whole bunch of the Democrats, a big chunk of the Democrats who were speaking out against the war. I can't believe we went into this war. This is outrageous. They're going to go vote on it. They're going to vote to fund it. Yes. Such liars. [00:12:53] And why are they lying? Because they literally it's not hard to solve. They also get paid by the Israeli lobby, literally, completely. So all of this is a game. It's theater. That's why I get so mad at the media. Who keeps playing along with this? [00:13:09] The play as if it's real world. It's not the real world. Trump is getting paid by the Israelis. So are a lot of Democrats. They're both lying. So that's why in this whole struggle. If you say to me, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson were largely being honest, even when certainly on the things we disagree with them on too, like [00:13:27] they're not hiding any of their opinions. So there's like, you know, they're very harsh on some of the things we disagree on. And then on the ones that we're agree on, well, they've been more consistent. There's no question that they were antiwar and stayed antiwar. Trump has not been consistent. And, you know, and Trump, of course, when you're talking about liars, [00:13:45] I mean, he's a legendary liar. So he's kind of ironically perfect for politics. And I say ironic because originally Maga liked him because they thought he wasn't a politician and he was one of them. And that was probably the thing they were most wrong about.