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By Jesus Mesa
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Comedian Jon Stewart never expected to nod in agreement with Tucker Carlson. But as the former Fox News host grilled Texas Senator Ted Cruz over U.S. involvement in Israel's war with Iran, Stewart—a longtime critic of Carlson—found himself aligned with an unlikely ally.
"We're in such a bizarro world, you've got me nodding my head to Tucker Carlson videos," Stewart said on his podcast recently. "You got Tucker Carlson going, 'Why are we going to war with Iran again?' And I'm like, 'Yeah, you tell him, brother.'"
The fiery exchange between Carlson and Cruz, part of a now-viral two-hour interview, illustrated the public civil war erupting among Trump allies over the conflict between Israel and Iran, and redefined Carlson's role in the current landscape—not just as a conservative firebrand, but as one of the leading critics of Trump-era foreign policy.
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On June 21, days after Stewart's podcast episode, President Donald Trump announced the U.S. had conducted successful airstrikes on three key Iranian nuclear sites, adding the targets were "completely and totally obliterated." He said on his social media platform Truth Social that any retaliation against the United States would be "met with force far greater" than the unprecedented attack, which was the first time the U.S. has targeted Iran directly. The strikes were carried out without congressional approval.
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Tehran responded with missile strikes on a U.S. military base in Qatar, saying that the number of missiles fired matched the number of bombs dropped by the U.S. over the weekend. Trump later said Iran and Israel had agreed a ceasefire. Carlson tweeted after the ceasefire announcement: "Thank God."
Once a full-throated supporter of the Iraq War, he is now one of the most vocal anti-interventionists on the American right. His opposition to military action in Iran isn't particularly surprising for those who have followed him from his perch at Fox News to his role as a podcast host and independent content creator. Carlson holds similar views on the war in Ukraine.
But the force of his criticism, especially toward figures like Cruz, caught many off guard. That includes many on the left, like Stewart, who wondered why Carlson was asking some of the more pointed questions in the media about the U.S. role in the latest Middle East conflict.
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Welcome to the Resistance?
Carlson's interview and opposition to intervention has found support beyond his usual base. Democratic Representative Ro Khanna, former Obama staffer Tommy Vietor and liberal pundits like Mehdi Hasan and Hasan Piker all praised Carlson for confronting Cruz in ways mainstream media often do not.
California's Khanna and Republican Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky are leading a bipartisan group of House lawmakers that introduced a War Powers Resolution days before Trump authorized the military strike on Iran. It invokes the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which was enacted to limit the president's ability to commit U.S. armed forces to hostilities abroad without Congressional consent.
Speaking before the U.S. strikes, Vietor said of Carlson's interview: "I haven't seen Ted Cruz get pummeled like this since Trump insulted his wife and father during the 2016 primary.
"If he keeps these interviews up, Tucker Carlson is going to have to start selling body bags."
Hasan, the former MSNBC host turned Substack creator, said he was struck by the contrast with mainstream interviewers. "I remain amazed that it took Tucker Carlson to ask these obvious questions of a U.S. senator, and expose the nonsense that he peddles about Israel and God and the Bible," Hasan said. "All these years, all of the Sunday show interviewers and the rest never asked these simple questions."
Piker, the popular podcaster considered by some to be the "Joe Rogan of the left," added: "Why is Tucker Carlson capable of conducting an adversarial interview about the dangers of American intervention in Iran with Ted Cruz better than everyone else in legacy media? Shame."
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Eric Alterman, a CUNY distinguished professor of journalism at Brooklyn College, told Newsweek the interview "made quite a splash" because major outlets like CNN, The New York Times and MSNBC rarely press Republican politicians with such direct, confrontational questions. He said traditional media often avoid challenging topics like Israel out of fear of appearing partisan or facing backlash.
"Mainstream media usually want to present both sides. They're hesitant to seem biased," Alterman said. "And with Democrats currently lacking clear direction, many outlets are reluctant to take the lead themselves."
He added that mainstream pundits also tend to be strongly supportive of Israel. "So when Trump signals support for Israel in a possible war with Iran, there's often little pushback," he said.
Former Trump strategist Steve Bannon reserved his criticism for Fox News' coverage of the U.S. strikes, rather than Trump. Bannon, who has spoken out against Israel's war on Iran, told Semafor: "People on the right are now confronting an unpleasant reality, a great unmasking: The Murdochs don't put America's interests first.
"There needs to be a thorough FARA [Foreign Agents Registration Act] investigation into Fox's relationship with a foreign power." He added that "their audience is geriatrics—it's people 70 and over," and said that Fox has "no stroke because it's not an activist base." Carlson, too, took aim at the network in another recent podcast, asking former Fox colleague Clayton Morris: "Is it weird to look at your former employer...and see them as a prime driver for war?"
In his Cruz interview, Carlson didn't hesitate to press the senator on his support for Israel. "You don't know anything about Iran," he said, even questioning Cruz's understanding of Israel's significance to Christians. The senator responded by accusing Carlson of antisemitism, saying: "You're asking, why are the Jews controlling our foreign policy. That's what you just asked."
Carlson pushed back in another clip from the one-on-one: "That does not make me an antisemite, and shame on you for suggesting otherwise." Yet his interrogation of Cruz—raising accusations of antisemitism and criticizing the influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee—revealed a deeper divide over what "America First" means in 2025.
MAGA loyalists like Laura Loomer, in a particularly profane post on X, called Carlson a "c*** warmer for Arabs." In a post two days after the U.S. strikes, she wrote: "So many of the people I met in Conservative media over the last 10 years have totally changed for the worse. It's shocking to see how deranged some of these people have become. Many can see it, but they don't want to speak publicly about it."
Trump mocked Carlson publicly over his Iran stance, calling him "kooky" and suggesting he should find a TV network to hire him if he wanted anyone to listen.
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The full Cruz interview has over 8.6 million views on Carlson's X account and another 3.4 million on YouTube—which, combined, was more than three times Fox News' primetime viewers average of 3 million for the first quarter of this year, per Adweek.
For Alterman, the media analyst, the virality of the exchange with Cruz underscored Carlson's unique media position. "Tucker can do this because he has his own platform and audience," he said. "Even if Trump denounces him, his followers will stick with him. He's not beholden to the traditional media structure, and he's not scared of Trump like many others are."
Carlson's growing influence, particularly on platforms like X and YouTube, reflects a broader shift identified in the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2025. According to the report, Americans—especially younger, conservative-leaning men—are increasingly turning away from traditional outlets in favor of personality-driven voices across digital platforms. The study found that 54 percent of U.S. adults now primarily access news through social media and video networks, with trust in conventional journalism continuing to erode.
The report also revealed a striking finding: 14 percent of Americans encountered political content from Tucker Carlson in the week following the Trump inauguration, placing him ahead of many institutional media brands in terms of reach among key demographics.
The authors noted that "right-leaning audiences now dominate the conversation on platforms like X," with Carlson cited as one of the most influential figures in the new fragmented media environment.
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'Splintering Media Landscape'
That independence has allowed Carlson to shape political narratives in ways mainstream journalists often cannot—or will not. "The media landscape is splintering," Alterman said. "Different groups trust different voices. Tucker is speaking directly to a segment of the Trump base that's skeptical of endless war and not particularly attached to the old neocon worldview."
As Richard Hall of British newspaper The Independent said of Carlson: "He knows the ways of the neocons—their secrets, their tricks, their dodges—because he was once one of them." In that way, Carlson's transformation from a cheerleader of the Iraq War to one of its fiercest critics on the right is what makes his case against Iran so potent—and so politically disruptive.
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