Tucker Carlson Admits Donald Trump Has 'Diminished American Power' in a Way We 'Couldn't Have Foreseen' After Breaking With MAGA

Former MAGA diehard Tucker Carlson strongly criticized President Donald Trump, asserting that the president "has diminished American power at a rate some of us thought was unimaginable" over the last year.

Speaking on a May 20 broadcast of “The Tucker Carlson Show,” the former Fox News host and once staunch Trump campaign ally expanded on his recent break from the administration.

The fallout centers on Trump's second-term foreign policy and domestic economic struggles, representing a severe fracture in the America First movement.

Carlson targeted Trump’s foreign policy decisions, specifically pointing to the administration's military escalation and ongoing war in Iran. Carlson argued that Trump abandoned his signature "America First" non-interventionist doctrine to pursue a globalist, regime-change agenda pushed by foreign interests.

The right-wing pundit called out a recent statement from Trump, who boasted to reporters that he had a "99 percent approval rating in Israel" and joked that he could run for prime minister there.

Carlson countered that the president failed to mention that his domestic approval rating has slumped to 35 percent in the United States.

"The president of the United States bragging about his popularity in a foreign country. ‘I’m 99 percent in Israel.’ Unmentioned is the fact that he’s 35 percent in the United States. Thirty-five percent support from Americans, the people he pledged to represent, to fight for, whose side he promised to take in every conflict, foreign and domestic. And yet, there he is, bragging about how popular he is in a foreign country, the same country that got us into the war that is, to some extent, causing his unpopularity in this country, speaking of cold-hearted globalist betrayals,” he said.

The America First influencer highlighted that the conflict led Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, choking off global oil supplies and causing American gas prices to soar toward $5 a gallon, further compounding inflation.

Carlson accused the administration of "fighting for people who are not his voters... and allowing his own country to languish," adding that the administration would rather manage an empire than repair American cities and rural communities.

Carlson continued to light into the president he formerly championed, blasting him for the damage he has done to the country,

“Now, you could say, ‘That’s just Trump searching for affirmation where he can. Unpopular at home, he retreats into the fantasy of his popularity in another country.’ Well, yes, true. But it’s not a one-time exhibition of this. That president has spent the last year looking outward toward the approval of other nations. That president has spent the last year fighting for people who are not his voters and in many cases, not even American and allowing his own country to languish,” the former Fox News star continued. “The last year has not made America great again. The last year has diminished American power at a rate some of us thought was unimaginable. We couldn’t have foreseen, less than a year and a half ago… the damage that this administration – led by that president, for whom we campaigned and liked personally – could do to this country.”

Carlson has expressed growing regret for his role in helping elect Trump to a second term. In April, Carlson stated on his podcast that he would be "tormented by it for a long time" and apologized to his audience for misleading them.

Other conservative figures, including former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and podcaster Megyn Kelly, have also voiced deep fractures regarding the administration's alignment with foreign defense hawks and donors over domestic issues.

Trump and the White House have aggressively dismissed Carlson's remarks. Trump took to social media to label Carlson a "low-IQ person" who has "absolutely no idea what's going on", claiming that Carlson frequently calls him but is ignored.