Like him or loathe him, Tucker Carlson is a window into Trump's world

I first saw the scale of Tucker Carlson's political power and influence up close at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in 2024.

Donald Trump had survived an assassination attempt just days earlier. The mood inside the convention hall was electric. Eight years after Trump's hostile takeover of the Republican establishment, there was no doubt that this was now his party. Yet there were a handful of figures who seemed capable of commanding the same intensity of attention from the crowd. Carlson was one of them.

Supporters stopped him constantly. Delegates crowded around him. When he took to the stage, the audience hung on every word.

That experience stayed with me as I travelled to rural Maine this week to sit down with Carlson in his studio.

Over the past decade, Carlson has become one of the most influential and polarising voices in the MAGA movement, helping to popularise many of the ideas that came to define the America First agenda. Whether you agree with him or loathe him, he remains an important window into how a significant part of Trump's political coalition sees the world.

Which is why I was interested to hear what he made of President Trump's decision to strike Iran. Since the war began the relationship between Carlson and President Trump has soured. He explained how he went from speaking to the president constantly in the lead-up to the conflict, to not having any communication with him since the first day strikes were launched against Iran.

At one point in our conversation, I asked him whether this conflict could become for Donald Trump what Afghanistan became for Joe Biden.

The question was a personal one. Having reported extensively on the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, I have long felt it was the turning point of Biden's presidency - the moment many voters began to question his leadership.

So I asked Carlson whether this war could become Trump's Afghanistan.

"Oh yeah, of course it's the end," he replied.

Not a setback.

"The end."

Carlson told me he had personally warned Trump months earlier.

"I said to him, you're the Iran war guy if you do this."

For Carlson, this is not really about Iran. It is about a broken promise. Trump built his political identity on ending America's foreign wars, not starting new ones. Carlson believes that promise has now been shattered.

The most striking moment came when I asked him what this meant for the future of MAGA itself.

Carlson leaned back and let out the trademark cackle familiar to millions of his listeners.

"That's over," he said.

"There is no future of the MAGA movement."

I pressed him.

"This war caused the end?"

"Yeah."

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For someone who has become one of the movement's most influential voices, it was a remarkable assessment.

On Gaza, his vocal condemnation of Israel's military tactics has raised eyebrows on both the left and right of the political spectrum. He accuses Israel of genocide, a position which has led to prominent supporters of Israel firing back at him with claims of antisemitism. Carlson refutes this, insisting his criticism is squarely focused on the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu's government and the US administration.

But what struck me throughout our conversation was that Carlson's own evolution mirrors a broader transformation under way in American politics.

This is, after all, someone who once personified a very different Republican Party: the bow-tied tussle-haired talking head on CNN who personified the Reagan-Bush preppy conservative mainstream.

Carlson's ascendancy to a populist, anti-establishment GOP - and now his rupture with Trump over a war in the Middle East - also reflect a broader fragmentation in American politics, and not only on the right. Since October 7, the question of America's relationship with Israel has scrambled the Democratic Party like no other issue - splitting firebrand progressive insurgents from liberal stalwarts. Now could the Iran war drive a schism between Trump's MAGA and the "America First" of Tucker Carlson?

Carlson and I also spent time discussing Britain, a country he has frequently criticised but a subject on which he became unexpectedly and uncharacteristically apologetic.

"I'm sorry for beating up on Britain," he told me.

"I've been mean, super mean."

Then he explained why.

Much of his criticism of Britain, he admitted, was really redirected frustration with America.

"It is projection."

It was one of the few moments in the interview where Carlson stopped analysing everyone else and started talking about himself.

Before we finished, I asked him a question that has followed him for years.

Would we ever see a President Tucker Carlson?

He smiled.

"No," he said.

Then, after a pause, he added: "Not now."

Like many of Carlson's answers, it was playful, elusive, and of course, a calculated provocation. Whatever the future of MAGA, the America First movement, and US politics, it seems a safe bet that there is one thing that is certain - the relevance and power of Tucker Carlson in shaping them.

You can watch Yalda Hakim's full interview with Tucker Carlson on The World from 9pm on Wednesday.

(c) Sky News 2026: Like him or loathe him, Tucker Carlson is a window into Trump's world