Breaking News from Pod Save America - Tucker Carlson Vs. Ted Cruz: The MAGA Rift That Could Sink Trump's Presidency

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

Tommy and Favreau react to Tucker Carlson's combative interview with Ted Cruz and discuss what it might mean for the Republican party. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

John, Tucker Carlson, absolutely humiliated Ted Cruz. It was beautiful. You love Tucker Carlson. I'm a Tucker fan now. Let's watch the clip. How many people living around, by the way? I don't know the population. At all?

No, I don't know the population. You don't know the population in the country you seek to topple? Tough start. How many people living around? 92 million. Okay. Yeah. How could you not know that?

I don't sit around memorizing population tables. Well, it's kind of relevant because you're calling for the overthrow of the government. Why is it relevant, whether it's 90 million or 80 million or 100 million? Why is that relevant? Because if you don't know anything about the country. I didn't say I don't know anything about that. Okay, what's the ethnic mix of Iran? They are Persians and predominantly Shia.

Okay. No, it's not even, you don't know anything about Iran. So actually the country. I am not the Tucker Carlson expert on Iran. You're a senator who's calling to the overthrow of the government. You're the one who plays. No, you don't know anything about the country. No, you don't know anything about.

the country. You're the one who claims they're not trying to murder Donald Trump. No, I'm not saying that. Who can't figure out if it was a good idea to kill General Soleimani and you said it was bad. You don't believe they're trying to murder Trump. Yes, I do. Because you're not calling for military strikes against them in retaliation. And if you really believe that. We're carrying out military strikes today. You said Israel was. Right. With our help. I said we. Israel is leading them, but we're supporting them. Well, this, you're breaking news here because the U.S. government last night denied the National

Security Council spokesman Alex Pfeiffer denied on behalf of Trump that we, that we, We were acting on Israel's behalf in any offensive capacity at all. We're not bombing them. Israel's bombing them. You just said we were. We are supporting Israel. You're a senator. If you're saying the United States government is a, we're with Iran right now.

People are listening. Oh, people are listening. I am. I like that. I know. I know. Are you a Tucker fan now, too? Look, I enjoyed that very much.

wondering why there aren't more journalists who can I don't know conduct interviews like Tucker Carlson conducted there what I was texting with the Mehdi Hassan about this last night like ask a simple basic factual question and then repeat it when they don't know follow up follow up follow up well anyone do this you can say that it's like gotcha to know the exact population but the larger point that he's making is very salient which is clearly Ted Cruz wants regime change in Iran and is now trying to back into the justification, even though he doesn't know what it's going to mean, what the consequences might be, what the day after taking out the regime is going to look like, what the plan is, all the same Iraq shit coming back again.

Famously, before the Iraq war, one reporter went around and asked a bunch of members of Congress whether Iraq was a Sunni or Shiite country or what the difference was, and none of them knew. So that clip was from an episode of Tucker Carlson's show. The rest just dropped. We literally cannot wait to watch it. What we saw there, though, was an example of this growing rift within the MAGA movement that could lead to the first real crack in Trump's coalition that we've seen. But again, don't take my word for it. Here's Tucker Carlson again. Donald Jake Trump gets elected in November on the back of this amazing coalition, unprecedented coalitions. And it kind of feels like it's being blown up over this war and around. That's my observation. Correctly.

If you look at the three planks, stop the forever wars, seal the border and deport the, you know, it'll, it's a little. illegal alien invaders, redo the commercial relationships in the world around trade deals and bring high value-added manufacturing jobs back here. They're trying to shut all three down. The one that they're obsessed with the most, which I find strange, is the forever worst, and particularly in the Middle East. Tucker Carlson on his show again talking to Steve Bannon. So John, on Pott's Day of the World this week, we played a supercut of a bunch of hawks, all the folks you'd expect, Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton, Mark Levin, the crazy Fox News guy. But then another supercut of all these MAGA anti-war voices. It was Matt Gates, Rand Paul, Marjorie Taylor Green, Tucker Carlson, and Steve Bannon again.

And I just can't tell you how weird it is to listen to that supercut and think, okay, MTG is the one making the smartest, substantive, rational, and, like, empathetic points against this war. I mean, I see it as there's some people who, whether we like their beliefs or not, have a cohesive worldview that they're sticking by, even when dear leader, departs from it and I think you know Steve Bannon accurately described that worldview I think the Trump administration they're one for three on that they're they're trying to do the terror shit that's not they're backing off a lot of that too the immigration stuff yeah that is

that is new different different than the past Republican Party we hate it they all love it um but the worst stuff it is it is revealing who uh actually believed the shit uh they talked about for the last 10 years and who is just loyal to Trump and doesn't really care about their beliefs. And it seems like most of the coalition doesn't really give a shit about their beliefs. And that's where we are. And it's really an interesting anti-war coalition. Like I'll just tell the listeners, I reached out to Tucker Carlson to see if he would talk to me about this set of issues. He texted me back.

He called me within like a minute of me texting him. I will not reveal what we discussed because... Any emojis? No emojis. Because I assume it was off the record. We're not going to do an interview. He declined. But I came away from that conversation feeling like he is very sincerely worried about what's

happening with this war. And you're also, you're seeing it from more blobby people. Like you flagged for me that Nikki Haley tweeted. Yeah. The U.S. should not engage in regime change in Iran. That surprised me a lot. Charlie Kirk, more kind of from the MAGA base, people like more like Tucker Carlson, he tweeted regime change in Iran would be a catastrophe.

So a lot of voices are weighing in. What is driving me kind of crazy about this in the mainstream media coverage, though, is that if Obama or Bill Clinton or literally any other Democrat was engaging in negotiations with Iran like Trump was, and BB Netanyahu literally started bombing them in the myths of that negotiation. Failure. Right. It would be weakness, a humiliation. But Trump kind of takes every side of every issue.

So reporters are like, well, he's always said that Iran can't get a nuclear weapon. so it kind of tracks. It's like, well, yeah, he said that. And so has literally every human being who has ever run for precedents in modern history, right? Like, that doesn't really matter here. I was thinking, imagine if Joe Biden during an interview back in February of 24 or some Democratic senator said, we are carrying out military strikes today on Russia. Yes. Imagine. And it's like, well, well, we're supporting Ukraine and Ukraine's doing. this and Boba. It would have been the end of the fucking world on Fox. That's all they would have been talking about. Yes. Yes. The other thing that's driving me nuts is just the fact, it's

not surprising, but there's no congressional debate really happening about this war. I mean, shout out to, and credit to Thomas Massey, a very conservative Republican, Rocano, Democrat here from California, Tim Kaine, Bernie Sanders. They've tried to put, they put forward legislation

that would prevent the war from happening or at least force of vote on it. But like the legal basis for this thing is just an afterthought at this point. It does seem, and I was listening to you guys on POTSave the World this morning, but it does seem like we are in the situation where I think Rhodes said it's like a video game at first for people. And so there's a bunch of people who think, well, you know, we obviously don't want troops on the ground and Iran and this big war like Iraq. But if we can just take a few shots and get the nuclear capabilities and destroy the nuclear capabilities

and then get out of there, that's it. Then isn't that a win for everyone? A lot of people of like played risk on the computer recently think that oh we're just a couple of massive ordinance penetrator bombs away from solving the nuclear problem in Iran it's just like I'm sorry but that's just not how these things go works they got to say in no evidence that's ever how this is worth no evidence ever so um love it Favro and I we share in office we watch fox news all day long all that it is it is crazy how indistinguishable their coverage of this Iran war is from the run up to the Iraq war and frankly the first seven years of that war. Here's a great example of the kind of dog shit coverage you will get of this war on Fox News.

For more on this, let's bring in Fox News contributor, you, you it. All right, first off, you, before I get to what Democrats and Tom Massey are saying, do you think the president has decided already to strike Iran? I hope so. I think all the signals indicate that his last meeting in the situation room was a confirming meeting that he will join Israel and striking at least Fordo, as well as any other parts of the nuclear program in Iran that cannot be reached by Israeli munitions.

I believe the B-2s can get there. We also have sent the nuclear sniffing aircraft over there in the event that there's any release of radioactive material from Fordo after its bomb. I hope he does. I think it will secure his place in history as a peacemaker because after the nuclear program is dismantled, and he has said for 10 years they may not have a nuke.

He said it last night. He said it 10 years ago when he came down the escalator. He'd been consistent. They may not have a nuke. After it's destroyed, he'll go into the history books as a great peacemaker. Speaking of sniffing. Yeah, that was Fox News contributor and conservative podcaster Hugh Hewitt, who tends to be kind of a heat-seeking missile for Trump's ass.

Yeah. Bombing Iran makes a new peacemaker, right? That's what happens. Yeah, when you launch wars, you are a peacemaker. You're a peacemaker. It's peace through strength. So I just want to read a tweet to you from April of 2024. This is from The Persistence, Scott Pressler.

He was a big Trump campaign. Real weirdo. Help them win Pennsylvania, spoke at Trump events. Looks like the lead singer of a Creed cover band kind of. Yes. Okay. Yes, that's the one. That's the one.

I know that guy. To every male and female, ages 18 to 25, a vote for Joe Biden is a vote for war. If Joe Biden wins this November, you won't be able to afford a home. you won't be able to afford a family. Crushing debt and impending wars will be your future. A vote for Trump equals peace and prosperity. This morning, we learned that housing starts plummeted to a five-year low. Interest rates are higher than they've been.

Prices haven't come down. New taxes are on most of the shit we buy now. And we're about to add a few trillion dollars to the deficit because of the bill. So that's what we got. And about to make another war in the Middle East. Yeah, things are not going well. No, look, we're not naive. There's a very good chance that Tucker Carlson.

and Steve Bannon and Charlie Kirk and the kind of like elite media class of the MAGA movement will decide to get mad about something Democrats do, right? And that will distract them from this and they could move on. But in the interim, I think this is a real rupture. Because, you know, when you would listen to like a Joe Rogan talk about why he supported Trump over Kamala or Joe Biden, you would hear them talk about avoiding World War III all the time. Usually it was the Ukraine context, but certainly they didn't want this World War III either. And I was just watching a clip of a conservative comedian named Dave Smith, who's on Rogan all the time, saying that he regrets his vote for Trump.

He apologized for it. And now he thinks he should be impeached and removed. You're going to hear that a lot. I mean, look, I think this is what's happening, which is these people are just isolationist to the core, right? And that means that they are probably disappointed in the trade policy that Trump keeps walking back the terror. That means they are going to be very upset about engaging in wars overseas and they're big on immigration. So like, yeah, they're, Tucker Carlson, his immigration views and a lot of the people who are pissed about Trump in the war in the war and the Republican in the MAGA base, like their immigration views are disgusting, right? Like, and we just disagree with them. But again, they are cohesive.

And I think what Trump's finding out is he's got enough blobby neocons in his administration. and, you know, I think for good on the econ side, a bunch of people who are like, you can't just fucking shut down trade with the rest of the world in a global economy. And so, but like we have what's going on around in Israel? Gaza's still going on. We've got Russia and Ukraine.

Hugh Hewitt, by the way, in February of 2025, also said that Trump would be a peacemaker in between Russia and Ukraine. Yeah, it's going really well. We solved that in 24 hours. Yeah, I agree with you. I think they are isolationists. I also think, look, Tucker was someone who worked at Fox News during the run-up to and through the duration of the Iraq War. He saw how awful the coverage was.

He saw how awful the outcome was, how much it damaged the Bush administration. And it harmed U.S. service members. It destroyed the Middle East. It led to ruptures that have reverberated out now for decades. And hearing him and Bannon talk about why presidents keep getting pulled into war, they end up in a more conspiratorial place than I do. Like they think it's the deep state. I think there's a little truth to that,

but it's more like there's just a permanent inertia in Washington towards action and doing something and launching these wars, which is why you can have like these knockdown, dragout fights about the JCPOA in 2015 that are, you know, that make whether it will pass or not a far more open question than whether we're going to go to war because like Trump's just going to do it. Look, I don't think we shouldn't let ourselves think that, you know, Tucker and Bannon care a lot about the Iranian lives or even in the Israeli lives that could be lost in this war. But I do think they're worried about American service members.

And by the way, you know, these people are pissed about mass migration and immigration. What are they things going to happen if we have another war in the Middle East country of 92 million people? We just learned. Right. And like, where are those refugees going to go? Exactly. Because right now, we're no longer taking Afghan refugees. Europe has had problems with mass migration, again, caused by wars in Africa and the Middle East. Like, more wars means more mass migration, which is what these fucking people don't want.

Yeah, and they know that extremely well based on recent history in Syria in particular. So, you know, Bannon actually asked Tucker why Fox is always cheering for war. I thought his take was honest and pretty fascinating. So let's watch that. Some of the same voices with the Fox platform. The Fox platform is just, it's so disgraceful. You know, there's so many good people at Fox. I work for the Murdox for, you know, all in over 20 years.

I always like them. I like them now. I'm not attacking them personally. And tons of people at Fox are my friends. The one theme that runs longitudinally through the history of Fox is the promotion of wars that don't help the United States. Why is that? It's the owners are committed to that vision.

Most of the time, it's, you know, it's fine. But when it really comes down, when it's a question of whether U.S. military power will be exerted on behalf of a foreign country, thousands of miles from here, they are all in, and anyone who stands the way will be destroyed. I don't think it's personal, by the way.

Fascinating, right? I mean, very accurate. And he would know. He was on the network for years. He was like their top star, but also he knows the Murdox personally. I mean, you know, every hammer is. Like, it's just the,

it's this belief of, U.S. power, that U.S. military power can be used anywhere with limited consequences for U.S. service members, U.S. security, and that the first option is always got to be war in military force, and diplomacy isn't thought of as a first option. Yeah, we try to use the military to solve what are, at essence, diplomatic and political problems in all these countries. Okay, well, I think that's it for us. Let's, it's weird to say it, but let's hope that Donald Trump listens to Tucker Carlson.

does what he says here because this sucks. I'm going to go listen to Ted Cruz, get beat up by Tucker now. Let's go put it on speaker. Thank you for watching this Pod Save America, YouTube exclusive. Please subscribe to Pod Save America here on YouTube. The right wing is killing us on YouTube. They have huge channels if you look over the Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro or Charlie Kirk or TPA USA or any of these outlets.

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