{"id":33347,"date":"2026-08-08T22:30:41","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T17:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=33347"},"modified":"2026-08-08T22:30:41","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T17:30:41","slug":"tucker-carlson-threw-down-the-post-maga-gauntlet-can-he-actually-build-a-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=33347","title":{"rendered":"Tucker Carlson Threw Down the Post-MAGA Gauntlet. Can He Actually Build a Movement?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cWe are going to wind up, inevitably, with the use of weapons of mass destruction,\u201d Carlson warned. \u201cAnd you have one participant, president of the United States, openly threatening that already on Truth Social on the internet for everyone to see.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">As a Fox News host, Carlson\u2019s star ascended in parallel with the president\u2019s, but since <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/news\/2023\/10\/tucker-carlsons-ugly-exit-from-fox-news\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"text link\">leaving<\/a> the network under acrimonious and still-mysterious circumstances in 2023, his drift from MAGA has culminated in a full-fledged split from Trump. After retreating from Washington, DC, to Maine a few years ago, he now painted a picture of American decay that was grim, even by the standards of his cable news days, coupled with throwaway barbs like \u201cwe\u2019re human beings who need beauty\u2026you don\u2019t have to be a liberal arts major from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/style\/2021\/09\/bennington-college-with-bret-easton-ellis-donna-tartt-jonathan-lethem\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"text link\">Bennington<\/a> to believe that.\u201d He called for a return to a lost and more bucolic past, when the threats of AI, nuclear war, and national debt didn\u2019t loom so large. The subjects ran a true gamut of political interest, ranging from MAHA-style food concerns to addiction to Epstein to immigration fearmongering, and it would be tough to pinpoint the essence of any potential presidential platform that could emerge from them. In Carlson\u2019s telling, he only wanted to \u201cset down the goals of whatever it is\u201d that comes next, which he then enumerated under 10 lofty banners including \u201cfair,\u201d \u201cproductive,\u201d and \u201cbeautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">\u201cThat was, if you\u2019re old enough to remember, always one of the great appeals of this country,\u201d Carlson explained. \u201cWhatever the political system, whoever was running it at the time, it didn\u2019t matter because America was fundamentally a beautiful place with handsome people\u2014attractive people, by the way.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"AssetEmbedWrapper-iJvQnD cOWUYC asset-embed\">\n<div class=\"AssetEmbedAssetContainer-fnduJP iaVSwI asset-embed__asset-container\"><span class=\"SpanWrapper-kFnjvc eKnjjD responsive-asset AssetEmbedResponsiveAsset-gaAbQ hXaxHA asset-embed__responsive-asset\"><picture class=\"ResponsiveImagePicture-jKunQM gjCCFj AssetEmbedResponsiveAsset-gaAbQ hXaxHA asset-embed__responsive-asset responsive-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\u201cHopefully he wakes up one day and Tucker says hes going to run\u201d former National Counterterrorism Center director Joe...\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"ResponsiveImageContainer-dkeESL cQPiWi responsive-image__image\" srcset=\"https:\/\/media.vanityfair.com\/photos\/6a73973a665ee78c7dad2b12\/master\/w_120,c_limit\/GettyImages-2250612327.jpg 120w, https:\/\/media.vanityfair.com\/photos\/6a73973a665ee78c7dad2b12\/master\/w_240,c_limit\/GettyImages-2250612327.jpg 240w, https:\/\/media.vanityfair.com\/photos\/6a73973a665ee78c7dad2b12\/master\/w_320,c_limit\/GettyImages-2250612327.jpg 320w, https:\/\/media.vanityfair.com\/photos\/6a73973a665ee78c7dad2b12\/master\/w_640,c_limit\/GettyImages-2250612327.jpg 640w, https:\/\/media.vanityfair.com\/photos\/6a73973a665ee78c7dad2b12\/master\/w_768,c_limit\/GettyImages-2250612327.jpg 768w, https:\/\/media.vanityfair.com\/photos\/6a73973a665ee78c7dad2b12\/master\/w_960,c_limit\/GettyImages-2250612327.jpg 960w, https:\/\/media.vanityfair.com\/photos\/6a73973a665ee78c7dad2b12\/master\/w_1280,c_limit\/GettyImages-2250612327.jpg 1280w, https:\/\/media.vanityfair.com\/photos\/6a73973a665ee78c7dad2b12\/master\/w_1600,c_limit\/GettyImages-2250612327.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"100vw\" src=\"https:\/\/media.vanityfair.com\/photos\/6a73973a665ee78c7dad2b12\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/GettyImages-2250612327.jpg\"\/><\/picture><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"CaptionWrapper-bpPcvW kzGGxb caption AssetEmbedCaption-eZIMNW gMgneI asset-embed__caption\" data-testid=\"caption-wrapper\"><span class=\"BaseText-fEwdHD CaptionText-cQpRdU klhnDX hbiMYj caption__text\"><\/p>\n<p>\u201cHopefully he wakes up one day and Tucker says he\u2019s going to run,\u201d former National Counterterrorism Center director Joe Kent recently said.<\/p>\n<p><\/span><span class=\"BaseText-fEwdHD CaptionCredit-cUgOGk gsdIcD hRFzlA caption__credit\">Daniel Heuer\/Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"paywall\">And while some of his concerns, particularly those about the country\u2019s aesthetics, had a distinctly Trumpian quality to them, both the president and Carlson have made their break sound irreversible. \u201cPresident Trump created the greatest political movement in the history of politics with the MAGA movement, and he remains the unequivocal leader of the Republican Party,\u201d White House spokesman Davis Ingle tells <em>Vanity Fair.<\/em> \u201cThe president is committed to maintaining Republican majorities in Congress and continuing to lower costs for working families. Meanwhile, this group represents an embarrassing collection of mostly whiny turncoats who dramatically overestimate their influence and relevance.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cWe are going to wind up, inevitably, with the use of weapons of mass destruction,\u201d Carlson warned. \u201cAnd you have one participant, president of the United States, openly threatening that already on Truth Social on the internet for everyone to see.\u201d As a Fox News host, Carlson\u2019s star ascended in parallel with the president\u2019s, but&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/media.vanityfair.com\/photos\/6a73905819a5c16947860e76\/16:9\/w_1280,c_limit\/GettyImages-2252102624.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrity-gossip"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}