Tucker Carlson has blown up President Donald Trump’s claim that he reached out to apologize to him for publicly slating his administration at the height of a MAGA civil war.
Carlson was one of the biggest names to call out his former ally over his hawkish approach to the burgeoning Israel-Iran conflict last month. Trump backed Israel striking Iran and eventually made the call to bomb Iranian nuclear sites, in support of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This further rankled his America First voters, eliciting strong condemnation from Carlson and other MAGA figures like Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Trump later claimed that Carlson was so strong in his rebuke that he actually phoned up the president to say sorry. “He called and apologized the other day because he thought he had said things that were a little bit too strong, and I appreciate that,” he told reporters in the Oval Office on June 18.
However, during an interview with German publication Bild, released Sunday, Carlson claimed there was no groveling whatsoever. He was asked by the newspaper’s deputy editor-in-chief whether Trump’s tale was true, and he flat out denied it.
“Okay... no,” Carlson smirked. The journalist, Paul Ronzheimer, then asked, “No? It’s not true?”
The former Fox News host then confirmed his rebuttal of Trump’s claims with a clunky, yammering answer. “No, I will say this. I mean, I don’t-yeah, great. I don’t care. I really like Trump. I campaigned for Trump,” he began.
“I just, to say it again, I agree with Trump, I have agreed with Trump on the issues. I don’t-I’d be happy, I am the first to apologize because I am most mindful of my limits, and my own absurdities, and the nonsense that I have spouted over the years.
“Like, I don’t think I’m God, and so I’m happy to apologize. And you can ask anyone who knows me, I’m an apologizer.”
Ronzheimer, seeking clarity, then asked Carlson if he was indeed apologizing at that moment. He wasn’t, he said.
“I don’t know what I’d apologize for. I didn’t attack Trump then. I disagreed with him and I, you know, I said how. I wasn’t, you know, I didn’t say, I don’t think, anything that would warrant an apology,” Carlson explained.
Trump last month claimed that he asked Carlson if he was okay with Iran possessing nuclear weapons and said the conservative political commentator “sort of didn’t like that.”
“I said ‘well, if it’s ok with you, then you and I do have a difference,’” the president added, of their allegedly fictitious conversation. “But it’s really not okay with him. Therefore, you may have to fight and maybe it’ll end, and maybe it’ll end very quickly.”
Just days after Trump called the right-wing media personality “kooky” in a Truth Social post, he labeled him a “nice guy,” following the ‘apology.’
The White House has been contacted for comment.
