President Donald Trump ripped podcast host Tucker Carlson on Tuesday after Carlson accused him of proposing a war crime in his warning to Iran and urged American military members to refuse the president’s orders.
In an episode posted Monday afternoon, Carlson suggested Trump was considering using a weapon of mass destruction “on the population of Iran” and encouraged administration officials and service members to push back. Trump responded by dismissing his former ally in remarks to The New York Post.
“Tucker’s a low-IQ person that has absolutely no idea what’s going on,” Trump said. “He calls me all the time; I don’t respond to his calls. I don’t deal with him. I like dealing with smart people, not fools.”
Carlson’s criticism centered on Trump’s profanity-laced Easter Sunday message to Iran, in which the president warned that U.S. forces would destroy Iran’s bridges and power plants if the regime did not “open the f*ckin’ Strait [of Hormuz].”
Calling Trump’s comments “vile on every level,” Carlson argued they amounted to a “promise to use the U.S. military, our military, to destroy civilian infrastructure in another country,” which he claimed would constitute a war crime.
“If you work in the White House, or in the U.S. military, now is the time to say, ‘No, absolutely not.’ And say it directly to the president, ‘No,'” Carlson said. “In case you’re thinking about using some weapon of mass destruction against the population of Iran … those people who are in direct contact with the president need to say, ‘No, I’ll resign. I’ll do whatever I can do legally to stop this because this is insane. And if given the order, I’m not carrying it out. Figure out the codes on the football yourself.'”
Carlson’s message mirrors calls made by some Democratic lawmakers late last year for military members to refuse “illegal orders” as U.S. forces conducted deadly strikes on alleged narcoterrorists in the Caribbean and Pacific.
The president’s fiery response to Carlson on Tuesday marks the latest escalation in a growing rift between Trump and Carlson. The two were still meeting as recently as January, but relations have deteriorated following American military action against Iran.
Carlson has since sharply criticized Trump’s Iran operation, calling it “absolutely disgusting and evil” and accusing the president of doing the bidding of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Trump, for his part, has dismissed Carlson in recent weeks.
“Tucker has lost his way,” Trump said in an interview with ABC News reporter Jon Karl in March. “He’s not MAGA. MAGA is saving our country. MAGA is making our country great again. MAGA is America first, and Tucker is none of those things. And Tucker is really not smart enough to understand that.”
On Tuesday morning, ahead of his 8 p.m. ET deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Trump warned of catastrophic consequences.
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
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