Tucker Carlson
Tucker Carlson says he has not spoken to Donald Trump since the Iran strikes began and rules out running for office himself Wikimedia Commons

Tucker Carlson says he will help build a third political party in the US, declaring that the country is 'a one-party state posing as a democracy' that 'needs to be broken', in an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review published on 1 July, four months before the 3 November midterm elections.

The former Fox News host ruled out running himself. 'I don't want to be a candidate,' he said. The announcement extends his 22 June declaration that he was done voting for Republicans, a party he accused of putting a foreign country's interests above those of American citizens.

It also came one day after Marjorie Taylor Greene, the former Georgia congresswoman, said she was 'in talks' to launch a 'true America-focused party'. Two of the most recognisable figures in the MAGA movement are now building separate political vehicles at the same time.

'War and Finance' Are Driving the Break

Carlson told the Columbia Journalism Review that both major parties operate in 'lockstep solidarity' on the questions he believes matter most. 'I do know what really matters is war and finance. Where does the money come from? Where does it go? And who gets killed?' he said.

He framed the project around household economics. 'If you make sixty thousand dollars a year, you're degraded. Your life expectancy has gone down, and the promise of your children's lives is likely gone,' he said, arguing the US government should treat 'the welfare of its own people' as its first priority.

Greene Is Eyeing an Independent Alternative

Greene told Piers Morgan Uncensored on 30 June that she is having 'serious conversations' about a new party that 'could align some serious players from the right and the left'. She admitted the effort would not 'get off the ground in just a couple of campaign cycles'.

She left Congress earlier this year after her push to release the Jeffrey Epstein files fractured her relationship with Trump, who pulled his endorsement and branded her a 'traitor'.

Asked whether Carlson could lead such a movement, Greene said she had not spoken to him about it. She called him 'a very credible threat' to both parties because independents, Republicans, and Democrats alike would back him.

The Electoral Math Four Months Out

Control of both the House and the Senate is at stake on 3 November, and third parties do not need to win seats to change outcomes. Peeling a few points from Republican candidates in swing districts could decide which party writes the next round of US tax and healthcare laws.

History shows the ceiling is real. Ross Perot won nearly 19% of the popular vote in 1992 without taking a single electoral vote, and Elon Musk's 'America Party', floated in 2025, was never formally established. Any new party would need to register with the Federal Election Commission and clear state ballot access rules that favour the two established parties.

Carlson Turns His Fire Directly on Trump

Carlson also said he has not spoken to President Donald Trump 'since the regime-change war began' against Iran, telling the Columbia Journalism Review he visited the White House three times to warn against the strikes.

'He's not a man in charge of his own life at this point,' Carlson said of Trump. 'I feel sorry for anybody who's enslaved, including him.'

Whether either project survives contact with US ballot laws, the timing is the story. A movement that captures even a sliver of disaffected Republican voters this autumn would not need to win anything to decide who governs.

Writer's pick