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Tucker Carlson speaks at a campaign rally for Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden on October 27, 2024, in New York City.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n A version of the below article first appeared<\/a> in David Corn\u2019s newsletter,\u00a0<\/em>Our Land. The newsletter comes out twice a week (most of the time) and provides behind-the-scenes stories and articles about politics, media, and culture. Subscribing costs just $5 a month\u2014but you can\u00a0sign up for a free 30-day trial<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Tucker Carlson sometimes<\/span> speaks plainly. Sometimes he speaks in code. When he broke with Donald Trump over the Iran war last week, he did both.<\/p>\n The day after Easter, during a monologue on his internet show, Carlson\u00a0assailed<\/a>\u00a0Trump for defiling \u201cthe holiest day in Christian life\u201d with a rabid\u00a0social media post<\/a>\u00a0that threatened to bomb power plants and bridges\u2014civilian targets\u2014if Tehran did not open \u201cthe Fuckin\u2019 Strait\u201d and that mocked Islam. An outraged Carlson expressed many of the obvious criticisms. He proclaimed that Trump had \u201cshattered\u201d a \u201cuniquely joyful and peaceful moment for Christians\u201d and that Trump\u2019s \u201cvile\u201d vow to conduct \u201ca war crime\u201d was \u201cunacceptable\u2026under moral law.\u201d<\/p>\n He accused Trump of receiving a thrill by threatening such violence. He called the post \u201cevil\u201d and declared, \u201cNo decent person mocks other people\u2019s religion\u2026 No president should mock Islam\u2026 This is a mockery of Christianity.\u201d He also slammed Christian leaders, most notably evangelist Paula White, the director of the White House Faith Office, for daring to compare Trump to Jesus. \u201cDid Jesus command the disciples to go out and kill people?\u201d he sharply asked.<\/p>\n This was a harsh critique that people on the right and left, Democrats, Republicans, and independents, and folks of all faiths or none could share. Here was Carlson as a Christian peacenik anti-interventionist.<\/p>\n But there was something else going on in that 44-minute-long rant. Carlson opened with the fact that during his second inauguration, Trump did not place his hand on the Bible when he swore his oath to defend the Constitution. \u201cThat should have been maybe a clue that we need to pause and think about, what is this?\u201d Carlson remarked. He suggested that Trump \u201cdidn\u2019t put his hand on the Bible because he affirmatively rejects what\u2019s inside that book, and what\u2019s inside that book are limits on human behavior.\u201d Trump, he said, was not accepting a basic premise of the Old and New Testament: \u201cYou are not God, and you cannot assume his powers.\u201d<\/p>\n Hmmm, who might recoil at the Bible, who might be repulsed by the supposed Word of God? Carlson did not answer that. But when railing against Trump\u2019s social media post as the work of \u201cevil,\u201d he noted, \u201cGod creates, and Satan destroys.\u201d It seemed he was associating Trump with Beelzebub. And he wondered aloud where Trump\u2019s threats against Iran and the current stalemate will lead. He answered his own question: \u201cNuclear weapons\u2026 You wipe out a country of 92 million\u2026 You could have a global nuclear war\u2026 All things being equal, that\u2019s where we\u2019re heading.\u201d<\/p>\n Carlson was casting Trump as a Satan-adjacent, Bible-hating, evil force slouching toward nuclear Armageddon.<\/p>\n And there\u2019s more.<\/p>\n Asserting that nuclear war is the plan, he insisted, \u201cThere are a million signs, but the most obvious is the dumbest neocons in Trump\u2019s orbit are saying it out loud.\u201d He maintained that these unnamed neocons are \u201cmessengers\u201d peddling \u201cthe policies of others.\u201d He didn\u2019t identify the others, but it could be Israel or Satan. Or maybe both. (Historically, prominent neoconservatives have been pro-Israel hawks and Jewish.)<\/p>\n Carlson did refer to one of these diabolical neocons by name: Fox News host Mark Levin, a fervent fan of the Iran war and a cheerleader for Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s regime. He noted that Trump has called on his followers to watch Levin, and he explained that it\u2019s useful to do so because Levin\u2019s show \u201chas been a place where the future is revealed,\u201d though the show is \u201cprobably\u201d not written by Levin himself. That is, Levin is fronting for someone or something, and Trump is in league with this cabal.<\/p>\n On an Easter weekend episode of Levin\u2019s show, Carlson pointed out, Levin reviewed the tremendous casualties of the biggest battles of World War II\u2014the Battle of the Bulge, 80,000 to 90,000; Okinawa, more than 50,000\u2014and told his viewers these numbers convinced President Harry Truman that it would be best to drop the newly invented atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki rather than mount a massive invasion of Japan.<\/p>\n Carlson claimed that this observation from Levin was \u201can argument for [using] nuclear weapons\u201d against Iran and that Levin was test-driving this idea for Trump. Doing so at Easter time, Carlson huffed, was giving \u201cthe finger to Christianity.\u201d Levin did not directly call for using nuclear weapons in Iran. But Carlson proclaimed his comments delivered a clear message: This is the plan.<\/p>\n To recap: a nefarious band of neocons in league with the Bible-hating Trump are pushing for an \u201cinsane\u201d nuclear war.<\/p>\n And there\u2019s even more.<\/p>\n \u201cCould there be a spiritual component to what we\u2019re watching?\u201d Carlson asked his viewers. He suggested the Iran war was more than a geostrategic blunder. He referred to it as \u201ca very stealthy yet incredibly effective attack\u2026on belief in Jesus,\u201d part of a \u201csustained effort to exterminate\u2026the Christian faith.\u201d He even said that Trump himself might see \u201cthis in bigger terms\u2026as the fulfillment of something or the elevation to some higher office beyond president of the United States. That\u2019s entirely possible.\u201d Pointing to evangelical supporters of Trump, he asked, \u201cWho are these people encouraging the president of the US to see himself as a millennialist figure\u2026as part of the End Times story.\u201d<\/p>\n Carlson has always been a cagey fellow. He didn\u2019t explicitly say that Trump was the anti-Christ and in cahoots with evildoers, such as neocons and Israel, to destroy Christianity. But that\u2019s how I read the tea leaves he\u2019s dishing. It\u2019s not that difficult to connect his dots to see\u2014aha!\u2014Trump is a leading figure in the grandest conspiracy theory: the Devil scheming to use nuclear weapons to annihilate the true faith.<\/p>\n Carlson has a long history of embracing and peddling conspiracy theories. He has claimed the Democrats are trying to replace white Americans with immigrants; the January 6 riot was a false flag operation; the Biden administration developed secret plans to round up and imprison conservatives; the United States maintained secret bioweapons labs in Ukraine (a false assertion the Kremlin pushed); and the US government was somehow involved in the 9\/11 attacks.<\/p>\n His latest tale is the hugest conspiracy theory of all. Trump is not merely screwing up bigly in the Middle East. He is a key player\u2014if not\u00a0the\u00a0<\/em>key player\u2014in the titanic clash between God and Satan. No doubt, for Carlson, Trump\u2019s subsequent social media post, in which he\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0a \u201cwhole civilization will die tonight\u201d was further proof of the mighty spiritual warfare underway.<\/p>\n Naturally, Trump could not\u00a0not\u00a0<\/em>respond to Carlson. In a\u00a0long post<\/a>\u00a0on Thursday, he called Carlson and Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones\u2014former Trump stans who have\u00a0dumped<\/a>\u00a0Mr. MAGA over the war\u2014\u201closers\u201d with \u201cLow IQs\u201d and \u201cNUT JOBS\u201d and \u201cTROUBLEMAKERS\u201d who lost their television shows and \u201cwill say anything necessary for some \u2018free\u2019 and cheap publicity.\u201d He excommunicated them: \u201cThey\u2019re not \u2018MAGA.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Reacting to Trump\u2019s retort, Carlson\u2019s email newsletter suggested that the president was being blackmailed by \u201canti-Christian\u201d Israel or that \u201csomething far more morbid\u201d was afoot. But now Carlson leaned away from the anti-Christ notion and observed that Trump was \u201cunder a level of pressure that most people cannot fathom, with rabid Israel Firsters viciously harassing him\u2026 Their shameless pursuit is steadfast enough to make even a man like Donald Trump go mad.\u201d His newsletter noted, \u201cRather than engaging in petty name-calling, we want to give the president some grace.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet in the same issue, the newsletter promoted a\u00a0video<\/a>\u00a0from conspiracy-monger Alex Jones in which he insisted that Trump has \u201ctotally changed\u201d and was \u201cbeing led around by the nose by Netanyahu and by Mark Levin and others.\u201d Jones prayed that God would \u201cfree him from the demonic influences that he\u2019s under\u201d\u2014more satanic skullduggery. He called for Trump to be removed from office.<\/p>\n I\u2019m a bit confused. First, Carlson tells us Trump is an agent of satanic destruction that is aimed at the extermination of Christianity, suggesting he might be the anti-Christ. But then he characterizes Trump as being driven mad due to the pressure applied on him by \u201canti-Christian\u201d Israelis. At the same time, he also promotes the claim that Trump is possessed by demons, which might make him the anti-Christ or might not. (Earlier this month, Carlson did an interview with a priest who conducts exorcisms, and they\u00a0discussed<\/a>\u00a0the widespread demonic possessions of politicians. During that show, Carlson attributed his firing at Fox News to the work of demons.) In any case, we\u2019re in woo-woo land. And after Trump posted a meme that depicted Trump as Jesus, a new issue of Carlson\u2019s newsletter said Trump was \u201clost\u201d and asked people to pray for him.<\/p>\n When Carlson addressed the 2024 Republican presidential convention as a Trump champion, he declared that Trump had survived the assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, due to \u201cdivine intervention.\u201d So less than two years ago, Trump was saved by God. Now, according to Carlson, Trump is possibly trying to extinguish God and Christianity. That\u2019s some turnabout.<\/p>\n Carlson has jumped from one extreme to another. Trump critics may welcome his assault on Trump. But as he so often does, he\u2019s playing a dangerous game, demonizing (literally!) his foes, as he situates himself as a true defender of the Christian faith. Where will this take him and the slice of MAGA that feeds on the paranoia and conspiracism he pitches? God only knows.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n