I sublimated them or rationalized them away or focused on areas where I agreed with him.
In a lengthy interview with The New York Times, Tucker Carlson found himself unable to escape his own recorded voice — denying a statement about Trump and the Antichrist even as the audio played back in real time. The episode is less a story about a single denial than about the broader human difficulty of reconciling who we have been with who we wish to be. Carlson's unraveling relationship with Trump, marked by spiritual language, unverifiable theories, and a stated breaking point over Iran, reflects a wider fracture among those who once built their identities around a political allegiance.
- Carlson flatly denied making an on-air Antichrist comparison to Trump — then sat in silence as the recording proved otherwise.
- Rather than recant cleanly, he retreated into a fog of qualification, suggesting the words didn't reflect his 'exact' feelings even if he said them.
- His critique of Trump is not a clean break but a tangle: he calls Trump a moral agent, then a prisoner, then a spell-caster capable of putting entire rooms into a 'dreamland.'
- He floated a theory — by his own admission possibly 'insane' — that people close to Trump have been mysteriously harmed, offering no cause, only a pattern that unsettles him.
- The Iran strikes became his declared breaking point, but the interview suggests the fracture runs deeper, into years of sublimated doubt he now openly confesses.
Tucker Carlson sat down with The New York Times for a nearly two-hour interview and quickly found himself in an uncomfortable corner. When host Lulu Garcia-Navarro asked whether he had ever suggested Trump might be the Antichrist, Carlson denied it outright — only for Garcia-Navarro to read his own words back to him, then play the audio clip. His response shifted from flat denial to reluctant concession: if the video existed, he apologized, but the words didn't quite capture how he felt.
The exchange crystallized a deeper tension. Once one of Trump's most prominent media defenders, Carlson now says he regrets that support and admits he spent years rationalizing away private doubts. The administration's decision to strike Iran, he said, was the moment he could no longer look away. "All my fault," he said of his earlier rationalizations — a rare moment of self-reproach.
Yet Carlson's break from Trump resists easy interpretation. In the same breath as his criticism, he described Trump's presence as "spellbinding" — like smoking hash — and cast the former president as both a free moral actor and a kind of captive to forces larger than himself. He also floated what he called a probably "insane" theory: that people in Trump's orbit had suffered mysterious harms, from prison to cancer, though he offered no explanation, only unease.
What the interview ultimately revealed was a commentator caught between the person he was and the person he now claims to be — invoking spiritual forces to explain political realities, acknowledging past errors while softening their edges, and discovering that his own recorded voice is not always an ally.
Tucker Carlson sat down with The New York Times for a nearly two-hour interview and found himself in an awkward position: defending a statement he insisted he never made, even as the host played back a recording of him making it.
During the conversation with host Lulu Garcia-Navarro for the podcast The Interview, the discussion turned to Carlson's past commentary about President Trump. Garcia-Navarro asked directly whether Carlson had ever suggested the president could be the Antichrist. Carlson denied it flatly. Then Garcia-Navarro read his own words back to him: "Here's a leader mocking the gods of his ancestors… Could this be the Antichrist?" It was a direct quote from his broadcast.
Carlson pushed back. "I actually did not say 'could this be the Antichrist,'" he insisted, claiming the words never left his lips and that he wasn't even sure he understood what the Antichrist was. The Times then played an audio clip of him saying exactly that—the moment became the defining exchange of the entire interview. When the topic resurfaced later, Carlson offered a different defense: "Then my apologies to you, if there's a video of me saying that. I guess what I'm expressing to you is [that] it doesn't reflect exactly how I feel."
The denial was striking because it revealed a deeper tension in Carlson's relationship with Trump. Once among the president's most vocal media supporters, Carlson has grown critical. He told the Times he now regrets his past backing of Trump and acknowledged harboring private doubts for years. The breaking point, he said, came over the administration's decision to strike Iran, which he opposed vehemently. "Did I have reservations about Trump? Of course," Carlson reflected. "To some extent, I sublimated them or rationalized them away or focused on areas where I agreed with him. All my fault."
But Carlson's critique resists simple categorization. In the same interview, he portrayed Trump as simultaneously a moral agent and a kind of prisoner—a "slave" to geopolitical pressures, surrounded by people too fearful or too mesmerized to resist him. He leaned heavily into spiritual language, describing Trump's influence as "spellbinding" and suggesting it functioned like an actual spell. "You spend a day with Trump and you're in this kind of dreamland. It's like smoking hash or something," Carlson said.
The conversation ventured into stranger territory when Carlson floated what he himself called a "probably insane" theory: that people in Trump's immediate circle had been mysteriously harmed. "I have a lot of thoughts and theories about things which may or may not be rooted in reality," he acknowledged. He noted that various Trump associates had gone to prison, become unemployable, faced public shame, or gotten cancer. He offered no mechanism for these harms, no causal explanation—just the observation that they had happened and that it bothered him.
What emerged from the interview was a portrait of a commentator caught between competing narratives. Carlson wanted to distance himself from his more extreme characterizations of Trump while simultaneously invoking unseen forces and spiritual explanations for political events. He acknowledged past errors in judgment while resisting the idea that his earlier statements reflected his actual beliefs. The Antichrist comment, in his telling, was imprecise language that didn't capture what he really thought—even though, by his own admission on tape, he had thought it worth saying on air.
Citas Notables
You spend a day with Trump and you're in this kind of dreamland. It's like smoking hash or something.— Tucker Carlson, describing Trump's influence
Did I have reservations about Trump? Of course. To some extent, I sublimated them or rationalized them away or focused on areas where I agreed with him. All my fault.— Tucker Carlson, on his past support for Trump
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why do you think Carlson denied the comment even after hearing the recording?
Because the statement, once spoken aloud in that context, sounded more extreme than he wanted to own. It's easier to claim you never said something than to explain why you said it and didn't mean it.
But he did eventually acknowledge the recording existed. What changed?
He shifted from denial to reframing. Instead of "I didn't say it," he moved to "I said it, but it doesn't represent my actual position." That's a different kind of defense—one that lets him keep the plausible deniability while acknowledging the facts.
The spiritual language throughout the interview is striking. Why invoke spells and unseen forces?
It gives him a way to criticize Trump without holding Trump fully responsible. If Trump is under a spell, or if mysterious forces are at work, then Trump becomes less of an agent and more of a victim. It's a both-and rather than an either-or.
Is that credible?
It depends on what you're asking. As a literal explanation for why Trump associates have faced legal trouble or health problems? No. As a description of how Carlson actually thinks about power and influence? It seems genuine. He appears to believe in these unseen forces.
What does his break with Trump really signal?
That the alliance was always conditional and fragile. Carlson supported Trump when it aligned with his worldview, but the moment Trump made a decision Carlson opposed—the Iran strike—the entire structure collapsed. It suggests there was never deep ideological alignment, just tactical agreement.
And the denial about the Antichrist comment?
It's the moment when the gap between what he said and what he wants to believe about himself becomes impossible to hide. The recording forces him to confront that gap in real time.