Contentious Tucker Carlson–Ted Cruz Interview Puts MAGA Split on Full Display

A growing MAGAworld divide between “America First” isolationists and more hawkish Republicans was on center stage in a tense interview between Tucker Carlson and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz released Wednesday.

“It’s like if my own kids are drug addicts, but I’m focused on my neighbor’s kids, it’s like I’m neglecting my own kids. And there’s a sense in which the Congress is neglecting the country that elected them in favor of this relentless focus on other people’s problems. That’s the way it feels as an American,” Carlson told Cruz in the interview, summing up the “America First” point of view.

The interview, which aired on X, highlighted the split in President Donald Trump’s support base on foreign policy and the degree of involvement the U.S. should have in conflicts abroad. While these concerns were already simmering with Russia’s war in Ukraine, Israel’s recent strikes on Iran have thrust the debate to center stage.

“I absolutely think we need to focus at home, emphatically, and we need to focus on prosperity. We need to focus on reducing the debt, reducing spending, empowering people,” Cruz told Carlson. “I also recognize it is a dangerous world, and part of the responsibility of leaders, part of President Trump’s responsibility, is to keep America safe.”

On his own podcast released Wednesday morning, Cruz didn’t mince words when discussing his contentious interview with the former Fox News host, saying, “On foreign policy, Tucker has gone bat-crap crazy. He’s gone off the rails. He is suddenly a hardcore isolationist.”

And the policy positioning of Cruz, Trump and Carlson didn’t go unnoticed: Cruz’s other podcast host, Ben Ferguson, even alluded to how unusual it was.

“It is an interesting day when you and Donald Trump are together and Tucker Carlson is against the two of you,” Ferguson said.

Earlier this week, Trump took a jab at Carlson’s firing from Fox News in 2023 when asked about the former host’s criticism. “I don’t know what Tucker Carlson is saying. Let him go get a television network and say it so that people listen,” the president told reporters Monday.

Later that night, Trump also posted that Carlson was “kooky.”

But the two appear to have spoken since then — Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday that Carlson “called to apologize the other day” because “he thought he said things that were too strong.”

Trump was also complimentary towards Cruz on Wednesday, whom he called “a nice guy.”

“He’s been with me for a long time,” Trump added without directly addressing the pair’s verbal sparring.

Before the pair’s entire interview was public, it was preceded by a viral clip Carlson released the night before that already indicated a combative tone from both parties and deep tension between them. In the clip, Carlson pressed Cruz on his knowledge of Iran — its population size and ethnic composition — answers Cruz conceded he didn’t know.

A more tense moment erupted when Cruz said, “We are carrying out military strikes today,” later clarifying that he meant U.S.-supported Israeli strikes as opposed to direct U.S. involvement.

“You just said ‘we’ were,” Carlson said. “This is high stakes. You’re a senator. If you’re saying the United States government is at war with Iran right now, people are listening.”

The split in MAGAworld goes beyond just Carlson and Cruz. Some Republicans in Congress have come out explicitly against U.S. involvement, including Sen. Rand Paul, who posted on X that he urged Trump “to stay the course, keep putting America first, and to not join in any war between other countries.”

Rep. Thomas Massie, an ultraconservative, also filed a motion on Tuesday to block American involvement in the Israel-Iran conflict. He was joined by Democrats like “squad” members Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar.

In the full interview between Cruz and Carlson, the Texas senator addressed what he claimed was Carlson’s outsized focus on Israel: “It’s weird, we’re talking about isolationists, the obsession with Israel. Why is Israel —” at which point Carlson cut Cruz off to say, “I don’t think I’m obsessed with Israel.”

“Okay, but I think a lot of people are,” Cruz said. “And like the question, ‘Israel spies on us?’ Well, so does every other country. Why are you mad at Israel?” (At this point, the conversation moved to a discussion on the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which Carlson implied was effectively a “foreign lobby”; Cruz also acknowledged AIPAC “raises a lot of money for me.”)

Carlson’s view, according to Cruz on his podcast, is “Anyone who wants to stand with Israel and stand up to Iran is a crazy warmonger. I just, I think that’s wrong. I don’t think Trump is a crazy warmonger. I think he’s a strong commander in chief. I think he is defending America. I think he’s defending Israel, and I think he’s standing up to a theocratic zealot who wants to murder as many Americans as he can and as many Israelis as he can.”

And Carlson reiterated in the interview his concept of focusing on domestic issues before wading into issues abroad: “We’re all sort of focused on beating our adversaries abroad, but what is victory worth if our own country becomes what it is now? And maybe we’re spending a little too much time focused abroad and not enough time focused on the people sleeping outside [Washington, D.C.’s] Union Station.”

Cruz had previously appeared numerous times on Carlson’s former Fox News primetime show. Many of those appearances were friendly, including in 2017, when Cruz congratulated Carlson “on the new show, by the way, and all the success you’ve enjoyed.”

One notable appearance in 2022, however, took a different tone: As the one-year anniversary of Jan. 6 approached, Cruz had posted on social media about “a violent terrorist attack on the Capitol.”

Carlson confronted Cruz in the same tone he used Wednesday, saying: “You told that lie on purpose, and I’m wondering why you did.”

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Nuha Dolby is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.