A political earthquake struck Thursday when President Donald Trump turned his fire not on Democrats or the mainstream press, but on some of the most recognizable names in right-wing media.
The catalyst was the ongoing U.S. war in Iran, a conflict that has fractured the once-unified coalition of conservative commentators who spent years championing Trump’s political rise.
Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones each found themselves in the crosshairs of a blistering Truth Social post authored by the president himself.
Trump wasted no time getting to the point, accusing all four of rooting for America’s adversaries. “I know why Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones have all been fighting me for years, especially by the fact that they think it is wonderful for Iran, the Number One State Sponsor of Terror, to have a Nuclear Weapon,” the president wrote.
What followed was a sweeping personal indictment of each figure’s character, career, and mental capacity.
Trump declared the group united by one shared trait, writing they have “one thing in common, Low IQs. They’re stupid people, they know it, their families know it, and everyone else knows it, too!”
The president challenged anyone to examine the track records of the commentators, adding: “Look at their past, look at their record. They don’t have what it takes, and they never did!”
Carlson and Kelly, both veterans of Fox News who departed the network under high-profile circumstances, were portrayed by Trump as washed-up figures desperate for relevance. The president charged that they have “all been thrown off Television, lost their Shows, and aren’t even invited on TV because nobody cares about them.”
Trump affixed the label “NUT JOBS, TROUBLEMAKERS” to the group and accused them of manufacturing controversy strictly for attention, writing that they “will say anything necessary for some ‘free’ and cheap publicity.”
In Trump’s framing, resistance from these figures represents a betrayal of the broader movement he leads. Their opposition, he argued, stands as the “opposite of MAGA.”
Carlson bore some of the sharpest personal jabs. Trump wrote that he “couldn’t even finish College” and described him as a “broken man when he got fired from Fox.” Carlson earned a degree from Trinity College in Connecticut in 1991.
Kelly’s inclusion in the post stemmed at least in part from a question she directed at Trump during a 2015 Republican presidential primary debate, a moment Trump revisited Thursday with apparent lingering frustration.
Owens drew the president’s ire over her promotion of a conspiracy theory targeting the French first lady.
Jones, whose media platform became a destination for audiences skeptical of official government narratives, has openly challenged Trump over the Iran war. Trump pointed to the financial ruin Jones faced following legal action brought by families of children killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre.
Jones “lost his entire fortune, as he should have, for his horrendous attack on the families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims,” Trump wrote, also dismissing him as someone who “says some of the dumbest things.”
The post concluded with a definitive verdict on all four: “These so-called ‘pundits’ are LOSERS, and they always will be.”
The White House has been expanding its pushback campaign beyond conservative media, also sharpening its response to mainstream press coverage critical of the Iran war.
The fissure extends into the halls of Congress. Former Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a longtime Trump loyalist, publicly broke with the president over a post in which he threatened to destroy an “entire civilization” in Iran, describing the statement as “madness.”
