Carlson rebukes Trump over Easter message
Conservative broadcaster Tucker Carlson has sharply criticized President Donald Trump after Trump used an expletive-filled Easter Sunday post to threaten Iran. Carlson, a longtime opponent of military intervention against Tehran, asked the president bluntly: “Who do you think you are?”
Trump’s message came as he warned Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by a late Tuesday deadline. The waterway’s closure during the war has pushed global oil prices higher, and Trump said on Truth Social that the U.S. military would bomb the country’s bridges, power plants, and other civilian infrastructure if action was not taken.
“Open the F***in’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah,” Trump wrote. Subtle, as Easter greetings go.
Carlson says Trump mocked religion
On The Tucker Carlson Show on Monday, Carlson addressed Trump directly and said the post was not just aggressive, but blasphemous in tone.
“Who do you think you are? You’re tweeting out the f-word on Easter morning?” Carlson said. “So, obviously you’re mocking the religion of Iran. OK. If you seek a religious war, that’s a good idea. But by the way, no decent person mocks other people’s religions.
“You may have a problem with the theology. Presumably, you do if it’s not your religion, and you can explain what that is.
“But to mock other people’s faith is to mock the idea of faith itself. And we should never mock that because at its core is the acknowledgement that we are not in charge of the universe. We did not build it. We won’t be here at the end of it. We can destroy life. We cannot create it because we are not God.”
Carlson added that “the message of all faith at the biggest picture level is the message in our Bible, which is you are not God. And only if you think you are, do you talk this way.” He also said, “And no president should mock Islam. That’s not your job. This is not a theocracy. We don’t go to war with other theocracies to find out which theocracy is more effective. We are not a theocracy. And God willing, we never will be because theocracies corrupt the religion.”
In the same episode, Carlson suggested the war could be “a very stealthy, yet incredibly effective attack on what, from a Christian perspective, is the true faith, belief in Jesus.” Conservative pundit Meghan McCain responded to that theory with a concise diagnosis: “psychoville.”
Old allies, new split
Trump and Carlson were once close allies, but their relationship appears to have cracked last summer after Operation Midnight Hammer, the strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Carlson strongly opposed those attacks and clashed with Republican hawks, including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
Since then, Trump has said Carlson has “lost his way,” while Carlson has described the current war as “absolutely disgusting and evil.”
Republicans split over the post
Carlson was not the only figure on the right to object to Trump’s Easter message. Former Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on X that “everyone in his administration that claims to be a Christian needs to fall on their knees and beg forgiveness from God and stop worshipping the president and intervene in Trump’s madness.”
“I know all of you and him and he has gone insane, and all of you are complicit,” Greene added.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries also weighed in on Sunday afternoon, calling it a “Disgusting and unhinged Easter message from Donald Trump. Something is really wrong with this guy.”
