What if the United States also had its Roberto Vannacci? It cannot be ruled out that this is the case. And the role could go to Tucker Carlson. Once a staunch supporter of Donald Trump, the journalist broke with him over the war in Iran. And, at the end of June, he announced his noisy farewell to the Republican Party.
«The polls now speak clearly. I wouldn’t support the Republican Party, there’s no chance,” he said. «I voted Republican all my life, I worked at Fox News. I have been a constant defender of the Republican Party for 35 years, but now it can no longer be defended because it is immoral,” he added. “If I pull out, I think many other people will too,” he specified.
Soon after, former Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene also followed in her footsteps. «I am too conservative to be a Democrat and too honest and free to be a Republican. But I am 1,000% a proud American!” she declared. Once a firm supporter of the current American president, last year she broke off relations with him over differences on Israel, inflation and Jeffrey Epstein’s files.
In short, it is a significant earthquake that is characterizing a part of the Maga world. As mentioned, despite some friction in the past, Carlson was one of the main supporters of the current occupant of the White House. Indeed, during the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, the journalist was among the speakers who spoke on the last day of the event, shortly before Trump gave his nomination acceptance speech. It is therefore interesting to ask what his intentions are for the future. One hypothesis is that, with farewell to the elephant, Carlson wants to confirm his image as an anti-system communicator, to strengthen his own editorial initiatives.
However, there are those who suspect that the person concerned may actually harbor political ambitions. Already six years ago, the hypothesis circulated that he could run for president of the United States in 2024: an indiscretion that did not materialize. Last March, a few days after the start of the conflict with Iran, it was Taylor Greene herself who proposed the journalist to the presidential race. «Trump doesn’t put America first, he puts financiers first. Tucker would beat Trump if he ran for president and the incumbent attempted to violate the Constitution by seeking a third term,” he declared.
The former top face of Fox, for his part, remained silent on the issue. In recent months he had denied wanting to run, but he had not even completely closed the door to such an eventuality. Then, at the end of June, he seemed to categorically rule out his return to the field. “I have no intention of running for president,” he said. Will he be sincere? Or is it a strategy? Moreover, even Vannacci, in the past, said he did not want to found his own party. And then he did it, even surpassing – in the latest available polls – the League, the team that got him elected in Brussels. So what? What are the prospects that Carslon could have in a possible run for the White House?
On June 22, the betting site Polymarket gave the host a 5% chance of winning the 2028 Republican presidential nomination. Of course, the figure is not high and we are not talking about a real poll. However, in the site’s rankings, Carlson was given third place behind JD Vance (38%) and Marco Rubio (21%). Even more interestingly, the journalist was placed ahead of other prominent names in the Republican Party, such as the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, and the former governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin.
In short, a decent following of disappointed Trumpists could really attract Carlson. And at that point there could be three scenarios. The first is for him to run as an independent candidate (at the beginning of July he also announced that he wanted to “help found a third party”). Clearly it would be almost impossible for him to get to the White House, but he could still suck votes not only from the Republican Party (addressing, precisely, the disgruntled Trumpists) but also, with his critical positions towards Israel, from the left wing of the Democratic Party. All this would allow the journalist to carve out the third wheel role that Ross Perot had in 1992: the billionaire who, with his entry into the field, effectively prevented George HW Bush from being re-elected.
Another scenario is that he could run for the Republican nomination. Finally, a third possibility is that he may decide to support Vance. Let’s not forget that the journalist historically enjoys close ties with the current American vice president. And he was among those who, in 2024, pushed Trump to choose him as his running mate. «This president has completely betrayed his voters. And that leaves the vice president, who was the hope of many of them, including me, in a terrible situation. And every day I feel sorry for JD Vance. Every day I pray for him. I will always consider him a friend,” Carlson declared in the same days in which he announced his farewell to the Republican Party. Moreover, the journalist sees in the vice president the original soul of Trumpism: that is, the soul most skeptical towards military involvement abroad and most attentive to the issues of reindustrialization and the protection of blue collar workers.
And here we come to the structural causes that underlie the rift between Trump and Carlson. The issue is in fact much deeper than simple personal disagreements. To understand what happened, however, we need to take a step back. During the four years of the Biden administration, Trumpism has made a real “crossing of the desert”. In this period of time, worlds have been grafted onto the original strain of the movement which, originally hostile to Trump, have gradually felt disappointed by the Democratic Party: from Silicon Valley to the defense and national security apparatus. Well, this confluence of old and new currents gave rise to a Trumpism 2.0 that managed to bring The Donald back to the White House in 2024. The point is that, having regained the presidency, a sort of dialectical tension began between the two souls of America First: on the one hand, the original current (the one less inclined to military interventions abroad and more attentive to the defense of the economy); on the other, the current that was secondarily grafted onto Trumpism (made up of the large technology companies and the high bureaucracy of the Pentagon). These are two souls that in some cases have managed to coexist, in others not. In this context, the tycoon has gradually had to face aftershocks (just think of his argument last year, which was later resolved, with Elon Musk).
It is therefore within such a framework that the rupture between Carlson and the president must be placed. The journalist in fact considered the war in Iran as a betrayal of original Trumpism. Moreover, it was Carlson himself who, in 2019, dissuaded him from attacking the Islamic Republic: an offensive which, at the time, had instead been supported above all, according to the Guardian, by the then White House national security advisor, John Bolton.
In short, the relationship between the president and the journalist has collapsed due to the profound transformations going through the Maga world. We will therefore have to wait to see what happens in the future. Will Carlson run for president as an independent or continue his publishing activity? Is your break with the Republican Party definitive or transitory? Is it possible to hypothesize that, should Vance manage to honorably close the Iranian issue, there could be a reconciliation between the journalist and the White House? It’s too early to have answers.
And so, while Vannacci evaluates whether or not to ally himself with the center-right, Carlson keeps his hands free for now, increasingly convinced that Trumpism has transformed into a “reverse world”.
