Trump Lashes Out at Prominent Conservatives Over Iran War Criticism

 

Trump Lashes Out at Prominent Conservatives Over Iran War Criticism

 

In a lengthy social media post, the president attacked Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and others in starkly personal terms. He also criticized the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal.

President Trump took aim at several conservatives in a long and often personal post on Truth Social, his social media platform, on Thursday.

 

Tim Balk

By Tim Balk

April 9, 2026

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/09/us/politics/trump-tucker-carlson-candace-owens.html

 

President Trump on Thursday assailed Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and two other leading conservative podcasters who oppose the war in Iran in a blistering 482-word Truth Social post that insulted his critics in starkly personal terms.

 

The president reserved some of his sharpest attacks for Candace Owens and Alex Jones, two conspiracy-minded conservatives who in recent days have called for Mr. Trump to be removed from office. The president had faced weeks of criticism from all four media figures, but had largely ignored them until Thursday.

 

“They have one thing in common, Low IQs,” the president said of the four media figures. “They’re stupid people, they know it, their families know it, and everyone else knows it, too!”

 

Mr. Trump set off a fresh round of criticism from the group with a profane post on Easter Sunday in which he declared that Iran would be “living in Hell” if it did not move to open the Strait of Hormuz, the vital shipping route that has been shut down during the war.

 

Mr. Carlson, who appeared particularly bothered by the Easter statement, described Mr. Trump’s threats to Iran as “evil” and called on members of the Trump administration to stand up to him. “Now is time to say no, absolutely not, and say it directly to the president: No,” Mr. Carlson said on his podcast.

 

On Tuesday, after Mr. Trump threatened to wipe out the Iranian civilization, Mr. Jones posted that Mr. Trump sounded “like an unhinged super villain from a Marvel comic movie.” Ms. Kelly asked: “Can’t he just behave like a normal human?”

 

In his post on Thursday, Mr. Trump described Mr. Carlson as a “broken man,” saying he has “never been the same” since his dismissal from Fox News in 2023. He revived a long-running feud with Ms. Kelly over a question she asked during a debate in 2015 regarding statements he had made about women, writing that she had treated him “nastily.”

 

He commented on Ms. Owens’s appearance, writing that Brigitte Macron, France’s first lady, was a “far more beautiful woman.” (Ms. Owens repeatedly accused Ms. Macron of being a man, prompting a lawsuit from her and her husband, President Emmanuel Macron.) And he wrote that Mr. Jones “says some of the dumbest things,” giving the example of his “horrendous” false claims about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

 

“These so-called ‘pundits’ are LOSERS, and they always will be!” Mr. Trump wrote.

 

All four podcasters attract significant audiences, with some episodes exceeding one million viewers.

 

Mr. Carlson and Ms. Kelly, a former Fox News host, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

 

Separately on Thursday, Mr. Trump criticized the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal after it accused him of a “premature” declaration of victory in Iran.

 

The Journal has “one of the worst and most inaccurate ‘Editorial Boards’ in the World,” the president wrote.

 

Mr. Trump insisted that he did not care about the views of the podcasters — writing that “nobody’s talking about them” — and said that his handling of the war was broadly supported by his voters. (Eighty-six percent of Republican voters said they supported the war in a Quinnipiac poll published late last month.)

 

“As President, I could get them on my side anytime I want to,” Mr. Trump wrote of the podcasters, “but when they call, I don’t return their calls because I’m too busy on World and Country Affairs.”

 

In his post, Mr. Trump complained that news outlets were paying too much attention to the comments by Mr. Jones and Ms. Owens, giving them “‘positive’ press for the first time in their lives.”

 

Ms. Owens responded in an 11-word statement: “It may be time to put Grandpa up in a home.”

 

In a video on social media, Mr. Jones said he “supported the old Trump that got so many good things done.”

 

“But at the end of the day, I just feel sorry for him,” Mr. Jones said, describing the war in Iran as a “total disaster.”

 

The president also criticized Marjorie Taylor Greene, the former Georgia congresswoman who was once one of his most vocal supporters but turned on him over foreign policy and his handling of files related to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Mr. Trump said Ms. Greene was “nasty,” describing her as “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown.”

 

Ms. Greene said on social media that Mr. Trump had “gone mad as he wages war against Iran.”

 

“I fought alongside Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones to help get Trump elected,” she wrote. “And now he goes off on a rambling rant attacking all of us in one post. We NEVER changed, Trump did.”