Inside the puzzling alliance forming against Trump's retribution campaign

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson is alleging that because of his vehement criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to go to war with Iran, the CIA is "preparing some kind of criminal referral" against him and giving it to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) "on the basis of a supposed crime." Carlson, in the past, was a passionate supporter of the MAGA movement, but like former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), he views U.S. strikes against Iran as a betrayal of the "America First" agenda that Trump campaigned on in 2016, 2020 and 2024.

Never Trump conservative Rick Wilson and liberal journalist Molly Jong-Fast examined Carlson's allegation on a "Fast Politics" video posted on YouTube on Sunday night, March 15. And they stressed that people on the right are hardly exempt from Trump's retribution campaign against his critics.

Jong-Fast told Wilson, a former GOP strategist, "There are so many issues here. There's the possibility that Tucker is acting as a foreign agent. But then, there's the other possibility that they're going after media figures they don't like, which we saw with (former CNN host) Don Lemon."

Wilson replied, "Absolutely correct. I think there's a massive overlap between left and right people that Trump is going after — or has directed his people to go after. And I don't think it's happening in equal intensity and sequence for all of them…. They're going to go after people they don't like. You saw (Federal Communications Commission Chairman) Brendan Carr, over the weekend, saying: Oh, well, we're going to go after networks that don't cover the war like we want them to cover it. Well, that ain't how this s--- works, boss. But here we are."

The Never Trump conservative, however, was also critical of Carlson in the video, noting that like GOP operative and former 2016 Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, the former Fox News host has a history of supporting "vile" and "repressive" despots in Eastern Europe.

Carlson, in the past, expressed favorable views on Russian President Vladimir Putin. And Wilson noted that like many Trump officials, "Tucker is also a huge fan of" Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

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