Foreign policy
Carlson is skeptical of foreign intervention, has expressed regret for his public support of the U.S. invading Iraq in 2003, and has said "the U.S. ought to hesitate before intervening abroad". Carlson is known for some defenses of authoritarian foreign leaders, including President Vladimir Putin of Russia, President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, and Prime minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary. Carlson was noted for defending Putin in the lead-up to Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Carlson's praise for Orbán included a visit and his online film Hungary vs. Soros.
Carlson is sympathetic to Russian president Vladimir Putin, has defended Putin's Russia, and has promoted pro-Russian disinformation and propaganda.
Carlson said he does not consider Russia a serious threat to the United States, and called for the United States to work with Russia in the Syrian Civil War against a common enemy like the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). He asserts that Putin does not hate the United States as much as American liberals do, and suggested there is no reason to dislike Putin, asking his viewers to consider whether Putin has ever called them racist or threatened to get them fired for disagreeing with him. Carlson said it is "not treason, it is not un-American" to support Putin.
In 2019, while discussing U.S. military aid to Ukraine during the Donbas War, Carlson said on his show: "Why shouldn't I root for Russia? Which I am". At the end of the show, he claimed to have been joking. Afterwards, he explained: "I think we should probably take the side of Russia if we have to choose between Russia and Ukraine".
In early 2022, Carlson downplayed Russia's military buildup on Ukraine's borders as a "border dispute". Although Carlson called the Russian invasion of Ukraine "awful" and acknowledged Putin's responsibility, he has promoted pro-Russian disinformation since then, such as a Russian conspiracy theory that the U.S. and Kyiv were developing biological weapons in Ukraine. Many of Carlson's broadcasts have been used by Russian state media to support their messaging, and Mother Jones reported that the Kremlin sent a memo to state media outlets saying it was "essential" to use video clips of Carlson "as much as possible". Mother Jones further observed Carlson was the only Western media pundit that the Kremlin adopted in this way.
Carlson's views of Putin's Russia have changed markedly since the 2000s. Back then, he agreed that Russia was becoming a "police state" where "freedom of the press is disappearing", and said that Putin was "in league with our enemies".
Peter Beinart of The Atlantic said Carlson has been an "apologist for Donald Trump on the Russia scandal". Carlson described the controversy over revelations that Donald Trump Jr. was willing to accept opposition research about Hillary Clinton from a Russian government official as a "new level of hysteria" and said that Trump Jr. had only been "gossiping with foreigners".
After the death of prominent Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny in a Russian prison days after the interview, Carlson faced fresh criticism for holding the interview with Putin and saying that "leadership requires killing people". Carlson called Navalny's death "barbaric and awful" in a statement to The New York Times.
Carlson initially supported the Iraq War. A year after the invasion of Iraq, he began criticizing the war, telling The New York Observer: "I think it's a total nightmare and disaster, and I'm ashamed that I went against my own instincts in supporting it." In 2004, Carlson wrote a commentary in Esquire accusing Bush of weakness after the September 11 attacks and in the invasion of Iraq. Carlson said "Iraq is a crappy place filled with a bunch of, you know, semi-literate primitive monkeys, that's why it wasn't worth invading.".
In July 2017, Carlson said that "we actually don't face any domestic threat from Iran". He asked Max Boot to "tell me how many Americans in the United States have been murdered by terrorists backed by Iran since 9/11?" According to The New York Times, Carlson played an influential role in dissuading Trump from launching military strikes against Iran in response to the shooting down of an American drone in June 2019. Carlson reportedly told Trump that if he listened to his hawkish advisors and went ahead with the strikes, he would not win re-election. In 2019, Carlson lobbied Donald Trump to fire his national security advisor, John Bolton. Carlson said Bolton was "demented" for seeking a military strike against Iran and accused him of undermining Trump by disagreeing publicly with Trump's decisions. Trump fired Bolton on September 10, 2019.
Carlson called the 2020 assassination of Qasem Soleimani a "quagmire". He criticized the "chest-beaters" who promote foreign interventions, particularly Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE), and asked, "By the way, if we're still in Afghanistan, 19 years, sad years, later, what makes us think there's a quick way out of Iran?"
Regarding the 2026 Iran war, Tucker Carlson stated that “This happened because Israel wanted it to happen. This is Israel’s war. This is not the United States’ war,” and accused the conflict of being started by "lies" spread by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Carlson dismissed the idea that the conflict was based on the interests of the United States or Israel, claiming “You have that country breaking apart, and what does that mean? Hard to see that as a good thing for the rest of the world” and "“The United States didn’t make the decision here. Benjamin Netanyahu did.” Carlson also dismissed concerns about Iranian weapons and further alleged that “The point is regional hegemony. Really simple,” and that “Israel wants to control the Middle East.”
Carlson opposed overthrowing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has downplayed some of the Assad regime's human rights violations in the Syrian Civil War. In April 2018, Carlson questioned whether Assad was responsible for the Douma chemical attack that had occurred a few days earlier and killed dozens. In November 2019, Carlson repeated this claim and queried whether the attack had happened at all. Carlson suggested that a similar attack that occurred the year before (the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack), which was attributed to Assad's forces and which the OPCW JIM indicated was carried out with sarin that bore the regime's signature, was a false flag attack perpetrated to falsely implicate the Assad government. Carlson compared Assad's war crimes during the Syrian Civil War to Saudi Arabia's war crimes in Yemen.
In 2006, Carlson appeared live from Israel during the 2006 Lebanon War between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Early on in the conflict, Carlson proposed that Lebanon fight and push out Hezbollah instead of going to war with Israel. During the conflict, he criticized Syria's involvement in the conflict in supporting Hezbollah and later expressed some support for the Israel Defense Forces. However, he also criticized the tactics used by the Israel Defense Forces in fighting Hezbollah.
During the Gaza war, Carlson criticized both President Joe Biden and Republican House speaker Mike Johnson for their support for military aid to Israel and called for American neutrality during the conflict. He declared Israel guilty of war crimes. Commentators have described him as part of a growing faction within the Republican Party that is either indifferent, or directly opposed, to Zionism.
In 2025, Carlson criticized the Trump administration's support for Israel in the Gaza war. In June, he criticized Trump's support for Israeli strikes against Iran, opposing the possible involvement of the United States in a war with Iran. Carlson said: "I think this can be stopped. But it's going to require a really tough step which is to say to our client state which is to say, 'We love you, we want to help you, we don't think you're acting in your own interest. We're not going to … imperil American national security, the American economy, or America itself on your behalf."
Carlson was accused of making antisemitic comments at the memorial service of Charlie Kirk by suggesting he supported the conspiracy theory that Jews or Israel were responsible for Kirk's assassination. Carlson said that Kirk's killing reminded him of the death of Jesus Christ, who was killed by powerful people for telling the truth. Carlson claimed that Kirk loved Israel, but he disliked Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and was "appalled by what was happening in Gaza", and most of all, he disliked that Netanyahu was using the United States to wage wars on Israel's behalf. In December 2025, the pro-Israel and Jewish advocacy group StopAntisemitism called Carlson "Antisemite of the Year" for several remarks he made in 2025 that were critical of Israel and allegedly antisemitic.
In February 2026, Carlson made a brief visit to Israel to conduct an interview with U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee at Ben Gurion International Airport. After the interview, Carlson publicly claimed that he and his team were detained and questioned by Israeli airport security before departing the country. Israeli authorities, including the Israel Airports Authority, and the United States Embassy in Jerusalem stated that the encounter involved only routine passport control questions. Video footage published by The Jerusalem Post showed Carlson smiling, embracing, and posing for photos with airport staff following the encounter.
In August 2021, Carlson traveled to Hungary, broadcasting from Budapest. He praised the country and its prime minister, Viktor Orbán, for rejecting asylum seekers on its border, and ridiculed the idea that Orbán was authoritarian. He spoke at a conference sponsored by the Mathias Corvinus Collegium. In January 2022, Carlson released the film Hungary vs. Soros on Fox Nation. According to Vox, it promoted conspiracy theories about Soros and suggested that criticism of the Hungarian government was a function of jealousy from the political left. The Open Society Foundations, a group founded by Soros, called the film "anti-American propaganda", and its Vice President Laura Silber stated that "Carlson appears to prefer authoritarian rule, state capture of media and the courts, crony corruption and rigged elections."
Carlson has expressed sympathetic views and support of Serbia and its President, Aleksandar Vučić, on numerous occasions. In August 2023, Carlson visited Hungary, where he also paid a visit to the Embassy of Serbia in Budapest, meeting personally with the Serbian Minister of Sports, Zoran Gajić, the Minister of Finance, Siniša Mali, and Vučić. Carlson has repeatedly spread disinformation regarding the Yugoslav Wars, especially regarding Serbia's role in them and the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, which effectively brought to an end the War in Kosovo. Carlson has used the example of NATO's intervention in Serbia in 1999 to claim that it is not a defensive but an offensive organization, describing the campaign as a "bombing of Christians in Yugoslavia" which paved the way for the creation of Kosovo as an independent country while omitting to mention the ethnic cleansing of Albanians by Serbian forces that occurred during the war. Carlson repeated this narrative several times, including during a debate with British journalist and media personality Piers Morgan in January 2025.
Carlson supported Trump's expansion of the Mexico–United States border wall, saying a wall was needed to "restore sovereignty" to the border.
In a July 2018 interview about Russian involvement in U.S. elections, Carlson claimed that Mexico had interfered in U.S. elections "more successfully" than Russia by "packing our electorate" through mass immigration. This assertion was disputed by journalist Philip Bump, who wrote that the number of Mexicans in the U.S. had decreased since 2009 and asked rhetorically: "What good has it done Mexico to have a number of its citizens move to the United States and gain the right to vote?"
In May 2019, Carlson defended Trump's decision to place tariffs on Mexico unless Mexico stopped illegal immigration to the United States. Carlson said, "When the United States is attacked by a hostile foreign power it must strike back, and make no mistake Mexico is a hostile foreign power."
Carlson has visited El Salvador on three occasions, twice under Nayib Bukele's administration, and routinely defended his strongman policies to reduce crime and combat the MS-13 gangs.
In June 2019, when President Trump met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the Korean Demilitarized Zone, Carlson, who was touring with Trump, defended Trump's friendship with Kim. Carlson told Fox & Friends that the North Korean regime was "monstrous" and North Korea was a "disgusting place" but "On the other hand, you've got to be honest about what it means to lead a country. It means killing people". Carlson went on to argue that "a lot of countries commit atrocities including a number that we're closely allied with".
Carlson has said normalization of relations with China following President Richard Nixon's 1972 visit led to unforeseen consequences, and that America became progressively worse off for it. He criticized LeBron James for speaking out against Daryl Morey, the latter having tweeted in support of the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests, and referred to the former CEO of The Walt Disney Company, Bob Iger, as a "propagandist" for the Chinese Communist Party.
On November 20, 2020, The New York Times reported that Steve Bannon and Chinese businessman Guo Wengui had brought Li-Meng Yan to America to promote the COVID-19 lab leak theory, a theory that states COVID-19 was made in a Chinese laboratory and then escaped from the lab. Bannon and Guo set up appearances for Yan on Carlson's show to promote the theory. Carlson would later say that he did not endorse her theories. Nonetheless, Carlson still hosted her on his show for a second appearance.
In March 2021, Carlson stated that issues like the Latin American immigration crisis should be blamed on "other colonial powers centuries ago" instead of the United States, and suggested that the Spanish government, having a "legacy responsibility for what is happening in Latin America", should start by "sending back the gold now sitting in its central bank." Carlson's statements on Spain were criticized by Hermann Tertsch and Mamela Fiallo for supporting the Spanish Black Legend, though Fiallo's rebuttal article in La Gaceta was retracted in November 2023 after Carlson appeared with Santiago Abascal in support of the 2023 Spanish protests.
After the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022, Carlson opined that the British Empire, although "not perfect", had brought civilization to regions it occupied with "decency unmatched by any empire in human history". He was criticized in India by figures including the politician and historian Shashi Tharoor, who had written a book detailing atrocities under Crown Rule in India.
