Liberals are delighted by the MAGA titan’s opposition to the Iran War. All they’re doing, according to a harsh reading from Misryoum, is boosting the credibility of an “unrepentant, pathologically dishonest, bad-faith bigot.” It’s the kind of claim people like to throw around online—but it also lands as a question: what does it mean when anti-war messages start coming with a familiar brand name attached?
Pop quiz, hotshot: Who has the best, most inspiring anti-war message in the United States today? Is a faith leader? A labor organizer? A rock star? No? What if I told you it was a high-profile, unapologetic bigot? Or the other one? Or the other other one, if you really want to collect the full regressive set?
That’s basically the subtext Misryoum newsroom reported seeing spreading through presumably liberal-leaning circles—an uptick on social media where people are told, in so many words, to engage with a growing list of MAGA notables who can’t wait to tell you how offended they are by Trump’s war in Iran. The April 6 episode in question, Misryoum notes, features an entire 43-minute-long anti–Iran War monologue from Carlson. Then, almost predictably, the clip gets recycled into the “I can’t believe I’m agreeing with him” content treadmill—sometimes packaged as a moral lesson, sometimes as a kind of gotcha for people who usually disagree.
The liberal enthusiasm didn’t stay subtle for long. Misryoum newsroom reported that former Obama speechwriter-turned-podcaster Jon Favreau told his 1.3 million followers that Carlson’s monologue was “worth watching,” while sharing an episode of Carlson’s eponymous show that ran more than two hours. Misryoum also found that Headquarters Newsroom—described as built from the ignominious remains of Kamala Harris’s 2024 campaign—has been similarly enthusiastic when MAGA figures voice dissatisfaction with the regime’s Iranian adventurism. One recent post, Misryoum editorial desk noted, even bragged about “Candace Owens” citing their work while shredding Donald Trump in a new video.
And then the political endorsements start to stack up. Misryoum newsroom reported that Democratic Representative Ro Khanna went further, crediting Owens, Carlson, and Marjorie Taylor Greene—and nobody else—by name. He claimed that along with other anonymous “progressive activists & anti-war conservative voices,” they pushed Trump back from an atomic Iranian brink. To date, Misryoum says, his message has around 2.3 million views.
So what’s actually going on here? Misryoum analysis indicates the mechanism is less about suddenly shared conscience and more about opportunism. Carlson and his allies, Misryoum argues, are savvy operators who know how to ride prevailing political winds—sneaking their rhetoric into whatever seems “righteously” in fashion that week. Public opposition to American-Israeli military action, the argument goes, becomes a chance to launder an ideology of racial and religious hierarchy through an isolationist-looking frame.
There’s also something darker underneath, Misryoum noted—because Carlson’s broader content doesn’t match the moral posture people are trying to map onto it. In the same stretch of attention, Misryoum points out, Carlson’s segment included “Why Is Corruption So Prevalent in American Protestant Churches?” and “The Attempts to Usher in the Antichrist.” Less than a week later, Misryoum says, Carlson admitted his reason for opposing Israel’s assault on Beirut was because the city’s Christian residents “may not be the majority, but they’re in charge.” Beirut’s value, in Misryoum’s telling, lies in being the “right kind of theocracy.”
None of this is to say anti-war sentiment can’t be sincere. If you’re opposed to the war in Iran, Misryoum stresses, you don’t automatically share the worldview of Carlson, Owens, Marjorie Taylor Greene, or other MAGA mainstays seeking reputational rehabilitation. The criticism, as Misryoum frames it, is ultimately constructive for them—not because they believe the war is categorically immoral, but because they want their preferred agenda to win cleanly and their preferred opponents to back off. That’s the part people on the left might be missing when they boost Carlson like he’s some unexpected ally.
Misryoum also warns of the effect on liberal audiences: when you repeatedly frame Carlson’s anti-war broadcasts as laudatory and worth watching, the message you send is that conservative anti-war rhetoric—even when it’s wrapped in bad-faith propaganda and inward-facing right-wing score-settling—is as legitimate as anything from the left. It’s a false parity that can crowd out sincere voices. And it’s not like follower counts are neutral here; Misryoum editorial desk notes there’s a trade-off, one that feels lopsided.
Carlson isn’t suddenly a morally fortified person, Misryoum argues. He’s a bigot, a hypocrite, and, in their view, a vector for misery and harm across multiple communities. The awkward part is that a delivered critique of wartime execution can still function as a recruitment tool. Misryoum puts it bluntly: Tucker Carlson isn’t your anti-war buddy. He’s not your strange bedfellow during unprecedented times. He’s not your friend—and anyone telling you he’s the anti-war voice worth listening to above all others probably isn’t your friend either. Somewhere in the pause after reading that, you can almost hear the notification ping again—another timeline push, another “worth watching” prompt—like the argument itself is getting drowned out by the next one.
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