WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 -- Days before the United States and Israel struck Iran on February 28, Tucker Carlson sat in the Oval Office and made what he has since described as his last attempt to stop the war. He told President Trump directly: you are being led into this conflict by Israel. Trump looked at him and said, according to Carlson, "Yes, you're right." Then he added: "But in the end we all die anyway, so it doesn't matter."

Carlson recounted that exchange on NPR's Newsmakers podcast Thursday, his most extensive public accounting yet of how and why the alliance that made him one of Trump's most powerful media champions - a relationship that brought Carlson to the stage at the 2024 Republican National Convention - collapsed into open ...