US President Donald Trump points a finger as he delivers remarks in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, DC, US, July 31, 2025. Photo: Kent Nishimura via Reuters Connect

US President Donald Trump on Thursday dropped a nuclear-level social media bomb to explode on the growing contingent of far-right podcasters who have now emerged as some of his most vehement and volatile critics, especially over the war with Iran.

“I know why Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones have all been fighting me for years, especially by the fact that they think it is wonderful for Iran, the Number One State Sponsor of Terror, to have a Nuclear Weapon,” Trump posted on Truth Social, opening a 482-word broadside.

The president then revisited his assessment from earlier this week that Carlson is a “low-IQ person that has absolutely no idea what’s going on,” offering his theory that all four prominent podcasters “have one thing in common: Low IQs.”

“They’re stupid people, they know it, their families know it, and everyone else knows it, too!” Trump wrote. “Look at their past, look at their record. They don’t have what it takes, and they never did!”

The president then took aim at his critics’ professional setbacks, writing, “They’ve all been thrown off Television, lost their Shows, and aren’t even invited on TV because nobody cares about them, they’re NUT JOBS, TROUBLEMAKERS, and will say anything necessary for some ‘free’ and cheap publicity.”

Carlson left his influential perch at Fox News in April 2023, shortly after the network settled a lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million, partially in response to his on-camera statements. Kelly left Fox in January 2017 and pivoted to NBC News, which she left in 2019 following the cancellation of her program “Megyn Kelly Today” after outcry over her statements on the alleged acceptability of blackface in Halloween costumes during her youth. In March 2024, The Daily Wire announced that the conservative entertainment company and Owens “ended their relationship,” following the host’s decision to embrace the example of her friend, rapper Kanye West (now known as Ye) in promoting a variety of antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Trump took a moment to level personal insults at Carlson, Owens, and Jones.

Labeling Carlson a “hand flailing fool,” Trump blasted the broadcaster “who couldn’t even finish College,” calling him “a broken man when he got fired from Fox” and lamenting that “he’s never been the same.” The president further taunted Carlson, suggesting that “perhaps he should see a good psychiatrist!”

Trump also took a side in the defamation lawsuit filed in July against Owens by French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, following the podcaster’s unwillingness to stop accusing France’s first lady of secretly being male.

“‘Crazy’ Candace Owens, who accuses the Highly Respected First Lady of France of being a man, when she is not, and will hopefully win lots of money in the ongoing lawsuit,” Trump wrote.

The former beauty pageant promoter who married a Slovenian model in 2005 then offered his unapologetic assessment of the two women’s physical appearances, expressing his preference that “Actually, to me, the First Lady of France is a far more beautiful woman than Candace, in fact, it’s not even close!”

Owens responded to the Truth Social post, sharing a screenshot with various lines highlighted in red and writing Thursday to her 7.8 million followers on X that “it may be time to put Grandpa up in a home.”

Trump next turned his ire toward the host of Info Wars. He wrote that “Bankrupt” Jones — who currently owes $1.4 billion following his losses in a series of colossal 2021 and 2022 defamation judgments — says “some of the dumbest things, and lost his entire fortune, as he should have, for his horrendous attack on the families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims, ridiculously claiming it was a hoax.”

Jones also responded on X, accusing anti-Trump Republicans and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of putting hum under a spell.

“We Hope and Pray That President Trump Wakes Up From The Mind Control Spell That The Never Trumper Neo-Cons and Netanyahu Have Put Him Under,” Jones wrote.

In an accompanying 24-minute video, a confused and dejected Jones spoke in front of a black and green digital map of the United States. He sat at a desk with a printed-out copy of the Truth Social statement, describing incredulously how the president’s posting “demonized the living hell out of us for challenging him saying he would destroy an entire civilization in one night never to come back, the definition of genocide.”

In addition to defending himself, Jones on X also re-posted a video of white nationalist podcaster Nick Fuentes saying, “I love Alex, I’ll always love Alex. And I’ll always be loyal to him as well.”

Holding up his hands and gesturing, Fuentes, a Holocaust denier and fellow conpsiracy theorist, said, “That’s my guy, that’s my GOAT [greatest of all time] … And that’s a real n***er, OK? Alex Jones is our motherf**king n***er and always will be … That is the blueprint, that is the archetype.”

The recent promotion in mainstream media outlets of criticism from Carlson, Kelly, Owens, Jones, and others appears to have motivated Trump’s post.

“These so-called ‘pundits’ are LOSERS, and they always will be! Now Fake News CNN, The Failing New York Times, and all of the other Radical Left ‘News’ Organizations, are ‘hailing’ them, and giving them ‘positive’ press for the first time in their lives,” Trump wrote.

“They’re not ‘MAGA,'” he added, referring to his “Make America Great Again” movement. “They’re losers, just trying to latch on to MAGA.”

Trump asserted that if he wanted to persuade the rogue podcasters to return to his MAGA movement he could do so but had more important things to do with his time.

“As President, I could get them on my side anytime I want to, but when they call, I don’t return their calls because I’m too busy on World and Country Affairs and, after a few times, they go ‘nasty,’ just like Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown, but I no longer care about that stuff, I only care about doing right for our Country,” Trump wrote.

On Tuesday, former US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) joined numerous former supporters of the president in calling for his removal through the procedures outlined in the 25th amendment of the US Constitution, a call backed by Owens and Jones.

Greene shared Trump’s post, writing on Thursday in response that he “has gone mad as he wages war against Iran, a broken campaign promise.” The former lawmaker added that she “fought alongside Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones to help get Trump elected. And now he goes off on a rambling rant attacking all of us in one post.”