Tucker Carlson escalated his ongoing feud with President Donald Trump in stark terms on Friday, saying he feels sympathy for the president “as I do for all slaves,” according to a report from Newsmax Chief Washington Correspondent James Rosen.

“I’ve always liked Trump and still feel sorry for him, as I do for all slaves,” Carlson said, per Rosen, before adding when pressed: “He’s hemmed in by other forces. He can’t make his own decisions. It’s awful to watch.”

The eyebrow-raising comment comes as Carlson has been advancing a baseless conspiracy theory that Trump is being secretly controlled. He’s specifically suggested, without evidence, that Israel could be blackmailing the president to influence U.S. policy on Iran.

Trump, for his part, unloaded on Carlson and other right-wing media figures in a Thursday night Truth Social post after weeks of their criticism over the war.

“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 — Because they have one thing in common, Low IQs,” Trump wrote, before adding:

“They’re stupid people, they know it, their families know it, and everyone else knows it, too! Look at their past, look at their record.”

Earlier on Friday, Carlson laid out his theory in a written “morning note,” writing, “Establishment media never reports this, but the Israeli government has a storied history of blackmailing U.S. presidents.” Carlson concedes in hist note that he doesn’t know whether Israel is blackmailing Trump or not.

“Rather than engaging in petty name-calling, we want to give the president some grace,” Carlson continued. “He is facing a level of pressure that is dark enough to make him abandon his campaign promises and morph into the precise kind of politician he once vowed to destroy. He would not have let that happen unless his personal stakes were really high. We hope he overcomes.”

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