Did Trump admin label Tucker Carlson a possible terrorist threat, as posts claim?

In mid-May 2026, a rumor spread online that U.S. President Donald Trump's administration had placed conservative media personality Tucker Carlson on a terrorist watch list or designated him a potential terrorist threat. Carlson, once a Trump ally, became more critical of the president during his second term, apologizing on his podcast for his past support for Trump and criticizing the U.S. war on Iran, among other issues.

Snopes readers asked us to confirm whether the Trump administration had truly placed Carlson on such a watch list. 

One X post read, "NEW: The Trump administration has placed Tucker Carlson, a recent critic of Trump, on a terrorist watch list."

Similar posts on X claimed Trump's counterterrorism adviser Sebastian Gorka had named Carlson a "possible" or "potential" domestic terrorist threat. 

One such post said Gorka had singled out Tucker and Nick Fuentes, another media personality, because of their criticism of the U.S.-Israel war on Iran:

Sebastian Gorka, asked about right-wing extremism, pointed directly at both.

His justification for Tucker?

He praised hospitality in Saudi Arabia once, so now he "lauds Sharia law" and isn't a real conservative.

The actual reason is obvious.

Tucker called the Iran war "the single biggest mistake any American president has made in my lifetime" and said it happened "at the behest and then the demand of Israel."

Fuentes posted "Israel is dragging us into war. America First."

So the administration can't call them conservative critics.

They have to reclassify them as something dangerous first, strip their credentials, then target them.…Tucker and Fuentes are being discussed in counterterrorism frameworks because they asked who really pushed the country into a war that 61% of Americans think was a mistake.

For security reasons, the FBI does not confirm anyone's status on its Threat Screening Center watch list. We thus cannot conclusively say the Trump administration has not placed Carlson on an official terrorism watch list, although we found no evidence it has. 

Gorka also did not outright call Carlson a potential domestic terrorist. Rather, he said Carlson's views on Islam could no longer be considered as part of the conservative movement when responding to a question about extremism in a May 2026 interview. 

Snopes reached out to the White House to determine Gorka's intention behind his statement about Carlson. White House spokesperson Davis Ingle did not respond to our specific questions, saying "Tucker Carlson is a low-IQ person."

What Gorka said

In a May 8 interview with conservative media company Breitbart News Network's editor-in-chief, Alex Marlow, Gorka compared "right-wing violence" to "left-wing violence." Marlow asked Gorka whether he considered "right-wing extremism" a threat and brought up the Justice Department's recent indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group, for alleged criminal fraud. Gorka said (emphasis ours):

So, right now, I can tell you that we need to get to the bottom of what the SPLC engendered. If you are paying alleged putative conservative extremists, then you're funding them as a left-wing organization, then what is that? Is that left-wing extremism or right-wing extremism?

[…]

But right now we are not seeing comparable trend lines to violence on the right as we see on the left.

[…]

I'm not a political analyst anymore. I'm a counterterrorism government employee. But we have to have an effective, accurate snapshot on who are part of the conservative movement today? Because I would say to you I'm not sure that Nick Fuentes or Tucker Carlson are conservatives. If you are lauding Shariah law, if you are saying that there are Muslim states that seem to be better qualitatively than America in terms of freedom and prosperity, I'm not sure that means you're part of the conservative movement. So if you remove those individuals and you understand that they're not conservatives, what's left? Who are the people in the mainstream of the conservative movement, Alex, who are saying violence is OK? Hard to find people who aren't fringe figures.

Gorka made the comment at the 24-minute mark:

In his response, Gorka did not outright label Fuentes or Carlson as potential domestic terrorists or say either was on a terrorism watch list. Rather, he said that Carlson's recent views were incongruous with the conservative movement. 

Gorka also incorrectly characterized Carlson's more recent views on Shariah — Islamic law derived from the Quran — as "lauding" the practice.

For years, Carlson was critical of Shariah during his segments on Fox News. In January 2026, during a visit to Saudi Arabia, he praised the country and said he felt "completely comfortable" there. During another March 2026 podcast episode he said Western societies were "degrading" and that the Gulf had "pride in itself" and was "tolerant of diversity," praising Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states as "self-confident." He said militants often came from countries degraded by colonial powers. He did not specifically praise Shariah. 

Context on domestic terrorism 'watch list'

Aside from Gorka's words, the process of designating someone a domestic terrorist is fairly complex. According to the Congressional Research Service, the federal government cannot formally charge someone with domestic terrorism, which is is not a standalone federal crime. 

The FBI's Threat Screening Center watch list, which according to its website serves as a central federal database of people "reasonably suspected to be involved in terrorism (or related activities)" regardless of whether they have faced charges, is not public. The watch list web page states, "For security reasons, the TSC does not confirm anyone's status on the watchlist." As such, we cannot confirm ourselves whether or not Carlson is on such a list.    

Snopes has covered Carlson's views numerous times, including his apology for supporting Trump and a rumor that he said Trump faked an assassination attempt.