In a wide-ranging New York Times interview published on Saturday, far-right podcaster Tucker Carlson offered an unusually personal defense of Vice President JD Vance, describing him as a close friend while suggesting he is being undermined by hawkish forces inside the White House amid tensions over the administration’s military actions in Iran.

Carlson, who played a key role in encouraging President Donald Trump to select Vance as his 2024 running mate, said he remains a close supporter of the vice president on a personal level. 

“I couldn’t be a bigger fan of him as a man,” Carlson told New York Times podcast host Lulu Garcia-Navarro. He added that Vance is “in a tough spot” because his long-held foreign policy views clash with the administration’s decision to attack Iran in February.

Carlson went on: “I know him well and think so much of him as a person. And it is my guess that, based on his past behavior, that he’s doing everything he can to mitigate what he sees as the ill effects of [the Iran war]. But it’s kind of hard to call the shots when you’re vice president, because that’s not in the Constitution.”

Pressed by Garcia-Navarro when he last spoke to the vice president, Carlson declined to answer. “I don’t know. I mean, I would never characterize that,” he said. “I don’t want to cause him more problems. I would just say I’m not advising. No one’s seeking my counsel. I’m not trying to influence anything. I gave it my best shot. Didn’t work.”

Carlson also took a swipe at Secretary of State Marco Rubio, baselessly alleging that backers of Washington’s top diplomat have been engaging in “nonstop treachery” against Vance. “There are people in the White House who want to hurt JD Vance and have wanted that since the very first day. They were bitter. They wanted Marco Rubio to be the choice as vice president,” Carlson said.

The comments come as Carlson — once a key Trump ally — has publicly broken with the president over Iran policy, describing Trump as being possessed by demonic forces.

Trump, for his part, gave an interview to the New York Post last month calling Carlson a fool and irrelevant to his decision-making. “Tucker’s a low IQ person that has absolutely no idea what’s going on,” the president told the Post. “He calls me all the time; I don’t respond to his calls. I don’t deal with him. I like dealing with smart people, not fools.”