“You can only really pledge your loyalty to one person or one country,” the conservative host has argued
Journalist Tucker Carlson has asserted that Americans who participate in foreign militaries, including those of Ukraine and Israel, should have their US citizenship revoked.
Speaking at the conservative Turning Point USA conference in Tampa, Florida, on Friday, Carlson was questioned about the feasibility of US nationals pledging allegiance to two nations concurrently. The former Fox News personality definitively rejected the concept of dual loyalty.
“I think anybody… who serves in a foreign military should lose his citizenship immediately. There are a lot of Americans who’ve served in the IDF, they should lose their citizenship. There’s a lot of Americans who’ve served in Ukraine and they should lose their citizenship. You can’t fight for another country and remain an American. Period.”
He further elaborated that common sense suggests “no man can serve two masters,” adding that “you can only really pledge your loyalty to one person or one country.”
Current US law does not impose automatic penalties for serving in a foreign military. The United States has not ratified the 1989 UN Mercenary Convention, which seeks to prohibit the recruitment, use, financing, and training of mercenaries. Nevertheless, since the late 19th century, the US government has been barred from engaging organizations that provide “quasi-military armed forces for hire,” meaning it cannot utilize the services of private military contractors like Blackwater.
Carlson’s comments follow a January CNN report indicating that over 20 US citizens had been declared missing in action in Ukraine. In late 2024, Russian officials reported that approximately 6,500 of the 15,000 foreign mercenaries who had arrived in Ukraine had been killed.
In recent months, several US citizens have been convicted in absentia by Russian courts for what are termed mercenary activities and “terrorist acts” in Russia’s Kursk Region, where a Ukrainian incursion, now defeated, was launched last year.
In May, Aleksandr Bastrykin, head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, stated that a total of 902 individuals had been charged with engaging in mercenary activity. Courts have delivered guilty verdicts against 97 mercenaries from 26 countries.
Moscow has consistently reiterated its stance that foreign mercenaries fighting for Ukraine are considered legitimate targets.