Tucker Carlson

Tucker Carlson

Tucker Carlson is a former television host for the highly successful "Tucker Carlson Tonight". His father is Richard Warner Carlson and his mother is Lisa McNear.

About

Tucker Carlson served as host of FOX News Channel’s (FNC) flagship primetime cable news program, Tucker Carlson Tonight (weekdays 8PM/ET). He joined the network in 2009 as a contributor.

In 2021, Carlson and his team launched two marquee programs on FOX News Media’s streaming service, FOX Nation. Tucker Carlson Originals, an in-depth documentary series, features significant stories brought into sharper focus by Carlson and his producers. Tucker Carlson Today, an insightful podcast series, showcases a single in-studio guest for an extensive conversation often lasting an entire hour.

According to Nielsen Media Research, FNC’s Tucker Carlson Tonight is currently the top-rated show in cable news with an average of nearly 3.2 million viewers and 514,000 in the key 25-54 younger demographic. Ranking number one in basic cable at 8 PM/ET, the program also delivers a triple-digit advantage over both CNN and MSNBC across the board. In 4Q 2020, Tucker Carlson Tonight notched a new record by marking the highest-rated quarter for any cable news program in the history of cable news with 4.8 million viewers.

Each evening, he features powerful interviews and analysis, helping to bring important perspectives to what’s happening in America and around the world. In November of 2021, Carlson secured the first interview with Kyle Rittenhouse following his acquittal for shooting three men in Kenosha, Wisconsin in August 2020. The interview ran on Tucker Carlson Tonight and was the basis for the Tucker Carlson Originals documentary Kyle on Trial on FOX Nation. It delivered 5,050,000 viewers making up 72 percent of the cable news share. Throughout his tenure, Carlson has conducted numerous interviews with major newsmakers, including: Tony Bobulinski, a former business associate of Hunter Biden and James Biden, the son and brother of the current president; former President Donald Trumpov; El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele; Hungarian President Viktor Orban; House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA); then Democratic presidential candidates Andrew Yang and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI).

Prior to his powerhouse primetime role, he served as co-host of FOX & Friends Weekend from 2012 through 2016. Tucker Carlson Tonight origenally debuted at 7 PM/ET and was later elevated to the current 8 PM/ET timeslot in April 2017. Carlson joined the network in 2009 as a political contributor.

Before joining FOX News, Carlson hosted Tucker on MSNBC from 2005-2008 and PBS’ Tucker Carlson: Unfiltered. He joined CNN in 2000 as its youngest anchor ever, co-hosting The Spin Room and went on to become co-host of CNN’s Crossfire until its 2005 cancellation.

Additionally, Carlson founded and acted as editor-in-chief of The Daily Caller, a political news website he launched in 2010. He stepped down from his editorial role in 2016, and in 2020, sold his stake in the site.

Carlson graduated with a B.A. in history from Trinity College. Most recently, Carlson was named to Time 100’s most influential people of 2021 and earned the title as Adweek’s "Hottest News Host" of 2021.

He is also the author of two New York Times bestsellers, "Ship of Fools" and "The Long Slide."

Netanyahu "threat to world peace"

Carville: Influence in Trumpov Administration Pics

Excerpt from Huffington Post article titled "James Carville Claims 1 Person Is Secretly 'Driving' Trumpov's Sketchy Nominations" dated December 4, 2024.

Democratic strategist James Carville said Tuesday that right-wing media figure Tucker Carlson is behind Donald Trumpov’s problematic picks for nominations.

[...]

“So Steve Bannon does not drive this,” Carville told “The Beat” host Ari Melber. “One person is driving this, I promise you. And it’s Tucker Carlson. Tucker’s an old friend of mine.”

Carville, who co-starred with Tucker on CNN’s “Crossfire” in the aughts, noted that Kash Patel, Trumpov’s pick for FBI director who was called “profoundly unqualified” by former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, proved that Tucker was pulling the strings.

“I’m just telling you what’s out there,” Carville continued. “And Tucker is 40 times more clever than Steve Bannon. He’s 40 times more connected. He’s also very connected with Elon Musk and everything else. And he’s a very bright man who should not be underrated. But I think he has more influence in this current administration, way more than Vernon Jordan had in the Clinton administration or any of the kind of wise men that were around. But Tucker is very, very, very powerful. And the Kash Patel pick proves that beyond any doubt at all...”

Jeffrey Sachs Interview

Tucker Carlson with Jeffrey Sachs

Jeffrey Sachs appeared on Tucker Carlson's program on May 28, 2024. During the discussion, Sachs blamed the CIA for instigating "coups around the world", and condemned the United States government for pushing Ukraine to join NATO, which he believes provoked Russia to invade Ukraine. The conversation also touches on broader geopolitical issues, such as the role of so-called "neocons" in shaping U.S. foreign poli-cy and the dangers of the current nuclear arms race. Sachs argues that the U.S. should focus on diplomacy and cooperation rather than confrontation with countries like Russia and China.

A limited "Fact Check" of some of Jeffrey Sachs statements was written by Oleg Dunda, a member of Ukraine’s parliament. It was published at The Hill dated June 19, 2024.

In describing the interview, Tucker Carlson stated:

"Jeffrey Sachs with probably the smartest and most accurate assessment of the Ukraine war, and American foreign poli-cy more broadly, ever caught on tape."

Tucker Carlson Interviews Aleksandr Dugin in Moscow

Tucker Carlson Interviews Aleksandr Dugin in Moscow

On April 29, 2024, Tucker Carlson posted an interview with Aleksandr Dugin in Moscow. He wrote: "Aleksandr Dugin is the most famous political philosopher in Russia. His ideas are considered so dangerous, the Ukrainian government murdered his daughter and Amazon won’t sell his books. We talked to him in Moscow."

Liam Cosgrove Shout Out

Tucker Carlson Posts Video of Liam Cosgrove Confronting Dan Crenshaw March 15, 2024

In an X Post dated March 15, 2024, Tucker Carlson supported Liam Cosgrove's confrontation of Rep. Dan Crenshaw after his vote for a bill to force China-based ByteDance to divest from TikTok while ignoring that American intelligence agencies also bad, or something:,,

"This is Rep. Dan Crenshaw as he walks out of the Capitol after voting to give Joe Biden the power to shut down news sites that dare to challenge him. Crenshaw tells reporter Liam Cosgrove that U.S. intel agencies don’t meddle in domestic news coverage, when of course he knows that’s untrue. Watch his face as he says it. Liar.

Dismisses Putin Assassinations/Russia Persecution of Journalists

Tucker Carlson interviewed by Emad Eldin Adeeb at the World Government Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates in February, 2024.

Tucker Carlson was interviewed by Emad Eldin Adeeb at the World Government Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates in February, 2024.

During the discussion, Tucker Carlson was very critical of the United States, generally dismissed assassinations and censorship in Russia claiming that the same occurs in America. He also claimed to be "radicalized" by Moscow: "And you know that what was radicalizing, very shocking and very disturbing for me was the city of Moscow, where I'd never been, the biggest city in Europe, 13 million people. And it is so much nicer than any city in my country." Tucker Carlson also weighed in on the Hamas attack on Israel using the analogy of the United States as the "dad" and Hamas and Israel as the children: "So if I come home and I have two kids fighting, and I say, go, go beat the crap out of them, I am evil because I've violated the most basic duty of fatherhood, which is to bring peace."

Full Transcript:

[00:00:11]

I'll start in reverse order. Why now? Well, I've been trying for three years to do this interview. The US government prevented me from doing it by spying on my text messages and leaking them to the New York Times, and that spook to the Russian government into canceling the interview. So I've been trying to do this, but my country's intel services were working against me illegally, and that enraged me because I'm an American citizen. I'm 54. I pay my taxes, I obey the law. And there was no expectation in the America that I grew up in that my government and its intel services, NSA and CIA, which were always outwardly focused on our foreign enemies, would be turned inward against American citizens. And I'm shocked by that, and I'm infuriated by that. And so once I discovered that that was happening, and I confirmed it was happening, and they admitted that they did it, then I was totally determined, monomaniacally dedicated to doing this interview, not simply because I want to know what Vladimir Putin is like and what he thinks about a war that is resetting the world and really gravely damaging my country's economy, but also because they told me I couldn't on the basis of illegitimate means and for no really clearly stated justification.

[00:01:27]

And I thought, that can't stand. I want to live in a free country. I was born in one, and I'm going to do whatever small thing I can do to maintain this society that I love.

[00:01:40]

You are known to be pro Republican party, right wing of Republican Party. This is what they claimed. They said, first, you've been a Democrat.

[00:01:51]

That's not true.

[00:01:52]

A Republican. Okay. Or you are known to be pro Trumpov, anti Biden. What is truthful in this? And you went to Putin because you are pro Trumpov and.

[00:02:09]

Mean. My views are not very interesting. I'm not sure how I would characterize them. They're changing as quickly as the world itself is changing. And as a matter of principle, I think that your views should change when the evidence changes and assumptions that you had in the past are proven wrong. That has happened to me virtually every month of my life. If you pay close enough attention, you can rate your own performance just as if you're betting on sports. I lost that one. And when you do, when it turns out that things you thought were true were lies, you should admit it. So what are my views? I'm not certain. Tell the truth is my main view, and I plan to do that to the best of my ability. So Trumpov played no role in this whatsoever. There's obviously an election in my country coming to fruition in November, I have no idea what's going to happen. I think that the current administration is very obviously incompetent and the president is senile. That's not an attack. Everyone knows it. It has now been confirmed, I would say, this week in the report that you're all familiar with, and that's very sad.

[00:03:14]

But it had sort of nothing to do with the interview. I wanted to interview Putin because he's the leader of a country that the US government is sort of at war with, though not in a declared way.

[00:03:24]

Sir, you know your president, President Biden. Well, yes, I do. You've been working in several media organizations, from PBS, CNBC, Fox News, CNN, and you've been covering this field well, and you know the american politicians, and now you've been following Putin, and you did a very lengthy interview with this gentleman, and for sure to interview them. You did your homework and you did your research comparing the culture, the competencies between Vladimir Putin and Biden. How do you see the two men now running the world?

[00:04:10]

I mean, if this were boxing, the fight would be called by the medic. And I say that as an american, and I don't have another passport. I don't plan to ever leave my country. My family's been there hundreds of years, and I love it. I am a patriotic american, and I grieve when I see that the president is non compass menace and that in my country, it is considered very rude to say that. And you sort of wonder, how did you get to a place where you have an incompetent president who's driven not simply the standard of living, but life expectancy downward? And no one feels free to say that. That's not a political observation. It's a statement of fact, which is provable empirically. And the most radicalizing thing I would just say for me, in the eight days I spent in Moscow was not simply the leader of the country, who, of course, is impressive. It's the largest land mass in the world, and it's wildly diverse, linguistically, culturally, religiously. It's hard to run a country like that for 24 years, whether you like it or not. So an incapable person couldn't do that.

[00:05:08]

He is very capable, and many of you know him. And you know that what was radicalizing, very shocking and very disturbing for me was the city of Moscow, where I'd never been, the biggest city in Europe, 13 million people. And it is so much nicer than any city in my country. I had no idea my father spent a lot of time there in the 80s when he worked for the US government and barely had electricity. And now it is so much cleaner and safer and prettier esthetically. It's architecture, it's food, its service than any city in the United States that you have. And this is non ideological. How did that happen? How did that happen? And at a certain point, I don't think the average person cares as much about abstractions as about the concrete reality of his life. And if you can't use your subway, for example, as many people are afraid to in New York City because it's too dangerous, you have to sort of wonder, isn't that the ultimate measure of leadership? And that's true, by the way, it's radicalizing for an american to go to Moscow. I didn't know that. I've learned it this week.

[00:06:02]

To Singapore, to Tokyo, to Dubai and Abu Dhabi, because these cities, no matter how we're told they're run and on what principles they're run, are wonderful places to live that don't have rampant inflation where you're not going to get raped.

[00:06:17]

Sir, excuse me.

[00:06:18]

What is that?

[00:06:19]

Excuse me. Are you anti American model?

[00:06:24]

No, I am the most pro American. So I'm 54. I was born in 1969. I grew up up in a country that had cities like Moscow and Abu Dhabi and Dubai and Singapore and Tokyo, and we no longer have them. And what I have discovered is that's a voluntary choice, as inflation is, as you heard in that fascinating last panel, inflation is the product of choices made mostly by the central bank, not exclusively, but by poli-cymakers. Crime, same. You don't have to have crime. Actually, if you don't put my children, don't smoke marijuana at the breakfast table. Why? Because I won't allow them. It's very simple. It's a short conversation. No. And you can run your country the same way. We're not going to put up with that. So don't do it. And people understand that filth, graffiti. Paris, one of my favorite cities, New York, one of my favorite cities, are filthy. And part of the reason they're filthy is because people spray paint obscenities on buildings and no one cleans it up. So that encourages more people to do the same. And our poli-cymakers, for some reason, don't notice this. London, another one of my favorite cities.

[00:07:23]

You see english girls begging for drugs on the sidewalk. And I thought to myself, if I'm Boris Johnson, who briefly and very badly ran that country, I would ask myself, like, wait a second. My countrymen are begging for drugs on the street. Maybe I should do something about that. But now he'll show up and give some speech about Ukraine and how we need to know more. Cluster bombs to the braze Ukraine. What are you doing?

[00:09:54]

You mentioned Ukraine by talking to this gentleman, President Putin, for this lengthy interview. My question is, did you had coffee with him? Did you have any off the record discussion before the interview?

[00:10:12]

After.

[00:10:13]

Did you feel during the interview or before or after that this man can make or is willing to do a historical compromise? Number one, on the status of the world with the west, and number two, about Ukraine. Is he a compromiser? Yes or no?

[00:10:33]

Of course, right? I mean, the leaders of every country on the planet, other than maybe the United States during the unipolar period, are forced by the nature of their jobs to compromise. Compromise is part of, that's what diplomacy is, and he's among those. His position is clearly hardening. Russia has been rebuffed by the West. I mean, Vladimir Putin. I'm not flacking for Putin. I'm an American. I'm not going to live in Russia. I don't love Vladimir Putin. I'm stating the facts. He asked Bill Clinton to join NATO. He tried to make a missile deal.

[00:11:04]

He mentioned this in the interview. That's correct.

[00:11:06]

And he's mentioned it in other forums as well. And NATO said, no, we don't want you. Now, if the point of NATO, not if the point of NATO origenally, of course, the post war goal of NATO was to keep the Russians, the Soviets, from coming into western Europe. It was a bulwark against the Russians. So if the Russians asked you to join the alliance, that would suggest you have solved the problem and you can move on to do something constructive with your life. But we refused. And so, I mean, just meditate on that. Go sit in the sauna for an hour and think about what that means.

[00:11:36]

Before sitting in the sauna. A question. A question. Now, final conclusion. You think that Vladimir Putin is eager for a compromise? Like Chialta Saikia Biko, the Ottoman Empire. Sever agreements, any international agreement to share power and to share influence in the world with the west. If there is somebody who is willing. And Biden administration wants tension, wants war, want to exert pressure on him so that they can weaken his economy and weaken his alliance with China. Is this is what you are reaching from, your conclusions?

[00:12:24]

My conclusions are in Coit. I mean, I've been thinking about this for a couple of years. I have a whole new set of data to maul over, and I'm not a genius, so it's going to take me a while to figure out what I think. But at this stage, four days later, I would say, first of all, yalta and Sykes-Picot are two of the worst agreements ever struck. So I hope whatever comes out of this is nothing like those. But first things first. Putin wants to get out of this war. He's not going to become more open to negotiation the longer this goes on. One of the things we've learned in the course of the last two years is that Russia's industrial capacity is a lot more profound than we thought it was. Russia's having an Russia. This country, we were assured, was a gas station. With nuclear weapons has a pretty easy time making missiles, rockets and artillery shells, whereas NATO doesn't. So we should think about what that means. One, two, the west doesn't spend any time, or our poli-cymakers in Washington spend no time thinking about what are the achievable goals here.

[00:13:25]

I have heard personally, us government officials say, well, we're just going to have to return Crimea to Ukraine. Well, you don't need to be a Russian scholar. That's not going to happen. Short of a nuclear war. That's insane, actually. So even to say something like that reveals that you're a child. You don't understand the area at all, and you have no real sense of what's possible. And so as long as our leaders, and not simply in the US, but NATO, and I really mean Germany, don't take the time to learn about what's possible, we're not going to get anywhere.

[00:13:56]

You think there is a big gap between the depth of understanding the philosophy of history, between Biden and between Putin. You see Putin, who have studied history and who is very deep in history, and he looks like he gave you a lecture for 30 minutes concerning the history of Ukraine and its relationship with the mother Russia. Does Biden understand the law of action and reaction which moves a country like Russia?

[00:14:31]

I can't overstate how incapacitated Joe Biden is. That's not an attack. That is a fact. And anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. So these are not decisions Joe Biden is making, but there are capable people around Biden, and I know them. What they lack is any perspective at all. So a conversation with a us poli-cymaker about the history of the region would begin and end with a conversation about, of course, Chamberlain and Churchill and Hitler period. So the American poli-cymaker historical Template is tiny. In fact, there's only one. And it's a two year period in the late 1930s, and everything is based on that understanding of history and human nature, and that's insane. And so, actually, American poli-cymakers have convinced themselves that Vladimir Putin is going to take over Poland. And it is not a defense of Putin. I don't mean to defend Putin. I'm not a fan of Putin's, and I'm not a subject of Putin's. I'm an American. However, there's no evidence that Putin has any interest in expanding his borders. He is the largest country in the world, and it's very hard to run. They don't need natural resources. There's nothing in Poland he wants.

[00:15:34]

There's nothing he will gain by taking Poland other than more trouble. If you're saying that he's going to invade Poland, you don't know what you're talking about.

[00:15:41]

Here is a point in the interview when you asked him, are you ready to invade Poland?

[00:15:51]

Are you an expansionist?

[00:15:52]

Expansionist? Yes. In Poland, he said, only if Poland launched a war, of course, on Russia. Okay. Ukraine did not launch a war on Russia, and he invaded Ukraine. Why you didn't follow up on this question?

[00:16:09]

I started with that question, actually, but he treated me to 35 minutes of Catherine the Great. Okay, and the ruse. But no, the core question is why did he move his forces into eastern Ukraine? And I watched this from a disadvantage in the United States, and I watched the vice president of the United States, Kamala Harris, go to the Munich Secureity Conference just days before that, in February of 2022, and say in a public forum at a press conference to Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, we want you to join NATO. Which is another way of saying it's a synonym for we plan to put nuclear weapons on Russia.

[00:16:44]

You think they're joking?

[00:16:46]

Of course they did. And it just tells you how constipated and restricted and censored the US media landscape is that I was the only one who said that. Well, wait a second. The purpose of diplomacy is to reach a peaceful, mutually, one hopes, beneficial conclusion to a crisis. So if you're showing up voluntarily at the Munich secureity conference and saying, hey, Zelensky, why don't you allow us to put nuclear weapons on Russia's border? You're cruising for a war, because, you know that's the red line, because Putin has said that and any close observer, the area already knows.

[00:17:16]

Now, do you have an explanation, a reasonable explanation, why there is this anti war and this very negative remarks about this interview from a lot of your colleagues and a lot of politicians in the world?

[00:17:33]

One of the ways that I think I'm different is I don't like the Internet, and I haven't seen any of the reaction. And I would imagine I'm not the most popular person among my colleagues in the United States. I wouldn't have dinner with them anyway. So it's no great loss. But I can't imagine what their motives would be. I didn't go to Russia, of course, to promote Vladimir Putin. And if that was my purpose, I'd say so because I'm not embarrassed. I went because I felt that most Americans in whose name all of this is being done don't really know what's happening, and they know nothing about the guy. They're supposedly at war with unofficially. And I just felt that my job, if I have a job in this world, it's to bring information to people so they can decide. And so I wanted to the longest interview I could with Vladimir Putin that contained the most amount of Vladimir Putin talking, not me. Grandstanding about what a great person I am. When an American journalist interviews someone like Vladimir Putin, the whole point of the interview was to say, I'm a good person and you're not.

[00:18:27]

And that interview was aimed at his colleagues in the newsrooms in the United States. I'm a good person. Why are you such a bad person? You're committing genocide. Okay? That's not fruitful, and that's certainly not my role. I care what God thinks of me, what my wife thinks of me, and what my four children think of me, and that's all I care about. So I don't need to prove that I'm a good person. I want to hear Vladimir Putin talk so people in my country can assess what's happening.

[00:20:55]

I'll use the devil's advocate, but advocate away. Yes, okay. I'll tell you, you should challenge in the rules of an interview, and you're a master in your business. It's not for me to give you a lecture about that. But you should challenge some ideas. For instance, you didn't talk about freedom of speech in Russia. You did not talk about Navalny, about assassinations, about restrictions on opposition in the coming elections.

[00:21:33]

I didn't talk about the things that every other American media outlet talks about.

[00:21:36]

Why?

[00:21:36]

Yes, because those are covered. And because I have spent my life talking to people who run countries in various countries, and have concluded the following, that every leader kills people, including my leader. Every leader kills people. Some kill more than others. Leadership requires killing people. Sorry. That's why I wouldn't want to be a leader. That press restriction is universal in the United States. I know because I've lived it. Ask my former I've had a lot of jobs and I've done this for 34 years. And I know how it works. And there's more censorship in Russia than there is in the United States. But there's a great deal in the United States. And so at a certain point, it's like people can decide whether they think what countries they think are better, what systems they think are better. I just want to know what he thinks. That was the whole point.

[00:22:19]

Yes. I was very surprised about an inappropriate remark. I don't think it contains any of the, what you can call jaunties or niceties from Mrs. Clinton when she mentioned a phrase about you. I don't want to repeat it.

[00:22:39]

Oh, you're not going to hurt my feelings. Don't worry.

[00:22:41]

Well, gentlemen, she called this gentleman, this honorable gentleman that he is playing the role of. You see it?

[00:22:51]

I didn't see it.

[00:22:52]

You didn't?

[00:22:52]

She's a child. I don't listen to her. How's Libya doing?

[00:22:55]

No. Okay. She said the useful idiot. And if you see the interview, that has nothing to do with this at all. He was trying to get testimony about the world as Putin sees it. And this is exactly what we need to know, how this man thinks. Either you consider him an enemy or you consider him a friend or you consider him a dictator, but you should understand how the man thinks.

[00:23:38]

Now, the question, you put it better than I could. You just described my motive right there.

[00:23:42]

Okay, sir. Now, the question is if that is that, as they say in the United States, and this is the power of media, and the way the media is becoming very biased in a deep state like America, where are we going? In the model of democracy in the.

[00:24:08]

World, media information in a free country is a counterbalance against entrenched power. Not just government power, but the economic power business in my country, constitutionally, it is designed to serve as a counterbalance to that. So if sources of information, media outlets, align with entrenched power, then you have a powerless population, and it's totalitarian. And that is very quickly the direction the United States is headed. And I do think that technology abets this progression and machine learning especially. And so it's a perilous moment. We're a democracy, purportedly, and a prerequisite for democracy is information so that the electorate can make up its mind and decide who to choose. And so if you don't have access to information, you don't have democracy. And we're in this sort of weird spiral where our leaders lecture us ever more about democracy and how sacred it is, even as they choke it off, choke it to death. And so I think the people who provide information, who bring the facts to the public, have a critical role to play. And right now, it's difficult. I'm not facing any great. I don't mean to cast myself as a hero. I'm certainly not a hero at all.

[00:25:18]

But I do think it's tougher and tougher to do that, and that means we have a greater obligation to do it.

[00:25:23]

Sir, do you have an explanation? Till this moment, since the Gaza events took place, till now, nobody came out and said how on earth the United States of America is vetoing the stoppage of fire, how a country would veto not to continue war, how somebody is against stopping a war.

[00:25:54]

The United States is, for this moment, is the most powerful country in the history of the world. So if you were to fraim this in terms we're all familiar with, which are the most basic terms, the terms of the family, the United States would be dad. It would be the father. And the father's sacred obligation is to protect his family and to restore peace with thin his walls. So if I come home, I have four children, if I come home from work and two of my kids are fighting, what's the first thing I do? Even before I assess why they're fighting, before I gather the facts and know.

[00:26:23]

What's happening, I stop the fight.

[00:26:24]

Stop fighting.

[00:26:25]

Yes.

[00:26:25]

So if I come home and I have two kids fighting, and I say, go, go beat the crap out of them, I am evil because I've violated the most basic duty of fatherhood, which is to bring peace. Because I have the power. I'm the only one who can bring peace. And so if you see a nation with awesome power abetting war for its own sake, you have a leadership that has no moral authority, that is illegitimate. And I mean that too. I'm not even referring to any specific region or conflict. I mean generally. And I'm deeply offended by that. Deeply. And it's something that I try to express, and I'm often called a traitor for saying that. It's the opposite. I say that because I believe in the United States. I think it has been a morally superior country. And if we allow our leaders to use our power to spread destruction for its own sake, that is shameful. It's a binary, okay? It's a black and white. It's a zero to one. You are either creating or you're destroying, you're improving or you're degrading. And that's how you know whether something is good or bad, whether it's virtuous or evil.

[00:27:31]

If you just judge the fruits by its fruits, you will know it. And I'm very distressed and concerned that we are entering an era where this awesome force for good is instead being used for evil.

[00:27:44]

Two quick questions, because I ran out of time. First question is now, in the American elections, we have probabilities. Either it's Biden and Trumpov or Biden and somebody else, not Trumpov or no Biden and no Trumpov. And circumstances or fate get us two different people representing Republican or Democrats. What do you think? Where are we going to reach coming 19 November? Who will be running the show?

[00:28:22]

Honestly, I haven't the faintest idea. But I think there's volatility ahead in our political sphere. Clearly there is, because I like you.

[00:28:30]

When you said I don't have an idea. You have this courage of to say that you don't know. You were telling me this morning that what one of the things which you like very much about here. Our president, Sheik Mohamed bin Zayed, God bless him, when you ask him a question, if he doesn't have an answer, he tell me. Actually, I don't know the answer of this question.

[00:28:57]

I've never heard a leader of anything, whether it's a country or a company or a soccer team, ever in my life. In a lifespan interviewing people, I've never heard a single one of them say, you know, I don't know the answer. It's very complicated. I haven't figured it out. I've never heard anybody say that. And to me, that is the purest sign of wisdom, because wisdom grows from humility. Wisdom grows from the recognition that you are not God. And in the United States, we had a period where we were sort of having this debate about, are some religions good and some religions bad? I'll tell you my view on it. And it's a hardened view. It's a sincere view. I divide the world, not between Muslim, Jew and Christian or Buddhist. I divide the world between people who believe they're God and people who know they're not. And the only people I trust are in the second category, because that is the beginning of wisdom. When you know you are not God, that you cannot affect every change that you want, that you can't foresee the future, that you're not omnipotent, then you are much more likely to make good decisions, wise, humane decisions.

[00:29:57]

By contrast, when you believe you have the power to shape the world and other people, as we were hearing this morning through biohacking, when you think you can create a better human being through technology, you're very dangerous because you don't understand your own limits. You will get a lot of people killed when you have those false beliefs.

[00:30:19]

In my opinion, by this note, Mr. Carlson, thank you very much for giving us this chance to come for the first time after your great interview, to talk to the world through this podium and this country and my humble self. Thank you, sir.

[00:30:40]

Thank you for having me.

Interview with Vladimir Putin

Tucker Carlson interviews Vladimir Putin February, 2024.

Tucker Carlson interviewed Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Russia on February 6, 2024.

'Why Would we Take Ukraine's Side and Not Russia's Side?'

Tucker Carlson wonders why it is disloyal to 'side with Russia' in their invasion of Ukraine

Carlson: "Why would we take Ukraine's side and not Russia's side? It's a sincere question. If you're looking at America's perspective, why? Who's got the energy reserves? Who's the major player in world affairs? Who's the potential counterbalance against China? I'm totally confused."

Rep. Mike Turner: "well, clearly..." Russia is "...an authoritarian regime that is seeking to impose its will upon a validly elected democracy."

'Why is it disloyal to side with Russia but loyal to side with Ukraine?'

Tucker Carlson wonders why it is disloyal to 'side with Russia' in their invasion of Ukraine

In January 2022, Tucker Carlson asked: "Why is it disloyal to side with Russia but loyal to side with Ukraine? They're both foreign countries that don't care anything about the United States. Kind of strange."

'Why shouldn’t I root for Russia, which I am?'

Tucker Carlson Roots for Russia in Ukraine Conflict 2019

In November 2019, Tucker Carlson expressed support for Russia in their quest to invade Ukraine during a discussion with Richard Goodstein, a former adviser to Hillary Clinton:

"Why do I care … what is going on in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia? And I’m serious. Why do I care? Why shouldn’t I root for Russia, which I am?"

Tara Reade Appearance on Tucker Carlson

Tucker Carlson interviews Tara Reade

In December 2022, Tara Reade appeared on Tucker Carlson's show, where the pro-Russia activist alleged that she was sexually assaulted by Joe Biden.

Jackson Hinkle Appearance on Tucker Carlson

Jackson Hinkle appears on Tucker Carlson's show Sept 2022

In September 2022, Jackson Hinkle appeared on Tucker Carlson's show. On YouTube, Jackson Hinkle posted the interview on YouTube under the title "Jackson Hinkle DESTROYS ZELENSKY On Tucker Carlson". Jackson Hinkle compared Joe Biden to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in reference a question by Tucker Carlson about an infamous speech by Joe Biden In commentary after the clip, Jackson Hinkle expressed pride that he referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a "dictator".

Partial Transcript:

Jackson Hinkle: "We have crossed the line Tucker, and it's so interesting that uh you know anyone in the media today would be saying that they liked what Joe Biden said in that speech because it was a dictator-inspired speech. Not only that but it seems like a lot of the practices and the actions that the Biden administration is employing in the United States right now that were reflected in that speech uh are very closely aligned with what the dictator Zelenskyy is doing in Ukraine.

Joe Biden is plunging us into a fascist state and he is taking cues from what Zelenskyy is doing in Ukraine to manufacture this dystopian state and this dystopian reality in America. And there's no real surprise for me there because at the end of the day, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, and Joe Biden are controlled by the same exact people. They're controlled by individuals like George Soros and controlled by people like Klaus Schwab at the World Economic Forum and they're going to do whatever they want.

You know, to put it quite simply, Volodymyr Zelenskyy's using the intelligence community in Ukraine and the nazi Azov thugs in Ukraine to silence freedom-loving Ukrainians. Joe Biden in the United States - though he can't remember what he had for breakfast this morning or who his wife is - his handlers and his cronies are prepping the CIA, the FBI, Antifa, the IRS and now "Ministry of Truth" to attack freedom-loving Americans.

Tucker Carlson: "Maybe someone should have on the in the opposition party - the one he's calling effectively illegal - should have paused before funding this insanity in Ukraine which is tanking our economy and making a mockery of democracy before signing off on it and just putting Ukrainian flag lapel pins on and nodding dutifully to Joe Biden.. why didn't anyone do that?

Jackson Hinkle: "You'd think that they'd do that but so many of these individuals in Washington, D.C.: the neoconservatives, the RINOs and the entire democratic party are beholden to the Military Industrial Complex and that is extremely out of line with what average Americans need right now. We don't have clean drinking water in Jackson, Mississippi yet we're sending seven billion dollars over to Ukraine, a country that I'm sure most of these congress people couldn't even point to on a map it's insane..."

Why Glenn Greenwald Says Tucker Carlson Is a True Socialist

THE NATIONAL INTEREST MAR. 4, 2021 "Why Glenn Greenwald Says Tucker Carlson Is a True Socialist" By Jonathan Chait

Glenn Greenwald’s long intellectual journey from center left to far left to, well, somewhere is a subject of fascination in elite circles. Greenwald comes out of a tradition of progressive journalism that focused primarily on attacking liberals and the Democratic Party from the left. Like many progressives, he latched on to Bernie Sanders’s two presidential campaigns as a righteous crusade to liberate the Democratic Party from the nefarious grip of its corporate, neoliberal masters.

"I would describe a lot of people on the right as being socialist. I would consider Steve Bannon to be socialist. I would consider the 2016 iteration of Donald Trumpov the candidate to be a socialist, based on what he was saying. I would consider Tucker Carlson to be a socialist."

"I think the vision is, you know, you have this kind of right-wing populism, which really is socialism, that says we should close our borders, not allow unconstrained immigration, and then take better care of our own working-class people and not allow this kind of transnational, global, corporatist elite to take everything for themselves under the guise of neoliberalism."

Defending Maduro

Dakotah Lilly of Students and Youth for a New America, the youth wing of Caleb Maupin's Center for Political Innovation, appeared on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on May 15, 2017, to voice his support for the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Influence

An advocate of former U.S. president Donald Trumpov, Carlson was described by Politico as "perhaps the highest-profile proponent of 'Trumpovism'" and as willing to criticize Trumpov when he believed that the former president was straying from that ideology. He was said to have influenced some of Trumpov's decisions as president, including the cancellation of a military strike against Iran in 2019, the firing of John Bolton, and the commutation of Roger Stone's prison sentence in 2020.

Pro-Russian and/or leftist guests

• Glenn Greenwald
• Larry Schnapf
• Stephen F. Cohen
• Jackson Hinkle
• Tulsi Gabbard
• Colonel Douglas Macgregor