Underestimate Tucker Carlson at your peril
Conn Carroll
There has been an understandably high volume of coverage following Tucker Carlson’s departure from Fox News, much of it celebratory on the Left and Right, but one element has been missing until now that was hinted at by, of all people, Abby Grossberg and at, of all places, MSNBC.
“He was looking for ratings bait. Purely. And uh was also looking for power. It was a combination of ratings and power and manipulating the audience. And manipulating also the political system.” “There was an aspect of ‘I can pick who the Speaker is. I can pick who the president of the United States is, pick who the Republican candidate is going to be.’ I thought that was very dangerous and didn’t want that kind of power.” “I didn’t want to have senate candidates calling me and being very upset ‘are you gonna destroy our whole campaign tonight’ because he could do that. He would call and tell them that if they don’t come on the show, we will destroy you.”
Unlike Grossberg, I don’t think Carlson did what he did because he was looking for ratings or power. She’s wrong about that part.
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But she is absolutely right that all Republican officeholders and their communications staffs paid very close attention to anything Tucker Carlson was saying about them. If Tucker spent a segment attacking you on air, you were guaranteed to hear about it on your office phones, online, and even in person back home.
Tucker had tremendous power on Capitol Hill — far more than any other media figure in recent memory. It really isn’t even close.
In my previous job as a communications director for a United States senator, I disagreed with Tucker about many things. I also agreed with him about a lot of things. But I never doubted the sincerity of his beliefs.
As Ross Douthat and Michael Brendan Doherty have noted, Tucker has a coherent worldview. He might admit to you in person that he does not understand the details of every public policy issue, but he deeply believes that America’s elites were hopelessly out of touch with the very real harms their preferred policies were inflicting on average Americans. And every night on his show, Tucker sought to hold those elites accountable.
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After his exit from Fox News, Tucker is apparently happily driving around Florida in a golf cart with his wife. It is entirely possible that he is done with politics and will just enjoy being happy and wealthy and retired.
But if Tucker does want to come back to the public stage and wield the very real power that Grossberg says he had, I have no doubt he will be able to do so. And the country will be better for it.